[kaffe-siteadmin] Re: Request to mailing list kaffe rejected

[Jim Pick]

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:37:17 +0900
carl <carl at ggpl.org> wrote:

> Hello Jim and et., al.,  ...
> 
> Sure I can post to kaffe-siteadmin at kaffe.org and thank you.  CGPL is no
> more destructive to GPL as the BSD or the Apache or the Creative Commons
> (CC) agreements are.  CGPL is compatible to most all of the free source
> agreements with the exception of GPL which says that a person not free 
> to include ethical issues.  CGPL agreement asks that the work you give
> freely be used for the support of digital and academic, human rights and
> environmental sustainability.  Even RMS thinks that is a good idea as do
> most people.  So CGPL is positive and give people who are working on 
> things that could be used for great harm the freedom to ask others that 
> the work they give is use as a positive force for all .

The more licenses, the merrier, I guess.  :-)

I've really pretty much adopted a laisez-faire approach to licenses -- I
just like the free ones that don't tie me up too much, and I leave it at
that.  The debian-legal style license compatibility discussions give me
heartburn (they're probably important, but they're annoying).

I've got to admit that I have a history of getting drawn into long
licensing debates on mailing lists though -- I did a lot of sh*t
disturbing back when I was an active Debian developer, back before the
DFSG.  :-) 

> What's with all this negative stuff about NihonSoft people.    It is
> positive for them to sponsor a GPL project.  ....  I don't think the
> name NihonSoft means that they are trying to be a SCO or MicroSoft which
> is behind SCO.   But then I don't know for sure maybe they have done
> something bad, that I am not aware of if there is something I should 
> know please let me know.

I think I was the only person that posted anything even remotely
negative to the kaffe mailing list.  It wasn't even really negative - I
was just responding to a private email I received about the Nihonsoft
sponsorship, and I felt obligated to mention that some people felt there
was some controversy there.  I used some "weasel words".  :-)

The whole sponsorship thing is my hair-brained idea, it's brand new, and
Nihonsoft was the first external sponsor.  I can't read Japanese, and I
have no understanding of the controversy, and frankly, I don't really
care that much.  But I did feel obligated to clarify that I was the
person that had accepted the sponsorship, and I also felt I had to
clarify that there was no implied endorsement -- that was not stated
anywhere.

This is an internet based volunteer driven project - I haven't even met
the other developers.  I have to earn their trust.  Since the
sponsorship program is so new, and it's 100% my idea, without me making
some clarifications, the appearance of the sponsorship (particularily in
the 1.1.3 release announcement) almost sounded like I had entered into
some sort of commercial arrangement with Nihonsoft.  I just wanted to
clear the air.

> The NihonSoft are really good people...  What have they done has been
> good ... They have done good things for your group
> 
> Warmest regards,
> carl  ...

They seem like nice people to me so far.  :-)

> P.S.  Its very easy to be negative and more difficult to be
> positive. Its easy to break things is hard to fix things. It seems that 
>   people pay more attention to the negative rather than to the positive 
> words. Some people like to see what they can break... Sort of like 
> children will sometimes do.
> 
> Again NihonSoft for me and my students has been a very positive force in
> my experience and I think they will continue to be.  They have very good
> hearts.

Again, I'm sorry if I came across a little harsh in my initial post - I
hope I didn't hurt anybody's feelings.  Even the person who wrote me
initially felt I overstated the situation.  I didn't know the facts
about the specific controversy, and I still don't really.  I shouldn't
have mentioned the possibility that there was a GPL violation going on,
since I don't know that at all -- I guess I'm just hypersensitive to
that particular issue since our license is the GPL.  Please accept my
sincere apologies.

Cheers,

 - Jim