The VA Linux / Sourceforge Debacle
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+ Search + “Dachary FSF Europe Sourceforge drifting” to find + https://fsfe.org/news/2001/article2001-10-20-01.en.html & read in + real time.
+— Samuel Clemens (nom de plume: Mark Twain)
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+ Search + “Dachary FSF Europe Sourceforge drifting” to find + https://fsfe.org/news/2001/article2001-10-20-01.en.html & read in + real time.
+I have a keynote about another interesting topic tomorrow: diff --git a/sourceforge-drifting-fsfe.png b/sourceforge-drifting-fsfe.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..66b8b95 Binary files /dev/null and b/sourceforge-drifting-fsfe.png differ diff --git a/what-bkuhn-was-going-to-say.md b/what-bkuhn-was-going-to-say.md index 4276653..921ed9a 100644 --- a/what-bkuhn-was-going-to-say.md +++ b/what-bkuhn-was-going-to-say.md @@ -81,3 +81,58 @@ of the room has their hands up. Note that early on, we said Sourceforge. This is an interesting piece of history that most don't know: [ switch slides ] + +## Sourceforge History: Slide 3 + +Sourceforge is a very interesting case. Most younger developers may not +know that in the late 1990s, Sourceforge (and forge software in general) was +a revolution in FOSS development. Until that time, there were no +websites that provided integrated version control, bug tracking, developer +discussion, and continuing integration. It was a patchwork of systems +before that, and Sourceforge was extremely exiting to lifelong FOSS +developers precisely because the need for better solutions was so great. + +VA Linux initially was a good community actor: they released the entire +codebase of Sourceforge under GPL, and many contributors began to work +upstream on Sourceforge itself. + +During the dot.com boom, VA Linux IPOed under the ticket symbol LNUX. Like +airline scams of the 1920s, where companies named themselves with ticker +symbols that sounded like airlines, many people thought that they were +buying stock in this new operating system they were just hearing about, not +one of many service companies in the space. + +By late 2001, the dot.com boom was over, LNUX stock had tanked, and, as most +FOSS companies do when times are tough, VA Linux ran to the oldest +scam in the software industry: licensing all their software that they could +as proprietary. + +There's a link in the slides to an excellent article at the FSF Europe from +October 2001 (written by Loïc Dachary), that describes VA Linux's behavior. +As Loïc points out in his article, VA Linux did underhanded tactics to +pressure developers to assign copyrights so that VA Linux could relicense +Sourceforge wholly proprietary. + +As a side note, this was one of the catalysts for the creation of the Affero +GPL. In this case, since all the HTML and Javascript files were also GPL'd, +VA Linux needed universal copyright assignment to proceed with a wholly +proprietary product. Ultimately only a few developers like Loïc refused to +assign copyright, but VA Linux as the overwhelming majority copyright holder +simply wrote their changes out of the software, and relicensed. + +We definitely encourage you to read Loïc's essay on FSF Europe's site, +because he makes a truly excellent point: that the Free Software community +could “Fork and ignore”: IOW, take the last GPL'd version that was released +as a gift to the community, and proceed development from there — ignoring +sourceforge entirely. + +There was a somewhat golden period after that from 2001 until about +mid-2004. Sourcforge, quite unsurprisingly, rather quickly switch to an +ad-based system whereby they would show you an add if you wanted to download +a tar.gz file of a project. Developers were truly stuck: SFC's own Inkscape +project spent *years* well into the 2010s trying to fully divorce from +Sourceforge, and ironically, the successor in interest, Sourceforce, Inc., +realized Inkscape downloads were one of their largest downloaded projects, +and constantly pitched us toxic revenue-sharing schemes until Inkscape +finally escaped Sourceforge. +