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

[Jeremy Allison <jra@samba.org>]

On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 12:47:20AM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 27, 2016 at 04:35:21PM -0700, Jeremy Allison via Ksummit-discuss wrote:
> > On Sat, Aug 27, 2016 at 04:13:25PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > > 
> > > Quite frankly, after having watched a few videos of Bradley talking
> > > about what he does and _why_ he does it, I really would never want to
> > > have him or the SFC represent Linux in court. Ever. Not unless they
> > > make it very clear that their agenda has changed.
> > 
> > So the thing I think you're missing here, is your own agument
> > about enlightened "self interest".
> > 
> > Yes, Bradley and Conservancy have an agenda. They represent
> > us (Samba) when that agenda and self interest *align with
> > ours*. When they don't, nothing happens (remember they only
> > act on our behalf).
> > 
> > It's just like development - they want one legal thing, you
> > want another. Only when the two align do you work together.
> 
> Jeremy --- suppose there was a single person who had contributed to
> Samba, and he had a different opinion from the rest of the Samba team,
> and he went to the Conservancy on his own, and he and the Conservancy
> decided to take legal action on that one person's behalf (since it
> helped pursue the Conservancy's agenda, even if it didn't advance
> Samba's interests) --- and so it was something that you and the rest
> of the Samba developers didn't think was in the best interest of the
> Project.  In fact, what if that legal action was something that
> disrupted a relationship with a company that you considered extremely
> strategic?
> 
> What would happen then?  (Assume you weren't on the board, so you
> wouldn't be able to put the kibosh on it that way.)  Perhaps more
> importantly, would you think that was morally a sound thing to do?

I would be pissed off, for sure. But first I'd ask them
why they felt they needed to do so ? What wasn't the
Samba leadership doing that they wanted us to do ?

If they had been raising the issue for a long time, and
had been ignored or their concerns sidelined without any
resolution then I'd still be pissed off, but I'd understand
why they did what they did.

And I'd have no grounds to prevent them from doing.

Samba has been forked in the past by people who wanted different
things than we were willing to do - which came from a far
more acrimonious internal discussion than this one within
Linux (as forks often do).

How did we publicly respond ? Like this:

https://www.samba.org/samba/tng.html

"I look forward to seeing more development in TNG now that the
developers are not constrained by the more conservative elements
of the Samba Team (such as myself!) and I will be delighted to
see the project flourish. There has been only one viable SMB
server solution for the free software community for far too long,
and a world with only one choice is a boring place indeed.

Andrew Tridgell
October 2000"

The fork failed, but that's not the point.

tridge always had more class than all the rest of us
put together.

> It's the fact that the Conservancy feels that it can cherry pick
> developers, and act even on matters where Linus has expressed a clear
> preference that it is *not* in the best interst of Linux, is why I
> think the term "rogue agent" very much applies.

See above for why I think you're wrong in calling Conservancy
a "rogue agent".