Message-ID: <3DA1D63F.5CB12DC0@libero.it>
Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 20:45:19 +0200
From: Abramo Bagnara <abramo.bagnara@libero.it>
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>
Cc: Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org>,
       Werner Almesberger <wa@almesberger.net>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>,
       Linux Kernel Development <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: New BK License Problem?
References: <20021006133044.A14894@almesberger.net> <Pine.GSO.4.21.0210071134570.1293-100000@vervain.sonytel.be> <20021007075036.P1873@work.bitmover.com>
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Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 11:37:17AM +0200, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> > That's something which worries me. So far my Linux kernel work is not related
> > to my daytime job at Sony. Sony is big, and it's impossible for me to find out
> > whether someone at Sony is working on BK competition. I guess the same is true
> > for other large companies with multiple hands that don't know what the other
> > hands are doing...
> 
> Yes, that's true.  If there were some way to say "it's only a problem if you
> or someone you work with develops..."  and make that stick, that would be
> OK.  We don't know how to do that.  I'm open to suggestions, it would be
> good to not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I've followed with a lot of interest this thread and the parallel ones
and I want to say that I understand very well the point that Larry is
supporting: "defend our BK business".

Larry affirm too that an other fundamental interest is to defend and
improve BK quality, a quality supportable only by that kind of business.

I think that this second statement is less important than the first
because 1) it's not provable, 2) it needs full trust on Larry good faith
and in that Larry == BM now and ever (not provable again).
Although I'm personally fully convinced of Larry's good faith I'm also
convinced that Larry should not reiterate this last argument (at least
for a kind of modesty/decency).

Considering only the first, IMHO very good point, I still have some
difficulty to accept it fully.

A lot of software engineer/projects are in the same position of BM/BK.

Now I wonder if Larry thinks that everybody should make similar decision
about license. It's a reasoning in the edge between ethics and economics
and I'm personally confused about what's The Right Thing(tm).

Imagine that many years ago the FSF told us: you can use our utility,
our compiler, our stuff *only* if you're not developing something that
might substitute our utilities, compiler and all the other stuff. You
understand: you might undermine our de facto standard position.

Imagine Hans that tell to ext3 developers: "you can't have reiserfs on
your machine, you might screw my business in future".

I could make one hundred similar examples but I think that everybody can
imagine some others regarding his paid work experience.

What I ask is: "Should we have the same respect for all current paid
open source workers/firm if they had limited the use of their stuff only
to non competitor?"

Sometime ago Larry wrote something like "if someone write something
better that BK... who care, at BM we are almost all Linux engineer and
perhaps we'll make what we really like: CC Cluster by example...".
When I read that I thought that a good engineer is someone that
transform the difficulties in good occasion, relying on his creativity
and perseverance.

Now I'm confused and I think that many on this list are confused like
me, it's not only matter of economy, it's something that call the hacker
culture that lkml express today in question.

I'd like very much that Larry would hear the objections that subscribers
make also under this point of view: that part of BK license hurts a bit
our beliefs and our point of reference.

-- 
Abramo Bagnara                       mailto:abramo.bagnara@libero.it

Opera Unica                          Phone: +39.546.656023
Via Emilia Interna, 140
48014 Castel Bolognese (RA) - Italy
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