Everyone, including Linus Torvalds, who rejected Stallman as too political or ideological, and advocated for "pragmatism" instead, is part of the reason we're where we are today. And it's going to get a lot worse, before it ever gets better.
Even if we accept your premise, laws don't just appear; they are an organized response to a recognized problem. But everyone has been sleeping on the problem lurking in our infrastructure, undermining any impetus to enact such laws. And the people screaming from the mountain top (like Stallman), trying to raise awareness, were routinely mocked and marginalized by those all too happy to accept convenience and expediency, over more sustainable values.
I wish Linus had adopted GPL v3. He had the power to stop this madness from big tech, but he sided with them. It just reveals that he never fully understood the reason for the existence of GPL in the first place.
> He had the power to stop this madness from big tech, but he sided with them.
He (Torvalds) had no power to do anything and sold out. Even if he did, big tech would just go and use BSD.
For over a decade both Torvalds, and Stallman sold everyone out. They don't make their money directly from "free software" or "open source" in the first place.
Stallman was right in that he knew digital surveillance was going to happen, but he was incorrect in believing that FLOSS was ever sustainable economically and especially with AI replacing the developer and that big tech and startups are weaponising that against them.
Even when Stallman is against AI, he doesn't care. He knows he doesn't make money from "free software"; but only by speaking about it. Torvalds is the same but likes AI.
What do you define as selling out? Having a different perspective from your own? There are many legitimate reasons for why someone can believe the opposing view points. Devolving into us vs them rhetoric is not conducive to a reasonable conversation.
>> They don't make their money directly from "free software" or "open source" in the first place.
>> He (Stallman) knows he doesn't make money from "free software" but only by speaking about it. Torvalds is the same...
My (unanswered) question:
> Can any other developer do exactly that in 2026?
To avoid repeating myself, the point is the majority of these typical developers do not have the level of influence that both Stallman, and Torvalds have to make a lot of money from their open source projects, especially in the age of AI; making it pointless to maintain such projects.
I did read your comment, but making money from speaking about software is not selling out to me. Is that what you meant?
I think open source works best when folks don't expect to make money off of it. I don't think Linus or Stallman expected to make money off of their free software. In some cases you might be lucky and able to get consulting contracts from firms related to your open source code but it's not reasonable to assume that will happen. It's possible it's harder to get lucky today than before but it was always unlikely.
GPL v3 specifically requires the vendor distributing the GPL v3 components to allow the user to change the software on the end user device. This means no more locked bootloader. We would have had choice to install custom Android distributions and thus less Google monopoly.
It was always possible to install Android alternatives, GPLv3 has nothing to do with it. I have nothing against GPLv3 of course, but this is just not true.
Remote attestation is the thing preventing the app from running on your Android alternative, whether it's GPLv3 or not does not matter. GPLv3 does not say "it's illegal to do remote attestation".
