> > He made assumptions based on partial facts and personal feelings. > > > > He then posted his one-sided view on his public blog, and caused the current > internet > > uproar. > > His opinion wasn't one sided and AFAIK it did reflect accurately what was going on > with the discussion on the list at the time he posted his original statement. > > He didn't know that forcing everyone to relicense their code as BSD or it will be > rewritten went down like a lead balloon.
First of all, he has contributed to a large number of drivers, so his opinion cannot just be ignored when it comes to a change of license of code. But I think he posted his first rant when any treat of BSD-or-remove had already been replaced by a dual licensing proposal, and one of his points was about "commercial potential" of MAME, as if the change of license was targeted to start selling the emulator instead of continuing with source-available project as is now (but he removed his original post before I could read the whole of it, so I cannot state exactly how prominent this was in his argument). Stating that his post did reflect what was going on with the discussion is plain wrong, given that nothing about making the emulator commercial was suggested ever...
He might have not been kept up-to-date with the discussion when he posted, but no one can be really blamed for this: in the end he was the one refusing to re-join the mailing list when asked.