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

Johannes Stezenbach
2007-06-18T15:51:01Z

On Sun, Jun 17, 2007, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>
> 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.

You seem to focus on _preserving the four freedoms_, however
the FSF also has the goal of _promoting free software_.
This goal is even written down in the GPLv2 itself, in section 10.

I think those two goals are somewhat conflicting. If you want to
win people for free software, you need to make it easy for them
to accept your ideas. However, in order to make it easy you have to
make compromises wrt the four freedoms.

The FSF apparently has decided that they won't compromise on
the freedoms as stated in The Free Software Definition.
The message they send out is "if you don't agree to our ethical
principles, get lost."

OTOH Linus has decided he wants "world domination".
So he makes it easy for other people to join by saying
"if you know what tit-for-tat means, welcome."

On the surface this might look like two totally different goals.
But IMHO it's not so much the goal which is different, but
the _strategy_ to reach the goal. In the end the Linux
people also want truly free software, they just believe
they can get there without forcing people.

Honestly, I think Linus' strategy has been much more
successful so far than the FSF's. Of course there is no Linux
system without GNU software, that's not the point. But I
think without Linus' lenient interpretation of the GPLv2 there
would be much less people using free software than
there are today.

If you look at the lenght of this thread, don't you realize
that even when you talk to software developers on a mailing list
dealing with free software/open source, you have trouble
to get acceptance for your fundamentalistic view of the
ethical principles of free software?

And you haven't even started to talk to the business people,
executives and lawyers which you need to convince if you
want to make free software ubiquitous. "We have high ethical
standards" is something these people don't understand or
care about. "It's a bargain, you can use it for free and all you
have to do is give back your changes" is what might work
to win them.

The bottom line is that I think your perception is completely wrong.

For sure I would like to be able to change the software in my
TiVo, too, but when I look at the big picture then I think
it's more important to have free software in every device,
on every computer, and accept that a few "unfree" devices
along the way are a price worth to pay.

Johannes