License change vote results

[Steve Langasek]

On Tue, Feb 19, 2002 at 02:37:40PM +0100, Patrik Stridvall wrote:
> > Here is the summary of the votes I received in answer to the request
> > to switch to a copyleft-style license:

> >                           Agree        Disagree        Indifferent

> > All votes:               76 (70%)       15 (14%)        17 (16%)

> > Contributors:            39 (66%)        7 (12%)        13 (22%)

> > Contrib. weighted:       59 (64%)       13 (14%)        20 (22%)

> > The first line counts all the votes I received. The second line counts
> > the votes of all people/companies who contributed some code to the
> > project. The last line counts all contributors again but with each
> > being given 1, 2, or 3 votes depending on the importance of his
> > contributions (this evaluation is obviously a bit subjective, but I
> > think the overall trend is clear).

> Intresting to note is that contributors that disagree are on average
> ranked higher (almost 2) but the contributors that agree are ranked
> lower (about 1.5).

> This means that people that has more effort to protect
> are less willing to do so. Very intresting.

> The only reasonably conclusion for this that I can think of is that
> people with more to protect have thought more on the drawbacks on
> copyleft licenses (especially the LGPL) than people with less to protect.

This is not the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the
numbers, just the one that happens to agree with your position.  I can
think of several other reasonable conclusions which are much less
complementary to BSD supporters, but I'm not looking for a flame war, so
I'll not share them. ;)

> For some copyleft-style license perhaps. I'm not entirely against
> copyleft-style licenses either even if I voted disagree.

> However don't be so sure that all that voted for it really wants
> a license like the LGPL that prevent (at least according to your
> interpretation) using for example proprietary libraries to
> implement some functionalility.

This is a spurious argument.  You tell us that you voted that you
disagree, then ask us to not assume that those who voted in favor agree
with the LGPL -- but provide no evidence to the contrary?

In any case, the precise license chosen is an issue yet to be hashed out; 
and it seems the wine-license mailing list is the place to do that.

> Or for that matter prevents Transgaming to add copy protection that they 
> can't release openly because of a NDA.

I'm afraid Transgaming gets no sympathy from me if a future Wine license
prevents them from working on copy protection functionality.  The DMCA is
fundamentally broken; technological mechanisms to prevent copying are
fundamentally broken because there can be no protection for fair use
rights; and any company that uses such copy protection mechanisms should
be thoroughly boycotted.  While I don't condemn TransGaming for trying to 
support copy-protection mechanisms in Wine -- corporations are by 
definition amoral -- I also won't shed any tears if this particular 
business model falls by the wayside.

Various headers set to attempt to redirect this thread over to the list 
where it belongs now.

Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer