[GNUz] ESR on GPL

[Jim Cheetham]

Just reading back through the weekend's slashdot, had missed this one :-

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/30/esr_interview.html

"Recently, during FISL (Fórum Internacional de Software Livre) in
Brazil, Eric Raymond gave a keynote speech about the open source model
of development in which he said, "We don't need the GPL anymore. It's
based on the belief that open source software is weak and needs to be
protected. Open source would be succeeding faster if the GPL didn't make
lots of people nervous about adopting it."

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/01/1210258&tid=95&tid=8&tid=106

Some quotes from the /. "discussion", to save you time wading through it
all (always browse at 4+) ...

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"What ESR's saying now is what BSD advocates have been saying for years.
Companies that are interested in being productive partners will be
productive partners no matter what license you use, and companies that
aren't will find ways to stick to the letter of the license while
completely gutting its spirit."

----
"The OSI (open source initiative - a california nonprofit org, funded
largely by industry) & members including ESR has always been at odds
with the FSF (Free Software Foundation - a massachusetts nonprofit
organization, funded & staffed largely by academia) & members including
RMS regarding free/open software. Each compete for donations,
developers, mindshare, etc just like any other two organizations.

Please take anything the OSI says about the GPL, and anything the FSF
says about the CDDL with a large grain of salt rubbed in the wound."

----
"The BSD license attaches no value to what it is licensing, and as a
result you [get] a software "tragedy of the commons" where everyone is
happy to use it but almost nobody ever gives anything back."

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"[The OSI ...] Why were there incompatible licenses? Because, under
ESR's active encouragement, every major business dipping a toe in the
water were producing their own customized licenses that usually only
minimally furfilled the requirements of the Open Source definition,
usually being some form of "copyleft for you, proprietary if we want it
for us." This severely damaged the usability of much of the code
entering the Free Software world. The worst case were the original APSL
(Apple) "Open Source" licenses, which even contained provisions allowing
Apple to arbitrarily stop people from distributing APSL licensed code in
the future. Only after heavy lobbying from the FSF and a war within the
OSI did Apple fix this and other headline issues.

Raymond's saying the GPL isn't necessary now."
----

-jim