How licensing discussions can tear communities apart

[Rod Whitby]

When I first started the NSLU2-Linux (www.nslu2-linux.org) project 2.5
years ago, I explicitly banned all discussion of licensing on the
mailing list (nslu2-linux is a mixture of mostly GPL and MIT licenses,
but also has some proprietary Intel licensed microcode due to the hardware).

Why did I do that?

Because I saw how devastating licensing discussion wars can be to a
community when I was part of the Linksys WRT54G custom firmware
development community.  There were *death* *threats* made over licensing
disagreements in that community.  Do you really want to repeat that?

I plead with the administrators of this mailing list to put the same ban
in effect here (or for the subscribers to put such a voluntary code of
conduct into effect).  The intended licensing and manifesto of OpenMoko
has been clearly spelled out at the inception of the project.  Let's
leave it at that and not rip this community apart before it has even
properly formed.

-- Rod Whitby
-- NSLU2-Linux Project Lead