What if the FSF situation is a coup?
7 by harryvederci | 3 comments on Hacker News.
Note: I hope everyone understands this is meant as a thought experiment, not a conspiracy theory. Quote from version 3 of the GPL (https://ift.tt/3fpRrgg > If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Public License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of the GNU General Public License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation. Quote from the anti RMS letter (https://ift.tt/3frims7 > we call for the entire Board of the FSF to step down The latter was signed by a bunch of companies. This reminds me of a story I heard about a communist party in a European country. At some point a vote was held in that party, with the subject: "Should we cancel the party?" Surprisingly, the majority voted for canceling it. It turned out that more than 50% of the members were put there by the secret services for that exact purpose. I never verified the story, but what counts is that it sounds like it could happen in real life. That leads to the question: Theoretically speaking, what would happen if companies got members inside of the FSF, got on the board, and decided to create a new version of the GPL with a super permissive licence? I'm interested mainly in the legal aspects, but feel free to chime if you have an interesting different perspective.