Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756827AbXFNVY4 (ORCPT ); Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:24:56 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754022AbXFNVYs (ORCPT ); Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:24:48 -0400 Received: from smtp2.linux-foundation.org ([207.189.120.14]:39066 "EHLO smtp2.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753097AbXFNVYq (ORCPT ); Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:24:46 -0400 Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:23:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: Alexandre Oliva cc: Adrian Bunk , Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, Daniel Hazelton , Alan Cox , Greg KH , debian developer , david@lang.hm, Tarkan Erimer , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton , mingo@elte.hu Subject: Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <466A3EC6.6030706@netone.net.tr> <200706132140.13490.dhazelton@enter.net> <20070614020827.GO3588@stusta.de> <200706132243.14651.dhazelton@enter.net> <20070614025640.GQ3588@stusta.de> <9578.1181793617@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> <20070614152034.GS3588@stusta.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 4826 Lines: 102 On Thu, 14 Jun 2007, Alexandre Oliva wrote: > > On Jun 14, 2007, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > - I chose the GPLv2, fully understanding that the Tivo kind of > > situation is ok. > > Wow, do you remember the date when you first thought of this business > model? You know what? I'm intelligent. That's what you call people who see th consequences of their actions. I didn't see the *details* of what all the GPLv2 could result in, but yes, I claim that I knew what I was setting myself up for (in a license way) pretty much from the beginning. Did it take me by surprise how people actually ended up using Linux? It sure did. But has the GPLv2 itself ever surprised me? Not really. I read it back then, and yes, I understood what it meant. >From the very beginning of Linux, even before I chose the GPLv2 as the license, the thing I cared about was that source code be freely available. That was the first license, but more importantly, it was why I started Linux in the first place - my frustrations with Minix, and my memories of how painful it was to find an OS that I wanted to use and work with. (That, btw, was not Minix-only: I actually originally was thinking about literally buying a commercial Unix for my PC too. The price factor kept me away from the commercial unixes, and in retrospect I'm obviously very happy). So my first goal was "source must be available and it must be free (as in beer)". Which my first copyright license reflects very directly. What happened a few months into the thing was that some people actually wanted to make floppy images of Linux available to Linux users groups, but they didn't want to have to actually *fund* the floppies and their work themselves, so they wanted to sell them at cost (which the first license actually didn't allow!). And I realized that the money angle really wasn't what I ever really cared about. I cared about availability, but people sure could get paid for their effort in distributing the thing, as long as the source code remained open. I didn't want money, I didn't want hardware, I just wanted the improvements back. So given that background, which license do you _think_ I should have chosen? And given that background, do you see why the GPLv2 is _still_ better than the GPLv3? I don't care about the hardware. I'll use it, but it's not what Linux is all about. Linux is about something much bigger than any individual device. And yeah, maybe I'm just better at abstracting things. Maybe I prefer seeing the big picture, and that the individual devices don't matter. What matters is the improvement in the *software*, because while each physical device is a one-off thing, in the long term, it's the *development* that matters. And the GPLv2 protects that. It's a bit like evolution: individual organisms matter to *themselves* and to their immediate neighborhood, but in the end, the individuals will be gone and forgotten, and what remains is the development. In those terms, I care about the DNA, and the *process* or recombination and the bigger picture. Any individual organism? Not so much. It's all part of a much bigger tapestry, and closed hardware is more like an eunuch (or a worker bee): it won't pass on its legacy, but it might help the people who do. So instead of thinking of Tivo as something "evil", I think of Tivo as the working bee who will never pass on its genes, but it actually ended up helping the people who *do* pass on their genes: the kernel (to a small degree - not so much because of the patches themselves, as the *mindshare* in the PVR space) and projects like MythTV (again, not so much because of any patches, but because it helped grow peoples understanding of the problem space!). Let's take another example: BitKeeper. The FSF follower people seem to view BitKeeper as something "evil". To me, BitKeeper was not just a great tool, but it also ended up being something that showed others how things *could* be done. And the world - including the open source world - is a better place for it! See? In the big picture, individual devices and even projects won't matter. In a hundred years, I'll be long dead, and nobody will care. But in a hundred years, I hope that the "live and let live" open source mentality will still flourish, and maybe "Linux" itself won't live on, but some of the memories and impact may. And *that* is what matters. A Tivo? It's just a toy. Who cares? It's not important. But source code that evolves? THAT can change the world! Linus - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/