Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: in-tree pristines fatally wounded (merge-fest etc)

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Tom" == Tom Lord <address@hidden> writes:

    > From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" <address@hidden>

    >     Tom> I double dog dare them.  If I'm going down -- I'm taking some
    >     Tom> others with me.

    > Release under the GPL, which explicitly permits commercial use,
    > and then promise a sordid shitstorm if you don't get
    > compensation when somebody takes you at your word?  Tsk, tsk.

    Tom> You hypothesized what I think would be a pretty absurd and
    Tom> unlikely occurence: a vendor going out of its way to snub the
    Tom> community process that produced a piece of software that they
    Tom> then want to commercialize.  It happens in small examples but
    Tom> isn't more exception than rule?

Depends on what the payoffs are.  I don't think Red Hat would "Just
Take It".  I think they'd play it your way, if at all.

If Walter Landry takes Arx to market, he'd be insane to include you in
his company.  You guys do not get along on any level.  A startup can't
afford that, nor could it afford giving you a "senior research
fellowship" on condition that you keep your nose out of business
decisions (a condition you couldn't observe, as it conflicts with your
sense of social responsibility AFAICT).  I don't think that justifies
a shitstorm.

If Arch is as good as we think it is, Bitmover may see its survival at
stake, and we already know how Bitmover treats free software
principles when it feels its survival is at stake.  I'm sure they
would either first make you an offer you can't accept, or spew some
FUD about how it's impossible to work with Tom Lord, but he is a
genius and the free software community needs his software.  The
inevitable denunciation from rms would just reassure everybody that
everything's kosher.  ;-)

    Tom> I don't think there's a ghost of a chance they'd behave quite
    Tom> that way.

Then why did you phrase things in that over-the-top way?  Just
"encouraging discussion" again, I guess.

But, funny you should use the word "ghost."  You apparently have
forgotten the history of the Aladdin "Free" Public License.  What
happened is that printer and fax manufacturers were embedding
Ghostscript in ROM (this was in the days before EEPROM even) with
proprietary CPUs, and Aladdin wanted to prohibit this under the GPL.
rms insisted that since they were providing source, the hardware
manufacturers were within the GPL, and when Aladdin requested a
revision to require that not only must you be able to _edit_ the
sources in the usual medium, you must be able to produce the intended
product (ie, a compiled binary) and install it using resources
normally available to the customer, rms refused on principle.  So
Aladdin crafted its own no-commercial-use license that otherwise very
closely resembles the GPL.  However, in the end it went far beyond the
amendment that was requested.

Moral: while the vendors I mentioned are all associated with the free
software community, and even Larry McVoy cares deeply what it thinks
of him, there are plenty of more than competent vendors out there, not
currently associated with free software at all, who don't care.  One
of them may think "if judicious use of GPL is good enough for IBM, the
world's most effective deployer of IP, it's good enough for me."

    >     Tom> On the other hand ... if any of them do that in an honorable
    >     Tom> way -- well, I'm game.  Let's hear the deal.

    > You know what the deal that would be offered is.  As heard from Ulrich
    > "They Don't Pay Me To Be glibc Maintainer" Drepper: 1/4 promotional
    > presentations outlined by the marketing department, 1/2 developing
    > features and bug fixes demanded by the marketing department, 1/4 in
    > meetings, and 1/4 working on whatever you think is needed.[1]

    > Is that honorable?

    Tom> Honorable or Smart?

"Honorable" was your word.

    Tom> "Honorable" is a funny word to bring up in a business context.

Not at all.  But in a business context, "honorable" means "keeping
your word", including making reasonable compromises in cases of
miscommunication, not "meeting externally imposed expectations."

In other words, your interpretation of the GPL as not available to the
rich unless they subscribe to "social" norms you specify is dishonorable
by business standards.  By business standards, the Aladdin "Free"
Public License is the pinnacle of honor and social responsibility.

    Tom> People don't often enough get rewarded in business for being
    Tom> "honorable"

That's true.  However, it's precisely society that fails to reward its
idea of honorable behavior on the part of businessmen, and then
bitches about their lack of honor by standards defined by others.
Businessmen reward each others' honor, as they define it, quite well.
"There is honor among thieves," if you like.  But as Ayn Rand so
tiresomely pointed out, it's a much more exacting standard of honor
than that of socialists.

    Tom> It might be possible to become _too_ concerned about those
    Tom> concepts in business -- concerned to the point of dysfunction
    Tom> -- but I think that as a society we are so far from that
    Tom> state of dysfunction as to make it not worth worrying about
    Tom> that failure mode.

Well, of course you don't.  You don't have a job to lose if you turn
out to be wrong.  You don't have managerial responsibility for loss of
10,000 jobs if your company goes bankrupt.  Whereas you gain fame and
modest fortune if you turn out to be right, and the world owes you.

It's funny how many folks agree with your basic principle, though:
"social responsibility applies to people much richer than me,
including me in the unlikely event that I get that rich some day."

It's even funnier :-( that I wrote that sarcastically, and only later
read your close paraphrase a few lines below.  Viz:

    Tom> And what's good for the goose is good for the gander: what
    Tom> happens if, by some miracle, suddenly _I_ get a windfall from
    Tom> arch?  I think that in that case, at the very least, I have
    Tom> to start examining what responsibilities to the community
    Tom> that gives rise to.

I weep to think of the agonies of soul-searching you would face.

    Tom> In short, you described what would be an example of the
    Tom> "doomsday scenario"

I think it would be an extremely healthy development, actually.  The
open source community needs a productized arch _now_.  You're not
going to implement it for them.  No vendor is going to offer you the
position of "senior research fellow without portfolio".  What's left
is to make the offer I described, and then take the code.  What do you
say?  Do you take the offer?  Do you smile, say "I'm sorry, but I
really don't fit that job.  Here's my resume including objective; if
you have something like that open up, give me a call" and go quietly
on your way?  Or do you refuse, then raise hell when they take the
code?

    Tom> So, yeah, if the emerging norms were egregiously attacked?

They're not "emerging," they've long since been spelled out (eg, in
the GNU Manifesto).  I don't see anything in what you say that isn't
in the Manifesto.  Nor are they "emerging" in reality.  Not even Linus
is treated as you seem to think should be the norm; he has a day job,
and it's not posing for "Social Irresponsibility is Fun and Healthy"
posters.  In fact, what has happened there is a happy, but accidental,
more or less partial match between what Linus (or Uli, or me, for that
matter) wants to do and what someone is willing to pay a handsome
salary for.  But none is free to work full-time on arch, for example.


Footnotes: 
[1]  Regulation does not work, in the sense that companies respond to
regulation by conforming at best.  "Socially responsible" should be
proactive.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.