I don’t know about you, but the one place not to air your dirty laundry is on the Internet. Unless you just don’t care what anyone thinks. So it was surprising to hear that Linus Torvalds has called those at the Free Software Foundation ‘hypocrites’ for the part they played in introducing the GPLv3 and the problems associated with DRM. Torvalds also indicated that he may stay with the older GLPv2 and not take part in the new licensing scheme.

I guess one could look at this in several different ways. First the part that Microsoft has played in this drama needs to be examined. The first stone thrown is when Microsoft cut a deal with Novell and the Linux community went ballistic. After which Microsoft started to cut deals, or try to cut deals, with other Linux players. Feeling the threat of a Microsoft onslaught, the FSF starting drafting a new license version with the hopes of stopping any further Microsoft deals, or limiting what Microsoft could do.

But maybe that was in fact the plan that Microsoft had all along. Waving the flag of an alleged 235 patents at Linux and FSF and forcing GPLv3 and causing a rift. If this was in fact the case, well it seems to have worked. To bad. This was the Linux communities one shot at securing a place as a viable OS.  All the in fighting is going to do is make businesses pull back in their adoption of Linux, while the Linux community disperses internal FUD of their own.

What do you think? Will this bickering hurt Linux in the long run?
Comments welcome.

[tags]linux, torvalds, fsf, gplv3, microsoft,  [/tags]