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

Alexandre Oliva
2007-06-17T20:36:24Z

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

> On Sun, 17 Jun 2007, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>>
>> One more time, I'm not talking about the license (the legal terms).

> Ok. Then go away.

> Everybody else just cares about the legal reasons.

That's false, and the reason I know it is that, if this was true, I
probably wouldn't even have got into this debate.

The reason I got into it was that there were false claims about
changes in the spirit of the license, implied in Greg KH's e-mail that
refers to the long thread and position paper that made these false
claims. I got into this debate in response to this reference:

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0706.1/1904.html

to a thread about an article that stated

[...] solemn trust, as stated in article 9 of GPLv2, only to licence
the code under versions of the GPL that "... will be similar in
spirit to the present version". We, like all the individual
contributors to GNU projects, have taken that trust at face value
and accorded the FSF a special role in the Open Source Universe
because of it. It goes without saying that any updates to GPLv2 must
be completely in accord with the execution of that trust.

before it went on to misleading references to a DRM clause (*), trying
to frame anti-tivoization as end-use restrictions and how unacceptable
that is in a license, while blessing tivoization itself (an end-use
restriction, no less).

(*) meaning the anti-tivoization provisions, in spite of the existence
of an unrelated section named DRM in a draft available at that time

And then, the article goes on about FUD of jeopardising patent
portfolios, which is *obviously* a misunderstanding, as I wrote in my
e-mail.

In response to that intervention, my first one in this subject, you
exploded. And then, shortly after your explosion and all the name
calling, there was this:

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0706.1/2235.html

And you say people don't care about the spirit?

Seriously, I'm not even asking for an apology for the name calling.
All I'm asking for is that you don't lie about GPLv3 and about the
spirit of the GPL.

I know it's hard when you're trying to frame yourself as a victim of a
tyranny, but since FSF's offer of a new license, and switching its own
projects to it, framing it as "suborn or coerce others to go along
with them" (from the article) is utterly false, and an evident
misunderstanding of the intent.

And that's not even unusual. See, when Free Software advocates *ask*
people to refer to the GNU operating system as such, even when it's
combined with the kernel Linux, a lot of people over-react and
complain that the FSF is trying to *force* anyone to rename Linux.
This is false on two accounts. Linux is the name of the kernel, and
the FSF has never tried to rename that. GNU is the name of the
operating system, and it's people who confusingly call that operating
system Linux that renamed it. Free Software advocates merely ask that
people call it by the right name.

I can appreciate that some FSFers take positions that may come off as
unfriendly and trigger this kind of negative feeling of being forced
to do something. I suspect this is the same case.

But taking it as forcing is just as inappropriate. There's no
coercive force to be applied, and no moral grounds to coerce. In both
cases, it's a request for people to make the choice of helping defend
users' freedoms.

I know you're not going to believe this, because it doesn't fit in
your world-view.

My intent in participating in this discussion was really not to
convince you. I had a feeling, all the way from the beginning, that
this was probably hopeless, even though there was thin hope.

My intent was to enlighten others who were still open to listening and
to accepting different viewpoints. From personal feedback I got, I
know I've accomplished a lot of that, and I thank deeply all of you
who encouraged me to proceed, and who thanked me for the information I
added to the debate.

I wish I could say I'm going to step out of this debate now, because
it's taken me far more time than I could afford. But since my goal
was to counter the spreading of mis-information about GPLv3, and since
I am indeed addicted to this kind of discussion, I may end up failing
to stay away from the discussion.

--
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}