On 8/2/05, Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 8/2/05, Michael K. Edwards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I'm just telling you how it looks to me, and pointing you to where I > > got what evidence I have so that you can judge for yourself. The FSF > > is notoriously unforthcoming about their financial dealings, and the > > cash flows involved are not chump change (see the numbers disclosed by > > Jamie Zawinski in the Lucid Emacs saga). Whether or not you think RMS > > and Eben Moglen are cashing in personally (about which I have no > > evidence), if you are willing to take their uncorroborated claims > > about the legal strategy at the heart of their enterprise at face > > value, you are a more trusting man than I. > > This sounds like something appropriate for the scandal column of a > tabloid. But what's the relevance of this issue to debian-legal?
Scandal columns of tabloids don't generally comb the public record for evidence on both sides of an issue, which I am making a sincere effort to do (see the rebuttal I just sent of my own speculations on FSF finances). This private organization and its affiliates are marketing an approach to my career and livelihood, and presumably that of many debian-legal participants, which rests on assertions about the law that my (unqualified but dogged) research says are false. Millions of dollars have passed through the accounts of entities that RMS and Eben Moglen control over the past 15 years -- entities whose entire justification for existence is the promotion of their views on these topics. Debian-legal has generally taken these two people's views at face value, without asking for their basis -- with some pretty serious consequences for projects like KDE and OpenSSL, and for people who might want to bring ISVs onto Debian and Debian-derived platforms. That is of course entirely within their rights; Debian may be content to toe the FSF line with respect to linking relationships whether or not it has any basis in law. But I don't seem to be the only one around here interested in the question of what might underly that agenda and what risks it might expose Debian to down the line. So yes, inquiring minds want to know. - Michael
