Put it in laymen's terms

[Seth David Schoen]

bruce at perens.com writes:

> Don't be silly. I bet you can't get one kernel developer to assert that they
> didn't accept Linus' modification to the license before they contributed
> source code. If any did, Linus would simply cut their code back out of the
> kernel.

The point is that the developers have full authority to do so, whereas
in other circumstances one can't simply "withdraw" a published GPLed
contribution.  (In particular, the developers can point out that, by
releasing the original kernel under the GPL, Linus gave anyone the right
to make and distribute a derived work, if they so chose, under the GNU GPL
-- not the Linus GPL.  Linus does not automatically have the right to
change the license on _their_ code, any more than an original developer
under the GPL has a right in any other circumstance to dual-license
third-party contributions which were themselves under the GPL.)

_All_ a developer needs to do to assert this right is to note that his or
her Linux kernel patch is licensed under the GNU GPL, and that he or she
does not accept Linus's personal interpretation of the application of
the GPL to a kernel, and does not necessarily intend to be bound by that
interpretation.

We need to hope for a few things:

(1) Good will on the part of kernel contributors -- that not only will
they not knowingly submit harmful patches which break things or reduce
functionality, but also that they won't be legal troublemakers, or
that the legal controversies they raise will be "for the sake of
heaven".

(2) Clearer language and definitions to cover obscure situations in future
versions of the GPL.  While the GPL is among the best-written free software
licenses, obscure situations continue to emerge, and the interpretation of
the GPL becomes difficult.

(3) Maybe some kind of explicit agreement by people who want to submit kernel
patches _to Linus_ that they agree with him about a couple of fundamental
points (while, of course, others can distribute patches or fork the code if
they like).

The first two definitely matter; the third is just a possibility.

-- 
                    Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org>
      They said look at the light we're giving you,  /  And the darkness
      that we're saving you from.   -- Dar Williams, "The Great Unknown"
  http://ishmael.geecs.org/~sigma/  (personal)  http://www.loyalty.org/  (CAF)