Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3

Alexandre Oliva
2007-06-17T19:48:30Z

On Jun 17, 2007, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:

> On Sun, 17 Jun 2007, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>>
>> > What I care about is that the GPLv3 is a _worse_license_ than GPLv2,
>>
>> Even though anti-tivoization furthers the quid-pro-quo spirit that you
>> love about v2, and anti-tivoization is your only objection to v3?

> You apparently do not understand "quid-pro-quo".

> Another way of stating it might be "same for same".

> A third way of stating it is "software for software". No, the romans never
> said that, but I just did, to make it just more obvious that the whole
> point is that you are expected to answer IN KIND!

Yes. And this was precisely what meant when I wrote "quid-pro-quo"
above.

> If you don't understand it after the above, I really can only say:

> "You are either terminally stupid, or you're not allowing yourself
> to see an obvious argument, because it destroys your world-view".

> The latter is very possible. It's a very human thing.

/me hands Linus a mirror

Serious, what's so hard to understand about:

no tivoization => more users able to tinker their formerly-tivoized
computers => more users make useful modifications => more
contributions in kind

?

Sure, there's a downside too:

no tivoization => fewer contributions from manufacturers that demand
on tivoization

My perception is that the first easily dominates the second, and so
you are better off without tivoization.

> it is also possible that they are of average intelligence, and they
> just cannot mentally _afford_ to follow the argument - it destroys
> the silyl stories they heard as children, and requires them to think
> too hard about the veracity of the source.

> PS. Since some people talked about the game theory aspects of
> "tit-for-tat", I'd like to point out that what is usually considered an
> even *better* strategy than "tit-for-tat" is actually "tit-for-tat with
> forgiveness".

> In particular, "tit-for-tat with forgiveness" is considered better when
> there is ambiguity (like "communication difficulties" - does that sound
> familiar?) in the encouter. You allow some leeway, and don't always
> retaliate!

> So the FSF is DOING THE WRONG THING! They are turning "tit-for-tat" not
> into "tit-for-tat with forgiveness", but into "tit-for-tat with preemptive
> strikes".

Wrong. It enables copyright holders to decide whether forgiveness is
appropriate, rather than forcing them to forgive. Being forced to
forgive deception is not tit-for-tat, and it's a losing strategy.

--
Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}