The kernel (or most of it) is licenced as GPL version 2 specifically, which means no matter how the GPL version 3 ends up looking, it won’t be the licence used by the linux kernel anyhow. You’d have to track down every copyright holder and ask them to relicense their bits, something almost not doable in practice, and certainly not worth doing absent a catastrophe akin to GPL becoming invalidated or something.

So asking the kernel people (again, as kernel people, not as general community members) is not too unlike asking, say BSD developers about it – they may have interesting viewpoints, but they don’t really have a dog in the race.

]]> http://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2006/09/29/kernel-hackers-and-the-fsf/comment-page-1/#comment-568 emmanuel Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2006/09/29/kernel-hackers-and-the-fsf/#comment-568 the most annoying is the fact, mentionned by kernel people, that GCC, glibc etc are copyrighted to the FSF (authors must relinquish their copyright to the FSF to get code in those projects), under the promess that FSF will only relicense it to a "similar" licence, and they'll for sure relicense them to the GPLv3, which is OBVIOUSLY not similar in the minds of many people. that's really bad.<p/>And that's why the kernel hackers are a party to this problem. they're saying "not everybody likes the GPLv3, including some people who like the GPLv2". the most annoying is the fact, mentionned by kernel people, that GCC, glibc etc are copyrighted to the FSF (authors must relinquish their copyright to the FSF to get code in those projects), under the promess that FSF will only relicense it to a “similar” licence, and they’ll for sure relicense them to the GPLv3, which is OBVIOUSLY not similar in the minds of many people. that’s really bad.

And that’s why the kernel hackers are a party to this problem. they’re saying “not everybody likes the GPLv3, including some people who like the GPLv2″.

“It’s their hardware. I do _not_ want to ask for control of the “environment” back in a license. I want the improvement to the _software_, not the keys to the kingdom. The “environment” a program runs in (or the medium it is distributed on) doesn’t have to be open. Just the program itself.”

The crux of the problem is that it is *not* their hardware. When i purchase a device it *is* my device, I own it and can do with it what I wish within the limits of the law.

This fact, however, becomes blurred when a company sells devices which are bound to services(ie. Tivo).[hypothetical here-I am not actually aware of all of the details involved in Tivo, ie. do you rent the device-or purchase it, can the recorded media be played on other devices, etc.]. If I purchase the device it is mine- but the value proposition -both for the purchaser and the producer is the service which is provided via the device.

Some services can only be offered when certain guarantees exist that the content distributed via the devices are distributed in such a fashion that they respect the licenscing agreement between the hardware manufacture and the media corporation which produces the media(ie. films, music etc.) (note that the artists who actually create the media which the media corporations produce play zero role in this process)

If such a guarantee exists which states that the distributed media, for example, can only be replayed on the same device, then the manufacturer of the device must impose some kind of DRM in hardware which prevents the media from being played elsewhere.

This means that as long as I make use of the service offered on my machine the machine is not *really* my machine, even though I own it. If the manufacturer faces legal threats from the media producers for failure to control for the guarantee under which media is distributable the device *becomes* theirs through the threat of legal action and the legal liability.

If the end users are legally liable and manufacturer is not then the device *is* mine. If both the manufacturer and the end users are legally liable then the device ultimately belongs to the media producers.

So the quagmire is actually all about how services blur and diffuse the definition of hardware and software, between my freedom of use of the device and my freedom of use of the software and my freedom of service utilization.

Because the device and software first become what they *are* in the service provision and agreement the hardware and the software *belong* to those who are legally liable *and* those who pursue legal action-but not at the same time-the disproportionate liability and disproportionate ability to pursue litigation eliminates the possibility of some kind of equality-this disproportionality deconstructs the lines of definition.

Although i can digitialize content content is a different medium than either software or hardware. Content should be licensced differently than software and hardware. Where content defines the value proposition of software and hardware neither imperative of freedom can be met: that I own the hardware and that the software is Free.

I definitely lean more towards RMS position. Companies founded on the value proposition of content which distribute this content via service agreements which mandate specific hardware and specific software which make use of DRM to fulfill their obligations to the content producers leave me, as a consumer, in a position where I neither own the device I purchased, nor have freedom of use of the distributed software-even if the code is available-and of course the content is also not mine.

However, I am allowed to consume, I am allowed to be entertainment, the most passive and disempowered role, the role of the consumer. Luckily consumerism eats itself-consumption *will* consume itself. Without the freedom to use the content, not merely consume it, their will be no production of new content.

I as much as you would like to see the GPLv3 issues discussed. However, you’re contributing to the confusion with this post.

It looks a little bit arrogant, and not from Linus side this time.

FSF could hardly oppose that without losing all credibility.
So the kernel guys stop contributing to gpl v3 trees of this project and don’t even spend a second on trying to be compatible with this tree.

In the end you would only be able to use the GPL v2 trees, unless you make a new kernel. As I agree that changing the kernel to v3 is an impossible task.

Who do you think wins this one in the long term? My money would be on the kernel guys.

Apart from this in user space people will start writing apps using the new license. It will be interesting to see how many new projects choose teh v3 license. And how many projects that have the ‘or later’ that switch to v3 or later?

In the end the maket decides I it may well be that the ‘market’ is split along the line kernel/user space.

If for RMS and the FSF were, they will forbid all DRM and software patents, however, they have realised that that is going nowhere in a free software license. The GPLv3 mention patents and DRM to protect the redistribution of free software. Not to attack a company patent portfolio, not to attack DRMed devices.

The FSF has had meetings with the big players in Free Software, who are neither RMS, the FSF, Linus Torvalds or the kernel devs. They are Red Hat, Novell, IBM, HP, Google, etc. They had meetings with executives and lawyers of those companies and no one of them so far has made so much noise as the kernel devs. Why? Because they don’t think that anything in the GPLv3 is outrageously wrong.

In contrast to the kernel devs that only read and speak FUD and don’t bother to try to understand, those companies have discussed with the FSF and contributed changes to the draft versions.

Perhaps the kernel devs have some valid points, but the famous position paper has some plain lies (or worrisome misunderstanding). Just one example:

“As drafted, this currently looks like it would potentially jeopardise the entire patent portfolio of a company simply by the act of placing a GPLv3 licensed programme on their website.”

That is simply not true (in your own words: a bunch of bullshit!).

What is true is that GPLv2 allows a company to: 1) take GPL code, 2) add their own functionality 3) distribute binaries and code and 4) sue you if you try to copy or modify their code since it is patented. The result is that the code added by the company may be GPL but you cannot use it nor modify it, you cannot even read it and implement the functionality from scratch. GPLv3 says that if you distribute the code under GPLv3 you won’t sue people for using/modifying it in other GPL projects. Honestly, do you have a problem understanding this?

Now, as Luis Villa said: you are free to think that companies should be allowed to do that (sue you for using their GPL code). After all, many people don’t care about copyleft and freedom (and use BSD) and even more people don’t care about open source at all. That is the real issue and one that has no solution at all: the FSF will continue to advocate what they think is ethical and people that don’t care will continue to ignore it.

What the kernel guys are and aren’t (and really should be) saying about GPL v3

what the kernel guys got wrong

what fsf got wrong

In my opinion, his analysis is excellent. Moreover, Luis nails down the most obscure part here, that is, what the FSF got wrong.

In other words, they’re all very much alike, and they hate each other for behaviour they exhibit themselves. In psychology, that’s called projection.

On TV, that’s called entertainment. I suggest giving everyone cream pies at the next Linux conference, and letting them go wild. It’s time for a remake of “Battle of the Century”, anyway.