Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 00:32:41 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Greg Lehey" <grog@lemis.com> Cc: "Brian Raynes" <brian_raynes@dnr.state.ak.us>, <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: [dn-core] Re: Perens' "Free Software Leaders Stand Together" Message-ID: <001001c0e1c8$37cc0440$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <20010521103857.H30256@wantadilla.lemis.com>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Greg Lehey >Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2001 6:09 PM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: Brian Raynes; freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: [dn-core] Re: Perens' "Free Software Leaders Stand >Together" > > >[Format recovered--see http://www.lemis.com/email/email-format.html] > >On Friday, 18 May 2001 at 23:12:53 -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: >> On Friday, May 18, 2001 7:17 PM, Brian Raynes wrote: >>> >>> And why would programmers on the GPL side fear the BSD license? Unless >>> I've completely missed something, they could quite easily make use of >>> all the BSD code they like in GPL software. The idea that nothing in >>> the original is lost if someone uses it elsewhere still applies, for >>> both licenses. >> >> Because, IF your desired goal of GPL is to "virally infect" all >> software to force it to be open, then you would rightly fear BSD >> because it's an alternative. > >What does this have to do with reality? Again, it sounds like FUD. > Greg, your just throwing out rediculous statements like this to create your own FUD and to be rediculous. Let me refer you to the following URL: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html And here are some statements from this: "At least one application program is free software today specifically because that was necessary for using Readline." (their definition of "free software" is GPL-licensed software) "This will be a significant advantage for further free software development, and some projects will decide to make software free in order to use these libraries. University projects can easily be influenced; nowadays, as companies begin to consider making software free, even some commercial projects can be influenced in this way" Once again, here the emphasis is on influencing the software to be GPL-licensed. "because we can achieve much more if we stand together. We free software developers should support one another. By releasing libraries that are limited to free software only, we can help..." Once again, his definition of the "free software developers" is very tight. It's defining the GPL-software developers, NOT the BSD license developers. Well, sorry, but I think that the BSD license is really what's all about freedom here, not the GPL. What the GPL is all about is forcing your idea of redistribution into other people's code, that is NOT freedom. Sure, they can choose to NOT use GPL - but like the document says, the aim is to get the GPL software so advanced and functional that even commercial software entities have no competitive choice other than to use GPL code. This is the point that I made earlier, it's the point that the GNU project makes in it's own writings. How many people need to sit here and bash this idea into your head until you get it? >You're about the only person talking about "contamination". I wish >you'd stop. You're just helping polarize the community, something the >rest of us are working against. > People like Bruce Perens are the ones working to polarize the Open Source community by shutting out BSD from press releases and important documents which we should be a part of, as well as by passing themselves off to the (generally ignorant) media as the "Free Software" community, when in reality they are NOT the entire "Free Software" community, just a subgroup. I'm the one jumping up and yelling "bullshit" and calling them out on the carpet over this. Sorry, but the polarization already existed, I'm not the one creating it, I'm just pointing out that it exists. If my bitching about it will make Bruce include BSD people next time, then I will have done far more to unite the Open Source community than anything that it appears that anyone else has done so far. >Let me give a counterexample. This polarization is not to our >advantage. It's not to the GPL community's advantage either. Um, well if that is the case then why didn't Bruce include us? And, frankly if the GPL leaders want to exclude BSD then, actually, it will help us, because it will enable us to independently identify ourselves instead of being labeled as "They are just more of those Linux guys" >About >the only group who could benefit by increased polarization in the >free >software community is Microsoft. Actually, they would benefit more by us being lumped together with Linux. If your engaged in a massive PR campaign against a competitor, like Microsoft is with GPL, then it is in your interest if you are successfully able to propagandize the market that your competitor is just one drop in an