Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] GPL defense issues

[Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>]

On Wed, Aug 24, 2016 at 01:30:00AM -0400, Karen Sandler wrote:
> 
> There have been so many discussions about these topics by industry lawyers
> and executives behind closed doors, but developers have been generally
> kept out of the loop.

That's a very unfair comparison, "lawyers and executives" always are
"behind closed doors" as that's the way business works (and has to for
legal reasons as you know).  One can say the same thing about any type
of company meeting where anything is discussed.

And "developers" are not being kept out of any "loop" here, please, lots
of us know exactly what is going on here.

> Understanding what's going on and figuring out if there's consensus on
> some of these issues is likely to help the kernel community deal with
> the impact down the road.

The impact of what?  And getting "consensus" from 5000+ people is pretty
impossible on any kind of topic at all :)

> At the very least, I think kernel developers each need to decide how
> they feel about GPL enforcement as silence and inaction is as much of
> a choice as voicing a view.

That's not fair, it's implying that our current way of doing this type
of thing is somehow not working.  Remember, we have done something that
no other group has ever done before, so please don't discount that we
know how to handle stuff like this.  Sometimes not making a public
statement is actually the correct thing to do.

> From what I see, the timing on this discussion has become critical.

Why is things "critical" now vs. the situation we had 5, 10, or 15 years
ago?

Anyway, we try to stick to technical topics from the developers of the
kernel for the kernel summit wherever possible, and I think that the
deadline for proposing new topics has passed, so I don't think there's
much that can be done this late in the process.

thanks,

greg k-h