[Sussex] Gentoo forked...

[Steve Dobson]

Geoff

On 27 June 2003 at 09:52 Geoffrey Teale wrote:
> Thanks to Steve for a good post.

You're welcome.

> In the cold light of morning, I have this to say on the subject:

There is nothing like a good night's sleep to clear the mine.

> Gentoo is today without a good developer because both Zachary and Daniel
> are stubborn and arrogant - this is an unfortunate attribute common
> amongst many developers and a source of much frustration.

In every sizeable organization conflict between the members are bound
to happen.  Companies have their boardroom manoeuvres behind closed doors.
Us Open Source projects don't just believe that the source code should be
there for all to see but all the dirty laundry too.

>                                                            For my
> part I feel Daniel comes out of this the better - unfortunately many
> people will only see Zacahry's side of the arguement as Daniel has
> declined to comment apart from a few line on the Gentoo Developers
> list.  Gentoo right now is in the process of putting together a new
> management structure for it's non-profit entity - this will help turn
> the project from a dictatorial hierachy into something more democratic
> a la Debian / Free BSD.

One of the powers of Debian (IMHO) has been that the "leadership" has no
real power - that is in the hands of it's member.  Debian is a really
democratic organisation.

> As Steve rightly points out, Gentoo is going through everything Debian 
> did in the 1990's, and it's a very sincere piece of flattery to that 
> project that Gentoo has modelled itself as much as possible on Debian's 
> approach (up to an including the adoption of a social contract that is 
> nearly identical).

I've hurd some say that the DSC (Debian Socal Contract) is as an important
document to Open Source development as RMS's GPL.  Time will tell.
 
> What matters to me above all this, is that you and I can continue to use 
> and develop Free Software and help deliver benefit to people all over 
> the world in a balanced and fair way.

This is the most important point of all.

>                                        Software is such an important 
> part of modern society and the development of economies that we cannot 
> afford for it to be controlled by massive super-corporations who are 
> legally bound to the ruthless production of profitable growth.

I don't get what you mean by "legally bound" but I do think that there are
corporations that are pursuing profit to the detriment of society as a
whole.

I don't see how open source development can be stopped.  While I can 
see that the SCO case might be able to kill Linux it won't stop open
source development.  *BSD and GNU/Hurd are ready to step in and fill the
gap.  Unless all governments in the world make home programming illegal
then open software will find a way.  Them more a evil power try to
tighten their grip the more slip thorough their fingers.

If manufacturing power has slipped from the West to the East because the
cost is lower then the same will be true for propriety software will give
way to open source if open source proves that the total cost of ownership
is less.  In the end the winner will be the Almighty Dollar.

>                                                                 Free 
> software is one way we can help defuse the time bomb of imperialised 
> commerce (which is arguably the root of the actions taken by the US and 
> Britain this year)  and allow developing nations a more level playing 
> field without resorting to law-breaking.  In this scope the petty 
> squabbles of two mean are insignificant.

If the US, Britain and others move as you suggest then this will not be
the end of "Free" software as we know it, it will just cause a change in
direction.  Remember when Intel announced that they were going to embedded
an ident into each processror so software could be licenced to a given
machine?  One Senator proposed a new law that would ban such chips from
his state, he couldn't just band Itel from doing it he would have to ban
everyone.  He backed down very quickly once it was pointed out that Sun,
HP, IBM, ... already was shipping chips which such and ident.

If somehow M$ and SCO (and Sun and HP and Novell and...) got a law passed
that only commercial software could be used outside the home how damaging
would that be to the US economy?  If Linux was outlawed today buy tomorrow
I would be running FreeBSD.  Government's can only wave a very broad stick,
ways will be found, they always have.  And if a law is two restrictive it
gets adjusted (like the US law on export of string encryption).

Steve