
GNU sed 4.2.2 released, maintainer resigns - bonzini
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.smalltalk.gnu.general/7873
======
chernevik
All disagreements aside, I'm deeply grateful for the efforts made to maintain
and extend tools like sed.

I can't help see posts like this and worry about the perpetuation of open
source, and wish I had the chops to do more to help.

As I write I'm downloading a Raspberry Pi image for my son's hardware. I'm
getting him an Arduino, a soldering iron and a book for Christmas. I'm looking
forward to learning along with him. I don't claim to understand the particular
flows of code or inspiration, but I don't see how those projects happen
without open source.

I also don't see how the Pi happens without industrial scale chip production.
As I understand the matter, the Pi was developed by Broadcom staff on their
own or 20% time, and its production occurs on interstitial time on production
lines that could never be justified by a $25 SOIC. Pi is basically a cheap
add-on to a massive industrial base.

Of course one point of vision is describing a realizable potential not
apparent to the rest of us. But vision can and does proceed despite deviations
from its perfect realization -- and sometimes is corrected by those
deviations. I deeply disagree with RMS' politics, I'm deeply grateful for his
technical contributions. I hope the community can always find a way forward.

~~~
epistasis
> I can't help see posts like this and worry about the perpetuation of open
> source, and wish I had the chops to do more to help.

I wouldn't worry about open source, that is thriving and alive. "Free
software" is different, and very specialized. I also deeply disagree with RMS,
but further I disagree with "free software" being the one true way (though I
happily use it), and think that open source is better all around, for
everyone.

[1] [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-
point.h...](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html)

[2] <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html>

------
MatthewPhillips
Why is Stallman still BDFL if he hasn't contributed a meaningful amount of
code in years? Let him be the spokesperson so he gets the attention he
desperately needs and leave the coding standards to people who code.

~~~
bjourne
I wish people would stop parroting that stupid lie. RMS is curently heavily
involved in GNU Emacs development and has been for many years. Just check the
mailing list sometime.

~~~
DannyBee
Yes, where he has, for example, refused to allow emacs to use any sane bug
tracking system because it would interfere with _his_ workflow, despite the
fact that he's not the only developer.

~~~
belorn
Its all code. If a group want a bug tracker system X, and a second group want
bug tracker system Y, then build a middle layer system that converts
information back and forth from X <\--> Y.

~~~
mh-
and then build it into Emacs.

------
juddlyon
I wouldn't characterize that as a rant, Rails is a Ghetto was a rant. This was
more of a reasoned venting. Too bad though, the guy seems like he's poured a
lot of himself into these projects (from an outsider looking in).

~~~
w1ntermute
Rails is a Ghetto, for those who haven't read it:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20080103072111/http://www.zedshaw...](http://web.archive.org/web/20080103072111/http://www.zedshaw.com/rants/rails_is_a_ghetto.html)

A classic rant by Zed Shaw.

~~~
pooriaazimi
This is probably a more complete version:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20090107030956/http://www.zedshaw...](http://web.archive.org/web/20090107030956/http://www.zedshaw.com/rants/rails_is_a_ghetto.html)

(I haven't yet read that piece)

------
dfc
I have been a FSF supporter for a very long time. That being said I have never
understood why the gnu-prog-discuss mailing list is so secretive. I can
understand having restrictions on posting but I have bever heard a good
argument for keeping the discussions behind closed doors. I do not think SPI
has any cabalistic mailing lists.

~~~
bonzini
It's secretive because "GNU is not about openness".

I personally believe it's okay to have a "cabalistic" mailing list, the
problems are: 1) that the open mailing lists (bug-standards, gnu-system-
discuss) are basically unused; 2) that rms is trying to make some topics
(e.g., discussing if something could be used as a GPL loophole) taboo even for
gnu-prog-discuss.

~~~
tonfa
> rms is trying to make some topics (e.g., discussing if something could be
> used as a GPL loophole) taboo even for gnu-prog-discuss.

Might not be a bad idea, since those discussions could be used after discovery
as part of a trial.

