On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, Ryan Amos wrote:
> The GPL? The GPL is a good idea, but every one of my lawyer friends has
> told me that it would never hold up in court. The wording is too vague,
> there are too many loopholes, etc. Its main strength (that it's not
> lawyer-speak) is also its main weakness. There's a reason that most
> software licenses are many pages long, it's so that they will hold up in
> court. The GPL has yet to be challenged (mostly because anyone
> interested in selling software won't touch it with a ten foot pole, they
> hate viral licensing) but I imagine that if it ever is, it will lose.
> Like I said, it's a good idea, but the actual wording of the license is
> apparently so bad that it's just about worthless.
It written by Eben Moglen, whose law degree is from Yale and a
profesor law and legal history at Columbia. He's evidentally not a fool.
Where is it fundementally written that a tight legal statement *must* be
long and incomprehensible? There are numerous counterexamples. The GPL
has never been tested in court, because the FSF has been successful *many
times* (dozens?) in getting companies to change their infringing behavior
and settle out-of-court because the corporations *were not willing* to try
to defeat the GPL in court. These have been handled, quietly, for years.
> All that aside, unix existed before GNU. Everything GNU made was just a
> clone of the tools from the BSD4 distributions. X11R6 has been around
Recalling that BSD was not free at this time.
> longer than GNU. Linux would exist without the GNU tools, true, it would
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Really? You honestly think that many people would take perfectly
functioning commercial unix systems, non-free, and attempt to replace the
kernel, first? A baby kernel is nearly useless, it takes a long time to
build up a useful feature set, there are only three reasons to do this: a)
it's a fun research project b) it's a moral imperative c) it will make a
free system. Linus started because of (a), people joined him because of
(a) and then because of (c) it would complete the puzzle.
So many programmers would not have flocked for a mere academic
exercise without the realization that it was going to become something
very important -- a free kernel for a free operating system. A free kernel
for a commercial operating system would likely not have engendered that
kind of support, of dream.
Linux *would*not*exist* without GNU.
BTW, where do you get X11R6 "has been around longer than GNU"?
the X-windows system, possibly (about the same time?), but revision 6 was
much later than GNU. And if you're referring to XFree86, which is what's
relevent, that was a lot later.
> not be the same, but it also would not be the same without apache, perl,
> X, etc. If we're going to call it GNU/Linux, we also need to call it
> GNU/Apache/XFree/Perl/my/postgresql/Linux. Linux is not just the kernel,
> as RMS purports, but the amalgamation of the work of many people. He
Sure, Linux would not be the same without apache, perl, X, etc.
BUT IT WOULD EXIST WITHOUT THEM. It would be the poorer for it,
absolutely, less useful, maybe much less world acceptance, BUT IT COULD
AND DID EXIST BEFORE THEM. (Well, strictly early Perl predates Linux, but
it wasn't ported/used until later.)
Whereas, without GNU, there would be no Linux.
Certainly there might be Perl without GNU, Apache less likely but
perhaps, certainly not Xfree86 (why bother to replace a commmercial
windowing system with a free one on a commercial operating system? No
point.)
> As for the notion that the GNU dev tools are necessary, this is not
> true. Many of us use some sort of package distribution system. These
> packages are not necessarily compiled with gcc or GNU make. True, one of
> the reasons for Linux's popularity is the fact that it's a cheap
> development system, but it's not necessary to have a stable, working
This is beside the point. What your end-user terminal has isn't
relevent. What allowed the software to come into existance in the first
place is.
> system. Heck, gcc isn't even that good of a compiler, Intel's optimizing
> compiler offers 30% better compiled performance than gcc can. I've also
> compiled Apache, sendmail, and perl on non-gnu systems (IRIX, SunOS) and
> they work just fine.
GNU is also massively multi-platform, the defacto standard for
embedded systems. Portability comes with the price of local optimizations.
> RMS holds some interesting views on freedom and politics, but I'd hardly
> call him a revolutionary. He seems to me like a textbook libertarian who
> is interested in intellectual property. I'd love to see him speak, but
Certainly this is more true than a lot of charged leveled against
him.
> if he doesn't want to because we don't want to pet his ego by
> recognizing him above all the other major contributors to the Linux
> community, then let him speak elsewhere. Anyway, just my $0.02.
{sigh} The point is not that the GNU tools are more important than
the other pieces of a working free software system, it's that the whole
concept of a free operating system would not exist IN THE FIRST PLACE
without GNU.
It's not a question of credit about a measly million lines of
code, it's credit about an idea, a dream --- freedom, precious freedom
itself.
> On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, Shane Williams wrote:
> > A name change might bring people to question why the group bothered to
> > change it, and maybe learn that the idea of the GPL was one of the
> > critical factors in the success of linux.
> My original point, and the basis of my opposition to Stallman's
> tactics [1], is that neither the GPL nor GNU software are the critical
> factors in the success of Linux. GNU software was a critical
> ***component to the development*** of Linux. If GNU had made Linux what
GNU isn't just *software*, it's an IDEA. A project, a plan, an
embodyment of freedom. That's a lot more worthwhile than software. It's
not the million lines of code that are so intrinsically valuable.
So the GPL and GNU are critical factors for Linux, because they
were a necessary precondition. Apache and all the rest were not.
> it is, this would likely be the SIGHurd list. A robust, fast-moving,
> scalable & extensible kernel made Linux. A fanatic, intelligent,
Nope, Linux was not scalable or particularly extensible for much
of its earlier days, it wasn't particularly robust. It because fast moving
because programmers flocked to it -- because it was the final piece of the
puzzle that gave those same programmers a real unix system for home that
was all their own, not the commerical box they used at school or work.
> skilled and loyal user/developer base, willing to write or just test
> code for free under a variety of Free licenses, made Linux.
Made Linux big, yes. Made Linux, no.
> It is arguable, by the numbers, that the Apache License and Apache
> itself, are the key factors ofg Linux's worldwide success. A stable,
True.
Which is not the same thing.
> powerful, and Free suite of web-service tools literally bought Linux's
> entry into the enterprise market. I've never heard anyone insist that
> we should be Apache/Linux.
The "enterprise" market is not particularly important compared to
the fact of reality that by about 1992 or 1993 there was a perfectly
useable free operating system. That was revolutionary.
> Furthermore, the GNU project and the GPL had been around for years
> when Linux was born, and noone outside of the sysadmin lists had ever
> heard of it. AFAIK, in 1991, no software written outside the GNU
Who else besides the sysadmins cared what they ran?
> Project was licensed under the GPL. With the advent and growth of
> Linux, Free Software and GNU became common terms, and more importantly,
> the GPL became a _considered_ _option_ in licensing software uotside of
> GNU, and even outside Unix. I can't prove that Linux made that happen.
Perhaps so, but that's not particularly important. If all the
software written for GNU/Linux systems was not GPL, it would not change
the fact that GNU/Linux systems existed as a free software system where
before there was none.
> I will claim that the trend is a damn close parallel, and that in any
> case, GNU owes Linux as much as Linux owes GNU.
There is some truth to the statement that GNU has become
immensely more important because of Linux.
> [1] I absolutely do not oppose a name change by this group, as long as
> it's a group decision. I adamantly oppose the Stallmanites' tactics in
> trying to force the issue. I think it's blackmail, and it has greatly
> lessened the considerable respect I had for Richard M. Stallman.
How has he "blackmailed"? He has just said that he doesn't want to
go out of his way to help people who refuse to help him.
-Alex
--
Alex Winbow Houston/Austin UT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] E
http://www.panix.com/~awinbow X
A
~~~~I'd rather be sailing~~~~ _/) S
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