Re: GPL debate on kernel mailing list
On Tue, Sep 06, 2016 at 02:29:56AM +0200, Zlatan Todorić wrote:
> You're just fueling myths you stand behind for some reason. You take
> data from one year (did you even verify it on your own?) and you don't
> look at historical development of situation.
The data was compiled primarily by Jon Corbet and Greg K-H, who are
both kernel developers who are considered pretty strong members of the
kernel development community. And they have data going back seven
years (this is an annual report), and it's all mostly the same.
The methodology of this report includes having a very detailed mapping
of e-mail addresses to company. That's important because some
engineers who work for companies use a kernel.org or a .edu e-mail
address. So it's something which the kernel community members
consider highly authoratative.
> While I can pull out data
> that will easily throw out of door your point I will just go a bit
> through development. Companies didn't care for Linux...
so that's a religious statement....
> and only wanted
> profit from it. GNU and Linux where spearheaded by volunteers, by fun
> and most of companies didn't look at it. They started looking when
> volunteers made it very competitive, they started employing some of them
> to continue such work but mostly not.
In actual practice the demand of kernel developer engineers vastly
outstrips the supply. So anyone is pretty much at all vaguely
competent gets hired --- at which point their output increases
significantly because they are able to work full time, instead of in
their own time. So that's why the bulk of the work is done by people
who are paid by companies. When I was working at MIT as the tech lead
for the Kerberos development effort, I could only work on Linux in the
evenings and weekends. When I started getting paid to work full time,
I could work on Linux a much greater percentage of my time.
The people who weren't hired by companies were largely either (a)
really incompetent (and in practice a number of them were hired by the
company, and once they were discovered to be incompetent, they were
let go), or (b) _chose_ not to want to work on Linux full time.
> Most company contributions happen
> because someone who came from Free software background pushed this
> inside company and yet to date we don't have a major Free software
> company (RedHat could be called a major open source company).
If you take a look at the top contributors (by number of commits
authored by engineers from a particular company), most of thoose
companies do have significant open source complaince/program offices.
So it's a lot more than just "someone from a free software background
pushed this inside the company". These is no doubt plenty of examples
of that, but if you look at where the bulk of the contributions are
coming from, they are coming from companies that have a dozen or more
engineers working on Linux. (And in many cases, 50 or more.) That's
the only way you can get enough contributions to be high up on the top
contributions by company list.
I am sure there are a large number of companies who have one or two
commits attributed to engineers working at that company. And in those
cases, the dynamic may be as you have described. But that's not where
the bulk of the contributions to Linux are coming from. They are
coming from a relatively small number of companies who are
contributing a *large* amount of work.
> Microsoft had attitude of calling Linux "cancer and communism". Do you
> think they nowdays contribute because to open source because they really
> like it. No, they were loosing edge, and most contributions from
> companies to open source happen because they are loosing edge. And even
> today they show a lot of hostile approach when they can - by suddenly
> not releasing documentation, by introducing non-free firmware. Creating
> enterprise editions with nonfree code etc.
More philosophy/religion....
> There must be awareness that even if they today contribute most of code
> (it would be interesting to pull out entire data or data for few first
> years where probably volunteers made 80%-90% and then just throw such
> statistic at you and talk about distortion of reality) it is not because
> they are good community citizens that understand the philosophy. And I
> am fairly sure that most of their dormant projects where only good
> because community gave a lot of love and care after it was killed
> mainstream. So even if they produce most of the code today, they are
> still hostile to GPL and entire philosophy.
Sure, if you look the first few years Linux was done all by hobbyists.
But by today's standard the Linux kernel was a toy. It didn't scale
at all and compared to the SunOS or Ultrix or AIX kernel of the day,
it lacked features, and it couldn't handle big systems. It took major
contributions by companies like IBM, who hired hundreds of people
working at the Linux Technology Center, pushing efforts such as the
Linux Scalability Project, and adding reliability and serviciability
and tracing features, for Linux to become the kernel that we have today.
In contrast, the Hurd is an example of what happens when you have a
Free Software OS that doesn't have corporate support. It only works
on 32-bit x86 platforms, and it is as slow as a dog, and it lacks any
of the critical features that we take for granted for a normal Linux
system.
Just try using Hurd on a laptop, and see how much you like it. And if
you appreciate suspend/resume, and good power management, and
performant file systems, you might want to thank work that was
contributed by engineers who were financed by companies.
Yes, companies are not primarily motivated by the GPL and the
philosophy of Free Software. So what? They are still an important
part of the *Linux* community, and we all benefit from the
contributions made by companies. If you want to only use a Thinkpad
T60 (an ancient laptop) running a Free BIOS, and run Hurd i386 on it,
you're certainly free to do so. In some ways, at least Stallman is
consistent with his views when he lives with what is implied by taking
a Puritanical, Strict approach to Free Software.
However, that's not my belief, and not my philosophy. I believe in
Open Source Software aas being good for everyone --- companies and
individuals. I also believe in a license that enforces the community
standard of "giving back". I don't believe, however, in threatening
companies with lawsuits and speaking at conferences telling everyone
that companies are evil and how we have to defeat the corporations.
> It is not at all accurate to state such thing. Companies invade
> communities with their money, marketing and so on, they rarely engage
> with community in a healthy matter if at all.
Yeah, like that. That's not healthy at all, in my opinion.
Cheers,
- Ted
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