~~~
belorn
If the problem is the discussion about loopholes, than why not just create a
second mailing list about that topic and leave the other ones open?

~~~
rbanffy
Because what you discuss on a closed list can still be used as evidence.

------
belorn
I find the "rant" and the linked post by Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos sadly missing
any direct details over what the actual issues are. From reading it, one could
get the idea that all the problem stems from GNU coding standard being archaic
and not updated for modern programming.

Okey, I am skipping all the rant about FSF not funding software projects to
pay developers, or that the GNU brand is not "hot", but both feels a bit
silly. The hotness of a brand is transient, and in reality, only a handful
number of brands inspires users and developers. I can't see how GNU would be
more or less hot than say Gnome, KDE, or apache which each has a large number
of projects under them. As for funding, since when did any of those
organizations actually fund the projects? They role is provide help in setting
up funding systems, help with tax declarations and provide further legal help.

Thankfully, the last link in the end
(<http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/529522/854aed3fb6398b79/>) looks to bring some
light of what the actually issues really are: copyright assignments being US
only, who the "owner" of a community project is, Nikos' feeling that he aren't
getting any tangible benefits from being under the name GNU, and last a
request for more transparency in the GNU projects decision process.

As for those reasons, there are two I agree with and two I don't. Firstly,
Copyright assignments being US only is bad and shows an inflexibility a non-
profit foundation should not have. Their role is to help projects, and thus
should be as flexible as possible and thus provide equal possibility to assign
copyright to US or EU. Second, as for who the owner of a community project is,
the answer should stare the developers in the face. It should always be the
community (developers and users) that "own" the project and decides its fate.
If Nikos' announcement had included a decision by the community (preferable in
a transparent manner), it would had been hard for GNU to object. Third, Nikos'
feeling that he aren't getting any tangible benefits from GNU are his to have,
but legal assistance is something many projects value. If a project has no
need for legal assistance, no need for help in creating donation systems, and
don't feel a threat about lawsuits against individual developers, then a
foundation such as GNU, Apache or other similar organization are not going to
give much tangible benefits. Fourth, in regard to more transparency in the GNU
projects decision process, I can only agree with Nikos. The corner pillar in a
community is transparency, and GNU should be fully aware of this. If there are
discontent growing because of an lack of transparency, it should be addressed
and fixed with high priority.

~~~
CJefferson
Just on your comment of legal support. One of his major complaints is that
actually he is not getting the legal support he wants, and he thinks that he
could do better by himself.

~~~
belorn
Is there a place where this complaint is posted? I know about the one time in
regard to Werner Koch, and in which a legal problem arrived, and was
subsequently fixed, but where FSF did not inform Koch about the fixing. To my
understanding, that was a mistake in communication from FSF and was later
resolved.

~~~
clinth
The clearest example is from the LWN article you referenced.

> "Once a developer assigns copyright, they are at the mercy of the assignee
> to enforce the copyright. In this particular case, one can speculate that
> the failure to pursue the violation was likely a shortage of human
> resources. As Richard noted, "We have staff for GPL enforcement, […] but
> there are so many violations that they can't take action on all.""

As the LWN article notes, statements like this are a huge distance between FSF
in practice, and FSF's own reasoning behind assigning copyrights to it
(<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html>).

