[discuss] Reuters: Novell could be banned from selling Linux: group

[Evan Leibovitch]

Russell McOrmond wrote:
> This shouldn't be about the FSF.  I haven't yet heard an argument 
> against the GPLv3 that was not itself a disagreement with either a 
> legal interpretation (where the lawyers have all sided with the FSF's 
> interpretation) or against the basic goals or concepts behind the Free 
> Software movement.

I think that the key is in the last few words of that paragraph.

The distinction between those who identify themselves as "free software" 
advocates and those who identify with "open source" have different 
motivations but (often) similar results. The best way I can sum this up 
in my own mind is that open source people are OK with a coexistence of 
open and proprietary techniques, even of interoperability between them. 
The free software supporter, OTOH, will always prefer the free option 
even if the proprietary version is superior in quality (believing that 
eventually the free option will catch up).

The manifestation of this in the Linus/FSF debate, it seems to me, is 
that the kernel programmers are willing to accept certain levels of 
interaction with the proprietary world that are unacceptable to Free 
Software supporters.

It is totally possible that the kernel developers don't share (all of) 
the goals of the Free Software movement. Indeed, it's possible that they 
don't even consider themselves as part of _any_ "movement", just a 
project with an unorthodox model of development and distribution.

Where I understand Etienne's complaint comes from times I have heard to 
Stallman (on multiple occasions) refer to open source as "free software 
without ethics". That particular kind of advocacy is IMO deliberately 
insulting, crossing the line from promoting benefits of free software to 
provoking others to outrage in the aims of cheap publicity. Clearly the 
FSF prefers being disliked over being ignored, and IMO this attitude has 
adversely affected what should be a peaceful internal debate.

This characteristic isn't limited to our realm -- in diplomacy, any time 
there's debate between dogmatists and pragmatists, this kind of 
difficulty ensues. The pragmatist is willing to compromise but the 
dogmatist won't, which leads the pragmatist to harden an adversarial 
position.

IOW, anyone who can help diffuse the situation between Linus and 
Stallman should be immediately be deployed to the Middle East.

- Evan