James DeLong, like other open source critics, doesn't seem to get it when it comes to the role of RMS within the "greater community:"
The GPL contains a phrase whereby someone using covered software also agrees automatically to be bound by any later version of the license. It is hard to imagine these commerically-savvy companies going further down this road.
This might be problematic for the Linux kernel, but it is not for the vast majority of the "critical" open source projects, few of whom are released under the GNU GPL. The Apache group's products, PHP, Python, Perl, OpenOffice and many others are bound to several licenses and can be taken out from under the GNU GPL as Stallman goes off the deep end. Well, that last part is subjective. At this point, he's drilling a hole at the bottom of the pool.
The Linux kernel itself is indeed threatened by such language, but it remains to be seen if the kernel developers, with a concerted effort, could not muster the sort of legal consent from all of the affected contributors to switch Linux to the BSD license or another, more sane license.
DeLong, like a lot of open source critics, gives the GPL way too much prominence. A lot of open source users won't even be affected by Stallman's antics. On the other hand, what the FSF will end up doing is causing people to move away and rewrite the few useful programs such as GCC that it has written to finally get these moonbats away from the mainstream for good.
And somewhere... a FreeBSD programmer is cackling maniacally as the GPL Nazis finally get their comeuppance. The FreeBSD guys already want to dethrone Linux as the posterchild of the open source movement, and this could finally give them enough popular support to really kick Linux and Stallman squarely in the pants.
As for whether we developers will acknowledge GPL 3.0, that's our prerogative. I own the source code to my GPL-licensed plugins for WordPress, not Stallman. If I want to keep using GPL 2.X, that's my right as a copyright holder. If he disagrees, then he can go pound sand until his little hippy hands are numb. Something tells me that a judge will not be sympathetic to the idea that a copyright holder is legally bound to change the terms on their own copyright license because a third party arbitrarily says they have to. Last time I checked, the GPL is a license between me and my users, not me, my users and the FSF.
Leave a comment