"There's been a lot of talk on lists and blogs about an exchange between Linus Torvalds, Jonathan Schwartz and Theo de Raadt regarding licensing and documentation. It all started with a 'cynical' message from Linus about Sun's motivation with regard to Open Source. Jonathan Schwartz responded by extending Linus a dinner invitation. What? The romance was briefly interrupted by a message from Theo pointing out the doublespeak."
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Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-06
If you look at Schwartz's original blog post, Theo was the second or third post. He raises some good points Sun and being open.
Indeed. Both Linus and Theo raised some good points about Sun's continually strange behaviour over these things.
I didn't actually see anything particularly cynical or nasty about Linus' post. He just told it the way he saw the situation, using examples such as the talk about porting ZFS to Linux and the difficulties involved (quite apart from any coding difficulties).
Linus then went on to say that Sun was merely looking out for its own self interests here, this wasn't a bad thing per se, no one should be surprised and no one should buy too much into the 'Sun open sourcing things' hype.
Theo was spot on in pointing this out:
"There are two operating systems which surprisingly do not run on the Sun v215/v245 -- Linux and OpenSolaris. OpenSolaris?? Yes -- Sun isn't even open enough to give the OpenSolaris community enough documentation to support their new machines."
OpenSolaris not running on Sun's own hardware? That shows you that Solaris simply isn't open, if you can't get from the source code to a running system.
Sadly, all we got in reply from Jonathan Schwartz was:
"But I disagree with a few of your points. Did the Linux community hurt Sun? No, not a bit. It was the companies that leveraged their work. I draw a very sharp distinction...."
Well, that wasn't one of Linus' points, but that's a YES then. Linux did hurt you, even if you're trying to split hairs by claiming that it was indirect.
"OpenSolaris scales on any hardware, has built in virtualization, great web service infrastucture, fault management, diagnosability"
Blah, blah, blah, blah blah. Let's fill some space here so I can get to the end quicker.
"This has nothing to do with being afraid of the community (if it was, we wouldn't be so interested in seeing ZFS everywhere, including Linux, with full patent indemnity)."
That doesn't answer Linus' direct point. The main obstacle to Linux having a ZFS implementation is because of the license incompatibility and the patents they feel the need to then hold on it. Patent indemnity simply isn't required.
He didn't deny that ZFS code would not be released under any GPL version.
"But most of all, from where I sit, we should put the swords down - you're not the enemy for us, we're not the enemy for you."
Linus never said that. He just pointed out your strange behaviour.
We want to work together, we want to join hands and communities - we have no intention of holding anything back, or pulling patent nonsense.
Then do it then. It's up to you. Make ZFS available under a compatible license, and certainly don't hold patents on it that put question marks over a compatible implementation.
And to prove the sincerity of the offer, I invite you to my house for dinner. I'll cook, you bring the wine. A mashup in the truest sense.
That's nice, but I think the above might be a better idea first.
Member since:2005-07-08
All we can ask as free software advocates is that software and hardware vendors establish and act upon plans to become more friendly to the free software community by opening specification and interfaces. In this respect, Sun is surpassing our expectations by also steadily moving to free software licensing for their own software products. They have not finished carrying out their plans, and I believe that this is part of the "duplicity" that Theo aptly notes.
What we see today is a large software vendor in the middle of a transition period that has already had a positive impact on the status of free software in the IT industry. Not all of their specifications are open yet, and therefore it is still hard to support and enhance their products with free software. Intel isn't completely open either, but the free software community has been much more accepting of their analogous free software stump speeches.
I think that Linus' "cynical" email was a mistake. It forced Schwartz to smooth things over without having anything to announce publicly. The challenge of rallying the troops as a leader of a free software project is that your enemies and "uneasy partners" can read the mailing list. For Linus to assert in the same email that license compatibility with OpenSolaris is mutually beneficial while also questioning Sun's intentions regarding ZFS was a step forward and then a step back.
If the intention was to goad Sun into making a statement about their plans for ZFS, then it failed. All we got was a vague assertion that they would like ZFS to run on Linux without any explanation as to how they would make this possible. Obviously Sun has nothing to say about ZFS that we don't already know. In the process, Linus has shown that his instinct is to respond to progress with cynicism.
Both Linus and Schwartz are technologists that have risen to prominence and share the burden of having far too many people analyzing their public comments. In this respect, Linus could learn a thing or two from Schwartz. When your counterpart announces progress, praise it as such. If he fails to capitalize on an opportunity to make progress, express regret. If he says nothing at all and you express distrust or discontent, expect him to try to take the matter offline.
As silly as it sounds, the dinner invite makes sense. Schwartz can't have Linus publicly badmouthing Sun's progress toward openness, and Linus can't be so dismissive of Sun's efforts. Schwartz needs to tell Linus that they are both on the same page as far as embracing the practical advantages of free software--it's just that Linus had the advantage of starting from scratch, whereas Schwartz has to steer a ship.
I'm sure that Schwartz would appreciate a vote of confidence from Linus. But failing that, Linus should have just noted that license compatibility with OpenSolaris would be a good thing and left it at that. The rest of the the "cynical" email had nothing to do with the GPLv3 relicensing issue, and it simply should not have been said. I'm not sure that an apology is completely necessary, but I wouldn't take it off the table--the dinner table, that is.
Member since:2006-02-28
I agree with you that linux do not have a "corporate level" in his communications. But i would not be surprised if he simply don't want to.
I agree that it does not seem to be professional, but "professional", here, since everything is analyzed, means "with a strategy". I don't think that linux wants to play the industry game with its machinations. I think that he wants to keep his role of "leader of amateur project" and the naivety that goes with.
Why ? because linux hackers wont like the duplicity and unclear positions that any strategy in communication implies. Hackers are hard enough to manage, and since linux project do not have any mean to keep people working with them, you must not corrupt the soul of the project. And i'am pretty confident that Linus himself hates to calculate the impact of what he says to business.
The other point is that linus do not represent any corporation. He does not represent any business. So then, what are the reason to be happy of sun openness other than technical ? none ! simply none ... And since technical (in computer and legal terms) are not really satisfying, linus says "i'am not satisfied". This is the nature of open source, this is why open source is what it is. Business and open source mix well together under the condition that you do not try to keep your open source project under the business rules. You can run an open source project and try to do business with it, but the opposite will always fail.
This is the "here is my code and do business with it if you want" behavior. The developer might be happy to be paid for his job, but whatever happens, he don't want his work to be conditioned by your business problems, especially if they are political. This is the main reason of open source success, and this is why i want linus to continue to be rude with business. Playing corporations games won't pay, because it is not the how open source works.
[edit: typos]
Edited 2007-06-17 10:22
Member since:2006-12-23
Member since:
2006-07-08
If you look at Schwartz's original blog post, Theo was the second or third post. He raises some good points Sun and being open. But if you read the rest of the comments, most people pat Sun on the back for their stance on FOSS. What Theo has to say (very much valid IMHO) goes unnoticed. When I first heard about Theo, it was in articles and posts which referer to him as a cranky programmer with a chip on his shoulder. Most people seemed as though Theo should be ignored Given the lack of any reaction to what Theo had to say, it looks like many people still disregard Theo, his work, and what he has to say. It's a shame because there is more to Theo and OpenBSD than the very strong opinions.
EDIT: Having looked at the blog post recently (after my initial post), many more comments have been added. Some of them support Theo and his comments. Still, the praise for Sun eclipses the criticism of Theo (one post even tries to refute Theo's POV).
Edited 2007-06-16 22:07