ocean of competitors. It makes it easier for the uninformed to simply dismiss Open Source (ie: Linux, get the picture) as just another Microsoft wannabe, that will be taken down eventually by Redmond, the same way that IBM, Novell, Netscape, and all of the rest of the Microsoft competitors have been. The last thing you want to have happen is for the market that your attempting to propagandize to get the idea that you are fighting a tidal wave of a LOT of competitors who have all signed on to the same idea - one that is different than yours. >I note a surprising >Microsoft-centricity in your messages, including typical format >breakage and a lack of trimming which ill befits an author. Are you >maybe working in Microsoft's interests? > Greg, I hate to descend to this muck slinging level, but you started it. In answer to your question: No, and actually if you ever read Chapter 10 in my book which obviously you haven't, you would know I'm completely opposed to Microsoft. Publically. In fact, I made the statement in the Preface: "My goal is to see FreeBSD replace Windows, not coexist with it forever" In Chapter 10, on page 381, I liken Microsoft to the Dark Lord out of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Also, on page 383 when discussing the Anti-Trust trial, I state that Microsoft committed a crime. Note that that trial is still pending - there is not a final finding of criminal activity at this time. That's pretty much going out on a limb, don't you think? Legally Microsoft could sue me to make a retraction. I'll say this: my book stays with me the rest of my life. Do you ever think I'll ever get a job at Microsoft? In contrast, is there anywhere in The Complete FreeBSD where YOU state that Microsoft is inferior and should be replaced, or that the company is criminal, or that it's like Sauron? Hmmm... maybe I should be giving YOU the "working in Microsoft's interests" Senator McCarthy loyalty pledge to sign. Now, do you want to keep slinging muck or can we get back to reasonable discussion? Greg, when Bruce Perens wrote his "stand together" document, he was making a big mistake; it's an egotistical kind of idea that "Hey, I'm so important that Microsoft is actually talking to ME" In reality, Greg Mundie, and Steve Ballmer and the rest of the major Microsoft executives, when they make speeches against Linux and Open Source, they are NOT addressing us, they are addressing all of the Windows administrators who are out there wondering "Gee, what's that Linux stuff all about, maybe I should check into it". Incidentally, this is the SAME market that MY book addresses. What is going on is that Microsoft knows that anyone who has really spent some time trying out FreeBSD, or Linux, or any other Open Source OS, well that administrator is a lost cause. They are never going to get him or her back into the fold. What they want to do is give the admins who have NEVER tried any Open Source some excuses to use to make themselves feel that it's an OK decision to NOT look into Linux or FreeBSD. In short, Microsoft knows that they STILL have 80% buyoff on what they are doing, and they want to keep the 80% from shrinking. They aren't dumb enough to think that they can actually compete directly with Open Source, and grab any of that 20% that is out of the boat. Instead, they just want to keep the 80% that are in the boat, in the boat! If every Open Source project in the world immediately relicensed under GPL, then Microsoft would just say that GPL is a passing fad, and dismiss the entire lot of us. It would make their job so much easier to fight a war against ONE enemy. By contrast, as more and more DIFFERENT groups adopt DIFFERENT licensing, and even stand independent of each other, all under the banner of Open Source, it's much harder to fight something like that. For example, you argue against GPL's intellectual property clause, well guess what, you can't turn right around and at the same time contradict yourself and say that BSD, which has no intellectual property problems, is bad too. But, then if you say BSD is good, and GPL is bad, well by golly guess what - BSD happens to use some GPL in there too (the complier) so what's that all about? It's like building a dam out of sticks. You can get a bunch of sticks and dump them in the river, and the dam will hold even if some sticks have weaknesses. But, if you go and throw a single, big tree into the river to create a dam, if there is ONE weakness in that tree, the dam will break. Bruce Perens and the rest of the signatories see the GPL as the big tree in the river, and they want the rest of us to buy off on this. Well, frankly I don't trust them to fight off Microsoft for us, and I think they have pretty big egos if they think that they can. Besides that, they have made it pretty clear that as long as we subscribe to the BSD license, we are pretty much on our own in a fight with Microsoft. They don't want to come to us, they want us to come to them and the GPL. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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