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http://news.com.com/Torvalds+critical+of+new+GPL+draft/2100-7344_3-6099475.html

A post to Groklaw that appears to be from Linus Torvalds:

DRM "Misunderstood" Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 28 2006 @ 02:11 AM EDT

I explain the emotions, because the legal part of the GPLv3 makes no sense what-so-ever if you don't understand what is driving the changes.

The whole notion that "Tivo is bad" is idiotic. It's the exact same argument as "proprietary software is bad", and it's wrong. It's the stupid FSF agenda that it's about "us vs them", which has never been true.

Proprietary software does not take anything away from open source. The fact that windows exists, and is proprietary, is totally and utterly irrelevant from an open source angle. The proprietary people are not evil, they are just misguided. They think that they can compete better by keeping secrets, and they are wrong.

The whole point of open source is that we can do better than that, and that we can do so exactly because we can work on each others work - not on the work of the proprietary people. We don't need them, but they are also not our enemies.

But more importantly, it is their choice to not believe us. It's not our place to force our beliefs down their throat - if we cannot show that we can do better software than they can do, then what the hell is the point of it all?

And the exact same thing is true of proprietary hardware. Tivo isn't the enemy. If you don't like their closed hardware, just don't buy it. Make your own. See the exact same logic as with proprietary software? If you don't like proprietary software, nobody forces you to use it or buy it, and you can help the people that do alternatives.

I realize that a lot of people see this as a fight. But I tell you, those people are missing the point. We're not fighting. At least the useful people aren't fighting. No good code ever comes out of people who do things because they are afraid, or because they hate. And I'm not just sayign that because it sounds good - it's really true. If you make your choices because you fear somebody, you'll make the wrong choices.

Look at all the idiotic choices that Sun has made wrt Java and other things. A lot of them seem to be directly a result not of trying to do the right thing to their custimer, but because of fear and loathing of their competition. The whole choice of their licenses seem to not be about trying to make the best technical choice, but from fear of others - both Microsoft and Linux.

And I'm sorry, but I refuse to be that stupid.

So it all boils down to this: do you want to use a license that is for something good (GPLv2), or one that is against something bad? And I claim that having your guiding principle to be against something else is not just insufferably stupid, it's also a sure way to make your own life miserable.

I think the GPLv2 is a very positive license. It's about the positive belief that together, you can make something better.

In contrast, every single big and fundamental addition to the GPLv3 is about hate and fear. What used to be a "quid pro quo" has been turned into a weapon. And that is not just sad, it is counter-productive. The FSF seems to be actively trying to turn this into a fight, when most of the entities involved don't want to fight at all.

And yes, I realize that they saw the GPLv2 as a holy crusade too, and if you have that mindset, the new GPLv3 just makes sense in a "let's escalate the fight" kind of sense. Me, I just never believed in that whole FSF idiocy.

And take it from me, the FSF has been acting idiotic for the last decade. Why do you think it's called "Open Source" in the first place? Exactly because the FSF has made a dirty word out of "Freedom".

And hey, if people cannot see that, it's their problem. I've tried to explain my standpoint, but in the end I can just say that hey, it's my choice. And I've talked to a lot of kernel engineers, and quite frankly, it's pretty damn unanimous. The people who are spoiling for a fight are not the people who are actually getting things done.

I think I've explained about as much as I'm likely to be able to explain. If people can't see what's wrong with the FSF, me standing on a soap-box won't help you. Linus