Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1765314AbXFRSV6 (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:21:58 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1763303AbXFRSVu (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:21:50 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]:43934 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1763266AbXFRSVt (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:21:49 -0400 To: Greg KH Cc: Al Viro , Daniel Hazelton , Bron Gondwana , Ingo Molnar , Alan Cox , Linus Torvalds , debian developer , david@lang.hm, Tarkan Erimer , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton Subject: Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3 References: <200706161817.36657.dhazelton@enter.net> <200706162306.14516.dhazelton@enter.net> <20070617051451.GD21478@ftp.linux.org.uk> <20070618154549.GB6041@kroah.com> From: Alexandre Oliva Organization: Red Hat OS Tools Group Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 15:20:39 -0300 In-Reply-To: <20070618154549.GB6041@kroah.com> (Greg KH's message of "Mon\, 18 Jun 2007 08\:45\:49 -0700") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.990 (gnu/linux) 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: 3706 Lines: 82 On Jun 18, 2007, Greg KH wrote: > On Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 02:56:24AM -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote: >> >> If you want your opinions to stand a chance to make a difference, the >> right place to provide them is gplv3.fsf.org/comments, and time is >> running short. > If you honestly think that the "anti-tivo" clause in GPLv3 will be > removed just because we start to add more comments to that page, then > you are sorely mistaken. I agree that adding comments wouldn't accomplish this. But many objections were about the wording, about cases that perhaps shouldn't be covered, and these could make a difference. > From the very _beginning_ of the v3 process the kernel developers > have showed their objection to that section of the license, and we > were told, to our face, with no uncertian terms, that it was going > to stay, in one form or another, no matter what we thought or said > about it. This sounds about right. > So, why would we want to waste our time filling out web forms after > that? If you're adamantly favorable to permitting any form of Tivoization whatsoever, don't bother. Others who aren't so fundamentalist as to reject anti-tivozation on ideological grounds, in spite of evidence that such measures would advance the very pragmatic interests they claim to place above ideology, might be willing to help shape these provisions so that they don't hurt those who respect users' freedoms, but accomplish the goal of keeping Free Software Free. Seriously, looking only at the downside of anti-tivoization (tivoizer might turn us down), without even acknowledging that, should the tivoizer change practice and respect users' freedoms, you'd be able to get far more contributions from all those users, is typical minimax strategy. That's the worst case for the prisoner's dilemma. That's not pareto optimal. It may not be a losing strategy, but it's not the best strategy for everyone. Every time you enable someone to disrespect other users' freedoms WRT your software, you cut yourself out of some contributions that user could make. Even if you completely disregard the moral and ethical aspects of software freedom, the open source mentality inherently depends on the notion of respect for others' freedoms. You only reap the benefits of open source when the user gets the freedoms respected. That's why preventing people from hiding source code, from using other technical measures, and from using copyright, patents and anti-circumvention laws, to stop or decrease the possibility or the incentive for a user to contribute to your community is not only a great ethical and moral stance, it is also self-beneficial, in the very sense that Linus and others claim. So although I like to highlight the moral and ethical aspects, and others like to highlight the self-beneficial mechanics of the system, they are really two sides of the same coin. And if you didn't think so, if you didn't believe in increasing the incentive and enablement for a user to cooperate with you by means of stopping others from removing such incentive or possibilities, you wouldn't be using a license that established such conditions, you'd be using a more liberal license. -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org} - 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/