Re: GPLv3 Position Statement

Sergey Panov
2006-09-28T05:05:51Z

On Wed, 2006-09-27 at 21:13 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
> 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.."
>

I appreciate it was not : "Ein Gespenst geht um in Europa ... "

> 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..
>

FYI: I am using (in/on my home network) nothing but YOUR kernel with GNU
tools since 1993. I was A PhD student at the unnamed US university at
that time.

> 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" ]

It is nice to know you are not aware of the "grizzly? no, dushily"
Russian jock, people in Republic of Georgia might not appreciate.

> And Richard Stallman wrote a manifesto.
>
> Thank God we still have google. "GNU manifesto" still finds it.

www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html. The funniest sentence is the first one:
"... the complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so
that I can give it away free to everyone who can use it."

> > To me he is quite a moderate figure
>
> I'd hate to meet the people you call extreme.

You are a happy individual from a happy country. Some of us were
unfortunate to be bourn in a less friendly environment.

> > (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