Re: GPL debate on kernel mailing list

[Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>]

On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 12:09:35PM +0200, Zlatan Todorić wrote:
> For years and years companies are using community hard work and creating
> their "great" products without turning back....
>
> People all over the world created Free software for decades and just
> small number of those people got employed to work on Free software for
> living...

This is one of these myths that gets repeated over and over again, but
it's a bit of a distortion of reality.  If you look at the actual data
of who actually contributes to the Linux kernel[1], engineers employed by
companies contribute over 80% of the changes.  Consultants are 2.6%,
and hobbyists are somewhere between 7.7% and 14.5% (6.8% of the
commits are authored by people where it's not clear whether their work
is supported by a company or not).

[1] Linux Kernel Development: How Fast It is Going, Who is Doing It,
What They are Doing, and Who is Sponsoring It, 2016.   http://goo.gl/QKbJ5Q

I suspect if you take a look at how many of the commits that go into
gcc or LLVM, you would see a similar dynamic.


So the debate is really about whether or not the companies versus "the
community" is really an accurate, or for that matter, healthy, way of
looking at things.

It's far more accurate to say that the companies are *part* of the
community, and we need to encourage all members of the community,
whether they are individuals or corporations, to live up to the
community norms.  (And some cases, that means teaching a student at a
two-year college in Toronto that taking credit for other people's work
and sending patches that haven't been tested, and in some cases, don't
even compile, to users who are asking for help on a bug tracker isn't
cool.  And in other cases, it might be convincing companies and
individuals who ship VM images that they need to include source.)

> I don't know is it a time for GPLv4 which will explain to all
> corporations that THIS LICENSE mean you must participate with
> community...  ...and not engage that only way to achieve is by lies,
> manipulation, abuse, FUD, secrets.

In my opinion, this kind of Manichean attitude is not an accurate
description of reality, and it's really not helpful.

	       		    	 	- Ted