Microsoft-Novell izdivaç töreni yüzgörümlüğünün (348 Mio ABD Doları) ödenmesi ile nihayetlendi… Onlar ermiş muradına, biz çıkalım kerevetine!

Sevgili Gürersan “Sen de iyice kes-yapıştır blogcularına döndün ha!” diyecek ya, pek çok sıfatının yanında DBus ana geliştiricisi olarak tanıtılabilecek Havoc Pennington‘un günlüğünden şu paragrafları almadan edemedim, özgür-sahipli-ticari yazılım bağlamında duruşunu pek de güzel koymuş ortaya:

Just to be clear on one thing. I’m not against proprietary software on moral grounds. I use a fair bit of it for various reasons, though I’m also a huge open source fan and think open source’s practical and social benefits are unquestionable.

If any company wants to write and sell proprietary software, then great for them – open source can compete on the merits. I would also work on proprietary software and be OK with it, though in practice I’ve never had a job doing so.

This is not a religious argument about open source, it’s a matter of respect for a community that works together, and the wishes of creators. If I write something and put it under the GPL, then I want it under the GPL where all of us working on it can use it. I don’t want it to be made proprietary, for someone else’s benefit, due to some shady deal and legal technicality. Commercial yes (and encouraged), proprietary no.

In Novell’s world, if I write something and GPL it, Novell will try to convince customers to buy support from Novell instead of from me (the original author) because of some nebulous, unspecified, almost-certainly-bullshit “IP issues” hinted at by Microsoft and legitimized by Novell for the price of $348 million.

Dibine kadar hemfikir olduğum laflar…

Sevgili Ali Erdinç’in hatırı kalmasın, şu sırada arkada Buddy Guy‘dan Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues çalıyor…