[vlc-devel] FSF position on GPLv2 & current App Store terms

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

On Tue, 2 Nov 2010 15:21:49 +0100, Jean-Baptiste Kempf <jb at videolan.org>
wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 02, 2010 at 12:17:23AM -0400, Brett Smith wrote :
>> That's all I'm here to do: point out the facts and explain the FSF's
>> analysis.
> 
> I am not going to answer to this analysis now, but will make a point
> that I hope you will understand in a simple way.
> 
> THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE CORRECTNESS OR NOT OF YOUR ANALYSIS.
> THIS IS ABOUT YOUR ATTITUDE.

His attitude was not nice. I certainly did not appreciate my position being
misrepresented to serve the political agenda of the FSF. However, I am
sorry to say that you are the one spreading animosity in this thread.

> Your methods and attitudes are not polite, but they are destructive and
> dishonnest.

Fair, but so is your attitude.
(Disclaimer: yes, I know _I_ am the most impolite regular on this mailing
list)

> With 'friends' like you, we don't need any ennemies.
> If I understand correctly, the FSF new policy is to blow up communities?
> With those attitudes, do not wonder why people are moving away from Open
> Source development and from the GPL licences...
> https://www.ohloh.net/languages/compare?measure=loc_changed

Sorry but that is totally gratuitous and off-topic.

> * Publicizing the issue to fit YOUR political agenda, without asking if
> that was OK, _while_ the issue was being investigated, was not polite in
> any way. Your analysis on this mailing list should have came BEFORE your
> blog post.

Again, I would be morally entitled to say that.
And given how much promotion you've given to MobileVLC via Twitter and the
website before the so-called investigation, I find this statement is
horrendously hypocritical.

> * Blowing away all the PR work of the VideoLAN project seems fine for
you?

And blowing away the development on MobileVLC seems fine for me? That is
backward.

You decided to provide plenty of PR for MobileVLC, even though you stated
that this was a "gray area". You decided to take the risks anyway. I have
already stated that I can understand why you did so. But please don't blame
other people for what ultimately was consequence of your own actions.

> Of course, you don't care, this is your job. Will you now do the work I
> am doing on the VideoLAN project for free?
> This volunteer job includes so many things to do that I won't list them
> here, but believe me, they take at least 25hours a week (without coding).
> You still wonder why more than half of the open source community hates
> the FSF? I don't anymore.

FSF might not know, but VideoLAN developers do know and I think we are all
thankful for your selfless efforts. But please cool down.

> * About the dishonesty of your analysis. In your blog post, you refer to
> the Gnu GO case (that was refered to in the first analysis of Rémi,
> that originated the complaint, but that is irrelevant here), which is
> totally irrelevant on the case here, since Apple changed its license.

I am not sure that is fair criticism. FSF says that GNU Go was pulled out
through "a similar enforcement action against Apple", which is true. A
license change makes no difference. In both cases, they were copyright
enforcement actions.

> Not to mention that the title is just misleading ('takes a stand against
> DRM'). The complaint does not speak of DRM in any way.

I agree, and indeed I was similarly annoyed. But please don't flame the FSF
on a public mailing on _my_ behalf for VLC's sake!

> Moreover, in your post, you don't even speak about the relationship
> between VLC, VideoLAN and Applidium, making it confusing enough that
> all journalists and communities attack VideoLAN.

I have to agree, although it is probably partly my fault and I accept that
blame.

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
http://www.remlab.net
http://fi.linkedin.com/in/remidenis