Copyright, derivative works, and truly free licensing (Was:

Rolf Kalbermatter rolf.kalbermatter at citeng.com
Tue Feb 12 06:29:50 CST 2002


Brett Glass <brett at lariat.org> wrote:

>I agree wholeheartedly that such discussion shouldn't be a constant distraction
>or devolve into a "flame war." I have taken great pains to express my point 
>of view very carefully and to make sure that nothing I've posted could be 
>construed as "flamage." 

Well, I for myself can only say that you have certainly failed in this. For me, your
posts had from the first beginning the character of somone on a crusade against
RMS,  the FSF and anything connected with it. Although some of your remarks
would have been at least interesting, that fanaticism in wording your opinion about
xGPL, making claims about what someone elses intentions "doubtlessly" are, and
trying to come up with the worst doom scenarios, made it virtually impossible for
me to accept and listen to any of your other more serious statements. The subject
of what direction Wine should go, seemed obviosly just the coat hanger on which
you continued this, your personal crusade!

So as far as I'm concerned you have certainly not reached your goal. I'm certainly
not a xGPL fanatic, but it personally feels not right to me that people spend their
time on something to work on and any company can come in and take whatever
there is and make profit out of it, without contributing something back. And with
that I don't mean the questionable marketing hype of letting those people say:
"Hey you know, they made their great product out of our project and I'm so proud
that I have spent months and months of my own time to allow them to earn big
bucks!" And don't say that they earn the money only for the additional value that
company has put in. If it wouldn't be for the developer in the project, that company
would not have a product at all to sell as you have actually also agreed on.

>I agree, as I have said above, that the developers have the right to make
>the decision. But because they are doing the entire project for the benefit
>of users as well as for themselves, they certainly should care about how
>users feel. What's more, if they are seeking bug fixes or help with
>development, they certainly should care how potential contributors feel.
>Finally, they should care about how advocates of the project feel. While 
>advocacy does not expand the code base, it does expand the base of users
>and testers. Hence, it plays an important role in any collaborative 
>software project.

You should have started the whole discussion more in this style. This would
have helped a lot more than trying to bring in your personal feelings about the
FSF and xGPL. Even if the FSF is what you say, it does really not help to
bring that topic up in such an emotional tone. It only polarizes everyone, and
hinders the solution of the original problem, which might cause the person
who is responsible to take a decision out of frustration rather than out of
great consideration.

>I agree. If anyone has considered any of my messages to be a "flame" rather
>than rational discussion, I apologize; nothing I've written was meant to be
>a "flame." I really do want to be able to continue to work with, advocate,
>and (hopefully) contribute to, WINE, and this has been the reason for the
>volume of passionate messages I've posted over the past few days.

Well I did actually. This is probably my problem, but your apology is accepted
anyhow ;-)

And now I go back and continue to work on my first of hopefully a series of
contributions to Wine!

Rolf Kalbermatter





More information about the wine-devel mailing list