When a project has assigned copyright to FSF, the project workers have no
recourse when the copyright holder opts not to fulfill its part of the
bargain.

~~~
belorn
That is a general complain which has a general answer. If you let someone do
your legal work, it might not be done with the same priority as if you did it
yourself.

But, general handwaving aside, has there been a case with GNU sed or gnutls in
which the legal work was done in a less than satisfactional way?

------
dasht
For a time I too was the maintainer for GNU sed. Part of that time I was paid
by the FSF for that work (this was a long time ago, when the FSF had a small
staff working directly on the Hurd and GNU). When I started, GNU sed was very
incompatible with the relatively new Posix standard for sed. When I finished,
it was less incompatible. It was during this same time that I started work on
a new regexp engine for sed but that was not done by the time I stopped work
on sed.

From that position I was able to observe fairly closely how the GNU project
was being led, technically, in the days before the Linux kernel had had any
real impact.

RMS's technical leadership was, I think, not very skilled. Let me explain what
I mean:

If you were working on a program and sought his advice, he was very good at
zeroing in on the issues and giving excellent advice. And sometimes if you
were working on a program and he noticed something he didn't like about your
approach, his criticisms were very good. People used to tell stories about how
good a programmer he was and those stories were basically all true. He was
sharp and I assume that, in spite of his age, he still is.

The problem was that he showed no effective capacity to really lead the larger
meta project of pulling together a complete OS. He tried -- with projects like
autoconf and documents like the GNU coding standards. And he kept a list of
programs that, once we had those (he reckoned) along with a kernel -- GNU
would be "done". That was about the extent of his "big picture" for project
management.

Mainly, he concentrated on advocating for the _idea_ of software freedom. I
think the gambit was that if enough people demand their freedom, the project
of organizing a GNU project would become easier. I don't think this gambit
worked.

That was never a clear enough, coherent enough, or informed enough vision of
the complete GNU project and, consequently, GNU has never really successfully
gelled. You can grab some "100% libre" distributions, these days, but only
barely. There is no sustainable culture and technical organization there
("yet", I hope).

The RMS failure I see is a failure at being a community organizer of GNU
programmers. A lot of people got the vague idea of a GNU project. Many of us
were happily recruited to the goal. But everyone I worked with at the FSF,
including me, kind of went off in various incoherent directions -- doing what
we guessed would help and that seemed interesting to us. We never "pulled
together as a team" and, in the GNU project, that still doesn't happen.

The GNU project gradually accumulated a heck of a lot of very good "parts" but
could never gel. The first three world-changing releases (GDB, GCC, and Emacs)
really startled people. The various shell/text utilities in those early days
spread because they were often usefully a little bit better than the
proprietary "native" equivalents shipped by Sun, Dec, AT&T, etc. People sat up
and took notice but behind the scenes the project of setting up a lasting
"complete OS" project that would promote _software freedom_ for _all users_
... never quite came together.

The "open source" people -- who I also later worked for, because I made a
mistake in trusting them at their personal word to me -- seemed at first like
they might help bring resources to the problem. In fact, what they mostly
concentrated on was creating proprietary products using the free software
"parts" from the incomplete GNU project. In the early days they sought to
monopolize some of the key labor for the GNU project (and they succeeded,
because they paid much better than RMS and many of those particular hackers
didn't really give a shit about the freedom of users). As the "open source"
industry matured it perfected its model of a perpetually incomplete /
inadequate free software OS as a source of inspiration to enthusiastic
youngsters, realized in practioce as a perpetually freedom-denying set of
proprietary OS products. Companies like Red Hat and Canonical realized that
they could exploit the deficit of community organizing to charge high rents
for libre software, so long as they don't care seriously about the freedom of
users. That's what they did and what they do.

So in my view, RMS was not good (and still is not good) at leading the GNU
project -- but the real tragedy is brought on by the glad-handing, deep-
pocketed, "open source" rentiers who place concern for their own profit above
the freedom of the community.

~~~
pron
> He was sharp and I assume that, in spite of his age, he still is.

Seriously? He's not 100, you know. Why wouldn't he be as sharp, or sharper,
than ever?

~~~
asdkl234890
I'm in my mid 30s and have already noticed a slight decline in short term
memory. I have tons more experience and am sure I am a much better hacker than
I was at 21, but getting older has real costs.

------
marcoamorales
As someone who shares beliefs with FSF's ideals, reading this rant makes me
think that maybe there's a chance to bring up another movement with the
relative same ideals as Free Software but have a different type of leadership.

~~~
algorias
Doesn't the open source movement overlap quite heavily with the ideals of free
software? I know there are also significant differences, specially the
tolerance of proprietary code.

I'm not trying to start a flamewar here, just honestly curious why you think a
3rd alternative would bring change in any meaningful way. We have enough
fragmentation as things stand.

~~~
marcoamorales
They do overlap, but Open Source Initiative doesn't care at all about users'
freedoms, which I personally believe to be very important.

~~~
dalke
Agreed. It took a while for me to understand the idea that the free/open
source difference is reasonably described as the difference between user
freedoms and developer freedoms.

~~~
chimeracoder
I like that distinction, but to be clear, the distinction isn't strictly an
"either-or". It's pretty clear that "open source" is motivated by developer
freedoms, but the fact that "free software" is motivated by user freedoms
doesn't make it _less_ about developer freedoms.

In other words, if you subscribe to the four tenets of software freedom as
they pertain to users, "free software" also provides as much freedom to the
developers as is possible without compromising on the users' freedoms.

~~~
tytso
Well, the Linux Kernel's position is that we want the contributions from
companies like Tivo, because even though a particular device might be locked
down. Contributions from companies like Tivo, and Sony, and Samsung, which may
have some of their products with locked down devices, are nevertheless valid
contributions which will help make the Linux kernel better --- and those
contributions can also be used in completely free systems.

So it's basically a "stone soup" model, as it applies to developers. If you
use my source code, you can use it for whatever you want, so long as my
freedoms to get back your changes (which then I can use in whatever way I
want, including in locked down devices) can go into the project.

