Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932338AbXFRUkx (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:40:53 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1764320AbXFRUkp (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:40:45 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]:38827 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1764331AbXFRUko (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:40:44 -0400 To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Al Viro , Bernd Schmidt , Alan Cox , Ingo Molnar , Daniel Hazelton , Greg KH , 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: <20070614195517.GA4933@elte.hu> <20070614235004.GA14952@elte.hu> <20070615011012.6c09066e@the-village.bc.nu> <20070615012623.GA25189@elte.hu> <20070615101007.0cbfd078@the-village.bc.nu> <4673CA7C.5040207@t-online.de> <20070616181902.GB21478@ftp.linux.org.uk> From: Alexandre Oliva Organization: Red Hat OS Tools Group Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:39:50 -0300 In-Reply-To: (Linus Torvalds's message of "Mon\, 18 Jun 2007 12\:43\:14 -0700 \(PDT\)") 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: 2579 Lines: 57 On Jun 18, 2007, Linus Torvalds wrote: > I care about one thing, and one thing only: I care that you respect my > choice of license for the projects _I_ started. Nothing more. I do. Really. Once the issue about the spirit of the GPL is (hopefully) settled with all concerned about it, my job would have been done if it hadn't been for my having got interested in this other issue: > I think the GPLv2 is superior to the GPLv3. That is simply not something > you can argue against. You can just say "ok, it's your choice". You can > ask me *why*, and I've told you at length, but in the end, it doesn't > matter. Let me explain why I don't see that you've told me at length why you consider GPLv2 superior to GPLv3. 1. I asked you why GPLv2 is better, and you said it was because it promoted giving back in kind. 2. I asked you what you didn't like about GPLv3, and you said it was Tivoization. 3. Then I argued that, since Tivoization enables tivoizers to remove some motivation for potential developers (= their customers) to contribute, you trade the potential contributions of all those users for the contributions of tivoizers, apparently assuming that all tivoizers would simply move away from the community, taking their future contributions away from your community, rather than moving to a position in which you'd get not only the contributions from the company itself, but also from all their users. This last piece of the theorem that proves that GPLv2 is more aligned with your stated goals than GPLv3 is the one that is missing, and so far you've dodged that portion entirely. That's the 'connecting the dots' that I mentioned earlier. You haven't even acknowledged its existence, going back to points 1. and 2. as if they were enough, as if 3. didn't show a contradiction between them. Now, it may be that 3. is wrong, or that you think it is wrong. But you've never said so, or explained why you think so. You've simply disregarded that point entirely. Do you understand now why I feel you haven't answered the 'why'? -- 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/