[Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] GPL defense issues

[James Bottomley]

On Sat, 2016-08-27 at 21:24 -0700, Jeremy Allison via Ksummit-discuss
wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 27, 2016 at 07:43:29PM -0600, James Bottomley wrote:
> > 
> > Heh, well, if I called bullshit, I'd lose my reputation for
> > politeness
> > (although perhaps Linus would finally come to respect me).  Let me
> > just
> > point at that your 0.57% or however you define it, is why no
> > corporation currently trusts you or wants to talk to you unless
> > forced
> > by their lawyers.  Without mutual trust, there's no basis for
> > negotiation, so all your attempts at compliance are overshadowed by
> > this end game.
> 
> In an discussion, when you accuse your oponent of flat-out lying
> and being untrustworthy there's no place left to go.
> 
> Let's not do that. I don't think it's helpful.

I attacked the argument not the man.

> However, "no corporation currently trusts you or wants to talk to
> you unless forced by their lawyers" is inaccurate (note I don't
> think you're lying, just mistaken here).
> 
> My employer is a large funder of Conservancy (check their funding
> spreadsheet for details), and I promise you we talk without legal
> requests to do so (even though Karen managed to crash the badging
> system here last time she visited :-).

OK, I'll modify no to hardly any.  However, Google isn't such a great
exemplar given that it's currently doing its new kernel under apache-2
and sees this as an advantage.

> > Your inability to recognise that there are other methods beyond 
> > holding out this 0.57% club, and that a lot of other people have 
> > achieved significant compliance and even community contributions 
> > using them, is why your statements generate such a lot of strong 
> > reactions.  It reminds me a lot of the 70s and 80s "Mr President, 
> > under what conditions would you be willing to press the nuclear 
> > button?" which isn't really a world I want to go back to.
> 
> That isn't the question that's being asked though. The question
> that is being asked is "should there be a nuclear button *at all* ?".
> 
> Your opinion on that is clear and I understand why you hold it.
> There are many other developers who hold the same opinion, but
> lots of them work on FreeBSD not Linux.
> 
> Respectfully, I don't agree with you. Greg and Ted seem to agree
> with you, Linus (like me) seems to imagine there can be a case for
> that shiny red button.

That's a bit of a straw man: I've drawn the equivalency between
litigation and the nuclear button, but I've never said there shouldn't
be one.

I've actually spent a lot of time carefully preserving this option:
it's not actually an easy feat in modern America to ensure you own
copyright in your own code, but I've done it.  I certainly believe that
once you press it, you're forever contaminated by the fallout.

James


> To be honest I never would have put you down as a CND supporter
> (but I suppose all those years you spent in a tent at Greenham
> Common should have given me a hint :-).
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