As far as I am concerned, a locked-down device is a business model choice. It
allows hardware to be sold for much less money, because it allows for
alternate monetization strategies (i.e., the Tivo subscription services, video
rentals, etc.) People who want to buy general purpose computers can always
install the Open Source software on a machine of their choosing, and that's
also fine. Whether you want to pay $199 or $699 and perhaps give up some
freedoms as far as that particular device is concerned is also a choice which
each user should be allowed to make on their own. After all, the freedom to
choose is also a freedom.

Now, there are two counter-arguments to this perspective. Once is in a device
with a mixed set of proprietary and free/open source software, it may not be
possible to use the proprietary software on a general purpose computer. There
the question is whether free software should be used as a bludgeon to force
vendors of products which also use some proprietary code to give more freedoms
to users (which may undermine certain business models as described above).

The second pontential argument is "what if there are no more general purpose
computers". And there this is where the UEFI secure boot discussions become
especially interesting. However, so long as it's possible to disable secure
boot, or the hardware allows users to install signing keys of their own
choosing, the threat of not being able to purchase general purpose computers
where you can install software of your choice is not credible at least in the
near term, and so long as we work hard to make sure it doesn't appear, I don't
think will be a huge threat in the long term. You may not be able to get a
general purpose computer with a quad-core CPU, 16 gigs of memory, etc., for
$29.95 plus a two year subscription, but if you are willing to pay the full
fair price, I'm fairly confident the threat of not being able to buy a general
purpose computer is not a high probability outcome.

So the bottom line is we want developers to be able to be free to pursue
business models that in turn allow users to be able to purchase devices that
may not offer them the full set of freedomes --- but it's the user's choice
that they get those locked-down devices. The FSF position is that they don't
want their source code to ever be used in devices that might not allow users
the full range of freedoms, even if it hurts the software project by turning
away developers who have these business models that they disagree with.

~~~
chimeracoder
> I'm fairly confident the threat of not being able to buy a general purpose
> computer is not a high probability outcome.

I already have to go very far out of my way and pay a huge premium for getting
an unlocked Android phone. As phones/tables supplant many "general-purpose"
computer use cases, this threat is only increasing, if current trends
continue.

~~~
tytso
As eropple has already pointed out, the Nexus 4 is quite reasonably priced.
More importantly, it's not that you're paying a premium, it's that you're
paying the true cost. Most of the locked phones are locked because they are
enforcing the fact that you are paying an extra $10 to $20 a month to defray
the cost of the phone. If you don't replace your phone after two years, you'll
end up paying an extra $120 to $240 extra for your phone. And if you do get a
new subsidized phone, you'll be locked in for another two years.

~~~
chimeracoder
You're confusing having a carrier-unlocked phone with having a phone that has
an unlocked bootloader. The two are completely orthogonal concepts; you can
unlock the bootloader of a phone that you received with a subsidy by signing
2-year contract with a carrier.

The point is that, once I've bought the hardware, nobody should be able to
tell me my that I can't flash my own custom ROM on the phone.

~~~
tytso
So don't buy locked down devices. There are unlocked device for sale, and the
Nexus devices are at least price competitive, if not downright cheaper in the
case of the Nexus 4 and Nexus 7. (Yeah, there are some availability issues,
but I bet after Christmas things will get better on that front.)

~~~
chimeracoder
> (Yeah, there are some availability issues, but I bet after Christmas things
> will get better on that front.)

The availability issues for the Nexus 4 have absolutely nothing to do with the
Christmas rush.

> So don't buy locked down devices. There are unlocked device for sale,

You're missing the two points, which are:

1\. Unlocking the device should be an option for _all_ phones - it's a basic
right of ownership.

2\. It's getting harder and harder to find truly open devices (the Galaxy
Nexus had issues on this front). If things keep heading in this direction,
soon there _won't_ be any unlocked devices for sale.

~~~
sbuk
"1. Unlocking the device should be an option for all phones - it's a basic
right of ownership." If you bought the phone subsidised as part of a contract,
then no. You should be able to unlock the phone when the contract is finished,
but not before as you don't actually own the phone until such a time.

~~~
chimeracoder
> you don't actually own the phone until such a time.

This is simply _not_ true at all, from a legal standpoint.

You're confusing subsidy with ownership - the phone isn't rented; it's
_yours_. You received a discount on the price at the moment of sale because
you agreed to a separate (independent) contract which happens to guarantee
them more money overall, but that doesn't change the fact that you own the
device. If the contract gets broken due to breach of contract, you keep the
phone, because it's your property - they don't take ownership of it again.

More importantly, this discussion is all completely irrelevant, because phone
unlocking has _nothing_ to do with a subsidy - almost all phones are locked,
subsidy or no subsidy.

