Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 16:21:42 -0400 From: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> To: WWE <wwe@xc.org> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Serious concern about your partner, Prohosters Message-ID: <3CFFC456.4030203@potentialtech.com> References: <007801c20d8f$105fe680$8404000a@bpsi>
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WWE wrote: > I am writing to bring to your attention the actions of your partner, > Prohosters. On their website, they list you prominently as one of their > partners. (http://www.prohosters.com/partners.php) I wonder what their definition of "partner" is? Notice, that they also list Linux, and Microsoft as "partners", while each of those can be considered "competitors" to FreeBSD (depending on how you look at it) Let me give you a little background on what FreeBSD is, so you understand what this is all about. If you're not computer-literate, you may not understand what FreeBSD is by a cursory visit to the web site, here's the layman's term answer: FreeBSD is an alternative to software such as Windows or MacOS. There is no company named "FreeBSD". The software is written by a plethora of volunteer developers worldwide. The software is freely available to anyone who wants to use it. Thus "partner" is a somewhat wrong term for prohosters.com to use, since there's no company to partner with. It's impractical, unfortunately, for members of the FreeBSD project to contact prohosters.com and demand that they remove FreeBSD from their partner's list, since there's really no single person authorized to make such a demand. According to www.netcraft.com, prohosters.com has been using FreeBSD to power their servers for some time. Apparently, they feel this is good reason to list FreeBSD as a "partner", although (as I said before) that term is inaccurate. > On their main page, http://prohosters.com/pearl/ they boldly present the > "snuff film" of reporter Daniel Pearl's murder. They cloak this > indiscretion in language of "First Ammendment rights." Then they point > one to a public letter (http://prohosters.com/pearl/press.htm) in which > they appallingly and sophmorically declare that morality is based on > personal opinion and personal judgement. Would they hold this position > if I "personally" thought that software theft, or theft of service was > "right for me?" Personally, I agree with you. However, there are several thousand developers in the FreeBSD project. Most have considerably more reason to voice their opinion than I, (I haven't contributed very much to the project so far) and I seriously doubt any grand consensus can be reached with regard to this issue. Even if there was, I don't know what (if anything) could be done. I hope you don't, but you may get some flames about this. Understand that free speech is a touchy issue. There are those that believe *any* infringement on the right to free speech will lead to further infringement until there is no free speech left. (It has already happened in other societies) If you get any emails, please realize that when you emailed questions@freebsd.org you emailed several thousand software developers around the world, representing a wide array of legal, social, religious and other backgrounds. You are bound to get all manner of responses. Good luck in you pursuits. -- Bill Moran Potential Technology http://www.potentialtech.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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