Theodore Ts'o
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Theodore Ts'o
tytso
@cyberia @rostedt @torvalds @karen
I very much believe in the Right to Repair. I am just very strongly feel that the right way to achieve this is via legislation, and not by trying to use the GPLv2 and the Linux Kernel as a club against companies to try to achieve this goal. Why? Because if you try to use GPL code as a lever, in the long term, companies will just switch from using GPL code to BSD-licensed code, such as FreeBSD and Toybox instead of Linux and Busybox. This will weaken the Linux kernel development community, without actually addressing the general Right to Repair problem. It might solve the specific case for some company who might (after they get harassed by lawsuits) consider themselves foolish for using Linux --- but to the extent that it causes companies to run away screaming, that's not something that I personally want.
If instead we have legislation mandating Right to Repair, then for BSD or proprietary code, someone might need to reverse engineer and patch the original binary code, but that's something which is doable. And there are enough benefits of Linux and the GPL that many companies *have* chosen to use Linux instead of FreeBSD.
It's for this reason that I never have been willing to sign over to the SFC the enforcement rights for my personal copyrights. And why I would recommend to my colleagues that, to the extent that they care about the long-term health of the Linux kernel development community, that they do *not* support the SFC's lawsuit agenda. You can catch a lot more flies with honey, instead of vinegar. Just take a look at the development statistics for Linux[1] and the many companies who employ Linux kernel developers. If you compare this to the number of companies that support, say, Busybox development, especially after a hyper-aggressive GPL enforcement campaign, perhaps that might be a hint that reaching out in friendship as opposed to waving a club around might be a better approach in terms of keeping a development community healthy. And after all, isn't that what "conservancy" (as used by organizations like the Nature Conservancy) is all about?
[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/1046966/
I very much believe in the Right to Repair. I am just very strongly feel that the right way to achieve this is via legislation, and not by trying to use the GPLv2 and the Linux Kernel as a club against companies to try to achieve this goal. Why? Because if you try to use GPL code as a lever, in the long term, companies will just switch from using GPL code to BSD-licensed code, such as FreeBSD and Toybox instead of Linux and Busybox. This will weaken the Linux kernel development community, without actually addressing the general Right to Repair problem. It might solve the specific case for some company who might (after they get harassed by lawsuits) consider themselves foolish for using Linux --- but to the extent that it causes companies to run away screaming, that's not something that I personally want.
If instead we have legislation mandating Right to Repair, then for BSD or proprietary code, someone might need to reverse engineer and patch the original binary code, but that's something which is doable. And there are enough benefits of Linux and the GPL that many companies *have* chosen to use Linux instead of FreeBSD.
It's for this reason that I never have been willing to sign over to the SFC the enforcement rights for my personal copyrights. And why I would recommend to my colleagues that, to the extent that they care about the long-term health of the Linux kernel development community, that they do *not* support the SFC's lawsuit agenda. You can catch a lot more flies with honey, instead of vinegar. Just take a look at the development statistics for Linux[1] and the many companies who employ Linux kernel developers. If you compare this to the number of companies that support, say, Busybox development, especially after a hyper-aggressive GPL enforcement campaign, perhaps that might be a hint that reaching out in friendship as opposed to waving a club around might be a better approach in terms of keeping a development community healthy. And after all, isn't that what "conservancy" (as used by organizations like the Nature Conservancy) is all about?
[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/1046966/
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