~~~
sbuk
Read the contract. If you default on payment, the phone _will_ be taken from
you. If, however, you pay for the full cost of the phone off contract, then it
is yours.

------
pestaa
I made a few vague observations based on comments scattered around the web and
this rant just made me want to write them down.

* GNU leadership seemed very stubborn from the beginning.

* GNU software is really great.

* Gnome is the new GNU.

I wish they wouldn't lose more momentum or the wide variety of software they
write and maintain will suffer, too.

~~~
dfc
_"Gnome is the new GNU"_

I have heard this before but never really understood what it was supposed to
convey? Is this statement purely from a technical viewpoint? Has Gnome done a
lot of work with licensing and activism that I have not heard about?

~~~
geofft
GNU is about developing a free distribution. The FSF is about licensing and
activism. They're basically the same organization, but "GNOME is the new GNU"
is a very different claim from "GNOME is the new FSF".

And yes, you _can_ basically get a complete distribution from GNOME these
days, although you're better off going through one of the real distros. And
they are contributing the bulk of technical work for the distribution, such
that GNOME is actually a more meaningful term for it than Linux (which "GNU"
never was).

~~~
dfc
_"And yes, you can basically get a complete distribution from GNOME these
days, although you're better off going through one of the real distros. And
they are contributing the bulk of technical work for the distribution, such
that GNOME is actually a more meaningful term for it than Linux (which "GNU"
never was)."_

Either a "complete distribution" means something different to you or you can't
be serious? I know very little about this "gnome distribution" or the bulk of
the technical efforts that went into it. What version of the kernel is used?
Do they include any distro maintained patches for the kernel or is it pristine
linux-stable? What package management system is gnome using for their
distribution? Is the default compiler in the Gnome distribution llvm or gcc?
How do they handle the installation of ruby gems or python eggs? Upstart,
systemd, or plain old init?

~~~
geofft
<http://www.gnome.org/getting-gnome/>

You can download a thing called GNOME-3.6.0.iso. Package management is
presumably using jhbuild. I don't actually know what the rest of the technical
details are, but it is branded as just GNOME.

------
ilaksh
I believe that MIT/BSD/Apache-style licenses are not only better for business
but also better for developers and better for users than GPL-ish licenses.

If we get to a point where people don't have to make money, then maybe GPLish
will be better.

I think that in a way the GPL and older code bases are just a less evolved and
less practical tradition.

If I'm wrong, please explain to me why I'm wrong, because I would like to
know.

------
vsbuffalo
I really like the elephant and gazelle argument. I am a huge emacs proponent
and I love using it, but I feel like it need to be forked and gutted. The
whole beauty of an extensible editor is that extensions should be optional.
Including more shit each release is not justifiable.

~~~
kindahero
> but I feel like it need to be forked and gutted.

There is Xemacs FYI..

> Including more shit each release is not justifiable.

Maintainers have indeed plans to split the packages out of the core, as the
package manager is already up and running..

------
peripetylabs
Copyright assignment is impractical, and a great way to eliminate outside
contributions to a project.

~~~
nullc
But the polar opposite where companies like qualcomm are aggressively
patenting techniques their employees 'contribute' to LLVM/CLANG with nary a
suggestion of offering licensing that makes it lawful for anyone to use...
thats okay?

What the FSF does has its costs and limitations, but when the mobile patent
war spreads to LLVM and renders it unusable except in the underground and by a
few large patent mongers, we'll be thankful for the FSF's licensing
stewardship on GCC and the rest of the GNU projects.

~~~
DannyBee
LLVM's developer policy requires any developers contributing patented code to
non-assert any patents with that code. This is particularly true if they work
for companies. If you know of places where this is not occurring, or people
are contributing code that is being aggressively patented, _please_ email me
personally and i'll make sure it gets taken care of.

Also note that assignment does not fix anything related to patents. You seem
to be confusing contributor agreements in general with copyright assignments.

------
ohnoohno
My view: sed does not need to be "extended" nor should it require much
maintenance. At least, the BSD sed's I use have not needed much work. I recall
Brian Kernighan mentioning how little maintenance awk has required over the
years. As such, I fail to see why changing maintainers is newsworthy. Perhaps
someone was looking for an excuse to state their opinions on other matters?

I'll be honest I could not understand what Mr Bonzini is trying to say anymore
than I could understand Mr Stallman's antics in the recent YouTube clip. With
all due respect, what are these people on about? What is the problem? Clearly
and succinctly, please.

