On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 5:31 AM, Gordan Bobic <gordan(a)bobich.net> wrote:
It seems to me (and always has, thinking about it) that the argument
of
BSD vs. GPL vs. LGPL vs. whatever-other-open-source-licence has always
been a passtime for people who lack either the ability or the
inclination to get on with real productive work. Flame me for that
statement all you want, but that's just what it's always looked like to me.
I think you're confusing ideologues who feel obligated to fight their
moral crusade anywhere they can, with people who have concerns with
real world legal issues.
I don't see that this particular licensing "issue" is
stopping OpenSSL
shipping with every major distro, with a lot of packages linking against
it. Hardlining on this issue seems like it blows things way out of
proportion.
Unfortunately, what may very well be a "minor insignificant
technicality" can still get your ass sued out of existence in the Real
World.
OpenSSL persists because of momentum. The world around us has changed,
Open Source WON its battle for legal and practical legitimacy, and
what were once handwave-able legal technicalities can no longer be
ignored as they once were.
Also, I suspect there's a "hypocrisy" factor at work here. Having a
history of picking and choosing which licences you follow to the
letter just because you're on the "same side" can be used against you
in other more hostile copyright enforcement claims. This is why the
FSF has to take a hard line on these things.
(IANAL)