OSNews

Well, it was till Thom linked to that sensationally bad article from the Jem Report: which is the product of a fairly clever piece of trolling, or astonishingly ignorant and adolescent reporting.

It is wrong in almost every respect, and written with what is a clear bias.

I've written already, but I'll summarise some things here. The main issues with GPL v2 were

1) There were worries that it wouldn't stand up in foreign jurisdictions. This was an issue as developers all over the world were using it

2) There were worries people could incorporate GPL code into their products, sell those products, and prevent people using their changes as required by the spirit, and in theory the letter, of the license by abusing either the patent or DRM systems.

The fear that it wouldn't stand up abroad is why it was re-worded and why it now appears to be in legalese. The Jem Report author considers this to be a flaw, but what serious contract isn't written in legalese?! If I have to choose a license for my software, I'd prefer legalese to English, as ultimately it's lawyers that make the choice.

The patent and DRM restrictions are designed solely to plug the second loophole. They have been crafted after a lot of work. They do not seek to ban DRM entirely, only DRM that prevents you from reusing or altering the source-code to make derivative products.

All of this information is easily available from the Internet, and has been for some time. The GPL is not out to screw users, or to make cooperation impossible (indeed, they worked quite hard to try to make it compatible with the Apache license). It's just out to do what it's always done: protect those who share code from those who would try to use that code without sharing back. All that's changed is it's evolved to close new loopholes that have arisen.

The article was clearly written with a bias, without basic research, without consideration, and from what I can see, with a view to inflame passions. The question is, did OSNews pick such a flawed inflammatory article out of incompetence, carelessness, or a malicious desire inflame passions among its readers to maintain levels of traffic..

Edited 2007-06-30 02:02

Bias is not to be avoided at any costs (like you avoid anthrax). We all have a bias of some sort. The author of the article openly admits it AND explains his bias. Articles like this one are actually great because they show us the standpoint of the author and because of that should not be flamed like you do. You seem to think that any bias except your own is not acceptable and that kind of attitude is what prevents compromises acceptable to all. Just as somebody has mentioned before: it's an ego issue, not a software license issue.

Edited 2007-06-30 09:27