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On Monday 14 January 2008, James wrote: |
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> If it dies lots of folks |
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> can pick up the code, rename it and start a fork that can be GPL or |
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> commercial, IMHO. The GPL get's in the way, IMHO. Handing it over |
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> to Daniel with ~100% non publish control is a recipe for the serfs |
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> and the majority of the serfs to get the privilege of remaining on |
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> massa's farm, IMHO. |
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> |
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> |
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> Why else do you think the real discussions are going on behind |
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> closed doors? |
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|
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Even if Daniel does wrest control of Gentoo from the non-existant |
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Foundation and change the license on Gentoo's copyright works, very |
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little actually changes. |
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|
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He can't prohibit anyone from using what they already have under GPL, |
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and each one of us already has a complete copy of portage on our |
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machines. If he does turn Gentoo into some evil empire, the rest of us |
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always have the choice to say "So long, it was nice knowing you", fork |
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and create a new distro. A new gentoo might be able to tell us that we |
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can't use any portage code published after tomorrow, but so what? How |
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much code is that actually going to be? |
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|
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Same with the docs, that was published under CC Attribution/Share-Alike. |
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I can rip all of http://www.gentoo.org/doc/ right now with wget, remove |
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the Gentoo logo and stick it up on any web site I feel like as long as |
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I clearly say (preferably on every page) that the original was written |
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for and copyrighted by the Gentoo Foundation. Nothing anyone does now |
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or in the future can legally prevent me from doing that. |
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|
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Trying to undo the GPL on Gentoo's creative works will be distro |
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suicide, as no distro has ever managed it, and Gentoo is in no position |
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to try. Red Hat is the most business-savvy Linux out there and they are |
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very very careful to GPL every last keystroke. SuSE tried to keep Yast |
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proprietary but when Novell bought them, the community forced their |
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hand and now Yast is open source and we have OpenSuSE a la Fedora. |
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Ubuntu is moving toward GLPing Launchpad last I heard (I can't fathom |
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why it's taking so long...) |
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|
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No distro has ever managed to succeed in the Linux market with anything |
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other than the GPL, fully and completely complied with. |
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|
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I don't doubt that Daniel has financial goals for Gentoo. The original |
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reason he left, amongst others, was because he couldn't get this past |
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the other leaders at the time, and he had pressing financial needs. |
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It's not unusual to negotiate these things behind closed doors. I sure |
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as hell wouldn't do it in public right now. Heck, I'd have to contend |
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with people like myself who factually couldn't add much to the |
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negotiations but certainly have an opinion. No thanks, I wouldn't do it |
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that way. |
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|
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I don't see much of a downside overall. If worst comes to worst then |
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Daniel kills Gentoo and we fork. |
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|
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-- |
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com |
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-- |
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