Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 14:41:21 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: "Opposing" the "competition" (was: FreeBSD spokesman (was: So what happens to FreeBSD now?)) Message-ID: <15172.49889.276007.445342@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010705125524.04502690@localhost> References: <Pine.GSO.4.21.0107031644410.16320-100000@z.glue.umd.edu> <20010703134058.A9446@mooseriver.com> <4.3.2.7.2.20010705125524.04502690@localhost>
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Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> types: > At 11:41 AM 7/5/2001, Greg Lehey wrote: > >Guys, when will you learn that times change? GNU isn't our > >competition, it's part of our cultural space. > > Absolutely incorrect. The GPL is an attempt to TURN freely > redistributable, peer-reviewed code -- such as the BSDs -- > into a weapon against the interests of commercial programmers > and programmers' livelihoods in general. It is not a proper > part of the BSDs' "cultural space" (as you put it) but rather > an invasion of that space. Advocacy of BSD demands that this > be pointed out. If the goal is to advance the FreeBSD license, that's certainly an excellent idea. If the goal is to kill the FreeBSD project, it's also a pretty good idea. One of the good things about FreeBSD is that it plays well with others. The license means that the code can be used in a wide range of situations, and the people working on the project are amenable to solutions from lots of other places. That's been one of the strengths since the CSRG days. As for the "culture", anyone who thinks the GPL introduced something new to the open source or free software culture doesn't know the history of such (which may explain the repetitive nature of their discourse :-). Before the GPL, a lot of free software published as source included a license that was clearly intended to prevent commercial use. All the GPL did was give those people a single banner. People who were ignoring the authors intent and taking advantage of authors who failed to express their intent with the proper legal language are the only losers. Anyone championing authors rights who doesn't see this as a good thing isn't really a champion of authors rights. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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