LINUS CALLS GPLv3
"A FINE CHOICE" - is a title that InformationWeek could
have used for their article. It would have been very selective
quoting, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for InformationWeek.
Nor does pretending that old emails are new emails, or
misrepresenting people.
In reality, there is no news. Their article contains nothing at all
that is new since GPLv3's June 29th release. I thought this
clarification was worthwhile because
Slashdot has
now featured that article, and from looking at the comments, it
seems that most readers have been fooled into thinking this is some
new statement from Linus.
News? Olds?
The article starts with "Free Software Foundation last month
published a revised version of the General Public License"
- framing the article as post-GPLv3 news. It then proceeds to
present quotes from Linus, without mentioning that they're from a
June 20th email - that's not just old, it's from before GPLv3 was
even published.
At the very end of the article, the June 20th date is mentioned in
relation to one quote - but only that one quote. It's not mentioned
that the whole story has just been a creative rehash of that one old
email.
Misrepresentation
Of course, InformationWeek don't give readers a link
to Linus's actual
email. Besides being able to see that date that the quotes were
taken from, readers could have seen that Linus's "fanatics
and totalitarian states" comment was part of a general
comment in a meandering discussion. It was not, contrary to the
introduction of InformationWeek's article, part of a description of
the "executives of Free Software Foundation ... mind-set".
Selective
I wonder how long it took them to decide not to quote this bit of
the email: "I don't think it's hypocritical to prefer the
GPLv3. That's a fine choice, it's just not *mine*." If they
have some objection to publishing balanced statements, they could
have just left out the last four words.
Conclusion
We've see some real low quality journalism during the GPLv3 drafting
process. Dan Lyons's stories in Forbes (which Slashdot also
featured) defined the low point. The author of this InformationWeek
article, Paul McDougall, hasn't managed to stoop down to Lyons's
level, but he gets my nomination for 2nd place.
Linus's position is clear. He's repeatedly said that he'd use GPLv3
in certain situations if there was a practical advantage, but he
prefers v2 over v3. That's fine. I prefer v3, but v2 is still a
great licence.
In related news, I just checked Groklaw and saw that PJ's latest
story is
about
a different InformationWeek story which she finds misleading, on
the topic of SCO, patents, and yet another claim about the end
of free
software.
UPDATE: InformationWeek have posted a response to the criticisms of their article. I have a response to that second article here: InformationWeek opens it's mouth to change feet.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan,
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