Dr. Seuss, licensing, and WINE

[David Elliott]

On 2002.02.08 14:48 Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Sean Farley wrote:
> 
> > Just relax and take deep breaths.  :)  As should we all.
> 
> It's difficult, because I see, once again, how the discussion deviates to
> mostly irrelevant topics. Quite frankly, I am very dissapointed with the
> current debate:
> 
>   -- I provide arguments which details the feedback mechanism generated
> by
> each license. What do I get back: "nobody stops companies from
> contributing back under BSD" or "it is possible that companies will still
> contribute back under BSD", and crap like that. If people don't
> udnerstand
> that a system survives not on political will but on feedback loops
> built-in the system, they don't understand how the world works, and we're
> just wasting time.
> 
Small correction:

If people don't understand that some people are decent and contribute back 
regardless of whether they are forced to or not, but others are not and 
require a feedback loop to force this behavior, then they don't understand 
how the world works and we're just wasting time.

>   -- instead of focusing the discussion on what's important for Wine, we
> get incredible FUD as "people will be afraid to link against the LGPL".
> 
>   -- we get arguments of the form: "it is possible that..." But of course
> is "possible", for crying out loud!!! Everything is possible, but we
> should be concerned with what's _probable_!
> 
> I'll stop here, because I'm too upset to continue, to be honest...
> 

I think it's more of an issue of people thinking too much in black/white 
terms and people that lean strong towards one side or the other.

Look no further than the US political system for a good example.  You have 
the Republicans and the Democrats.  Generally they take every issue to 
opposite ends of the extreme such that 99% of congress is at one extreme 
or the other, but 99% of the population wants neither extreme.

Essentially we could go on forver about X11/BSD vs. GPL.  It's been 
discussed to death already folks.  What we need are reasonable 
compromises.  Of course you need to have people willing to compromise to 
do that.  I suspect most developers are with the exception of the view 
vocal BSD people and the few vocal LGPL all the way people.  I myself am 
certainly not at either extreme.

-Dave