Re: GPLv3 Position Statement

Linus Torvalds
2006-09-28T04:14:04Z

On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Sergey Panov wrote:
>
> I hope you understand that "Passionate Moderate" is an oxymoron.

No. It's a joke.

But it's a sad, serious, one. You really don't want it explained to you.
It's too painful.

> And I do not believe RMS is a commie!

Ehh. Nobody called him a commie.

I said he was an extremist (and tastes differ, but I think most people
would agree). And he _has_ written a manifesto. I'm not kidding. Really.

"How soon they forget.."

One thing that I have realized during some of these discussions is that a
_lot_ of people have literally grown up during all the "Open Source"
years, and really don't know anything about rms, GNU, or the reason Open
Source split from Free Software.

I'm feeling like an old fart, just because I still remember the BSD
license wars, and rms' manifesto, and all this crap.

For you young whippersnappers out there, let me tell you how it was when I
was young..

We had to walk uphill both ways

[ "In snow! Five feet deep!"
"No! Ten feet!"
"Calm down boys, I'm telling the story" ]

And we had all these rabid GPL haters that were laughing at us, and
telling us you could never make software under the GPL because none of the
commercial people would ever touch it and all programmers need to eat and
feed their kids..

[ "Tell them about when you killed a grizzly bear with your teeth,
gramps!"

"Shh, Tommy, that's a different story, shush now" ]

And Richard Stallman wrote a manifesto.

Thank God we still have google. "GNU manifesto" still finds it.

> To me he is quite a moderate figure

I'd hate to meet the people you call extreme.

> (very strong principals and no diplomatic skills at all, but it does not
> mean he is an extremist).

I have nothing funny to say here.

I was going to make a joke about the principals, but that's just low. It's
"principle". A "principal" is something totally different.

Anyway, I'd clearly in need of a drink, as all my "mad debating skillz"
are clearly leaving me, and I just find myself making all these silly
comments.

Linus