~~~
bonzini
Just as an example of extending sed, I introduced "sed -i".

Yes, it doesn't require much maintenance, but sometimes you can be surprised.
I started maintaining GNU grep 3 years ago because it was in a really sorry
state. Some parts were almost rewritten to make it faster and more correct.

~~~
ohnoohno
I never use sed -i because I can't rely on that being a standard feature as I
move from system to system. With a utility as basic as sed that is found on
almost every UNIX (and hence often used in a system's startup or configuration
scripts, etc.), I want my own sed scripts to work consistently across all
systems I might use.

If I really want to create temp files I can use ed or use sed with shell
redirection. Were it for some reason a requirement, I can avoid temp files, at
least for the substitution (s) command, as follows:

    
    
      sed -a '"$1"';H;$!d;g;w'$2
      where $1 is some sed s commands and $2 is a file
    

This is not "perfect" as there will blank lines, but it does the job without
temp files (if that were really a concern).

If GNU grep was in need of repair and you fixed it, then I thank you. But I'm
not clear on how that justifies any "extensions" to GNU grep.

Maintenance, at least to me, means fixing things, not extending them and
adding more complexity and things that can potentially break or create
incompatibilities across different UNIX's.

~~~
kroger
Both GNU sed and BSD sed have -i, what other kinds of sed are you using?

~~~
wzm
/usr/bin/sed on Solaris 10 and earlier does not support -i. I don't know if
OpenIndiana / Solaris 11's sed support -i, but OmniOS uses gnu sed by default,
so OI might also.

As I recall, AIX's default sed also does not support -i, but I no longer have
access to AIX systems to test against.

~~~
kroger
Honestly, sed -i is so useful that I'd file a feature request if a sed didn't
support it.

~~~
mitchty
Its easier to just not use sed and use perl -pie instead. Ironically its much
more portable to non gnu systems.

------
nnq
> It is likely not possible to convince a diverse group such as the group of
> GNU maintainers to agree on coding standards for C++

...bluntly asking: why? (In any closed-source C++ project, if someone writes a
"style guide and coding standard" thing and the project manager supports it,
people start writing "compliant" code, grunting or moaning at first but they
do, and then it becomes part of "company culture" and people find it natural
to write code by it - I believe with Google's C++ was like this too... _why
does it has to be harder for an open source project?_ )

~~~
tomprince
That was exactly the point being made. That things like coding standards often
need somebody to make a decision and enforce it, and that RMS didn't do that.

------
piqufoh
If GNU BDFL is not supported by the community, and he wields his power
unwisely, then maybe it is time for a fork - GNOME?

~~~
rwg
Except GNOME is a GNU project (the "G" in "GNOME" used to stand for "GNU").
This point was driven home about three years ago when RMS descended from upon
high to decree that posts mentioning non-free software shouldn't be allowed on
GNOME's blog aggregator, Planet GNOME.

Coincidentally, it was around this time that people started making noise about
splitting GNOME off from GNU...

------
cmccabe
I wonder if his copyright assignment agreement also covered the assignment of
trademarks. The name of the project, which seems to be the thing under
dispute, would certainly fall under that umbrella rather than copyright law.
On the other hand, GNU might have a pretty strong case that including the word
"GNU" in the name without being actually affiliated with them would be
misleading.

I have to say, cases like this really point out the flaws in copyright
assignment. It just doesn't make sense from a developer's perspective. If you
put in the work to create the code, why would you allow someone else to
control the licensing and the name? With proprietary software, the reason is
clear-- in exchange for money. But with open source or free software, you
really have nothing to gain from copyright assignment, and a lot to lose.

If you disagree with whatever the GPLv4 ends up being (or v5, or v6...), your
only option is to fork the codebase and choose a new name. Experience has
shown that renaming the project loses most of the userbase (think OpenOffice
vs. LibreOffice.) This just isn't right. Developers should have a say in how
their code is used-- they _should_ be consulted when the code is going to be
relicensed.

