Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 11:47:40 +0200 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com>, 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: <20010521114737.C96248@lpt.ens.fr> In-Reply-To: <20010521172345.A30256@wantadilla.lemis.com>; from grog@lemis.com on Mon, May 21, 2001 at 05:23:45PM %2B0930 References: <20010521103857.H30256@wantadilla.lemis.com> <001001c0e1c8$37cc0440$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> <20010521172345.A30256@wantadilla.lemis.com>
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Greg Lehey said on May 21, 2001 at 17:23:45: > >> 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? > > You still don't know? I think I've told you three times. > > Do me a favour, will you? Point us to a photo of you so we can be > sure you're not Brett Glass in disguise. He isn't: Brett's linebreaks occur at the proper places :) Ted's view is not at all uncommon in the BSD world, it seems to me Greg is the exceptional one -- eg see Wes Peters' posting on daily daemonnews, http://daily.daemonnews.org/view_story.php3?story_id=1918 My take on this is: the "free software community" (aka open source community, aka linux community because most linux developers do have that mindset) wants to change the world. The BSD community wants to write good software but is not interested in changing the world. So there's a fundamental difference. This is the context of my earlier remarks on "activism" on issues like DeCSS -- such activism simply does not exist in the BSD world. Ted's entire response to my mail was to justify in detail why there's no point in doing anything. The only worry BSD people ever have is, why aren't people using their system when it's better than linux? Well, it's better, but linux has a different worldview and many people are attracted by that. Another example: Dan Bernstein, the man who (apart from writing qmail, djbdns, etc) sued the US government for the right to post crypto code on the net for educational purposes. His favourite operating system is OpenBSD; he's not known to be a big linux fan. But many in the linux world would consider him part of the "linux community" (which is generally a misnomer for the free software community), because of the things he's done and the software he's written. I don' t think anyone considers him part of the BSD community, least of all the BSD community itself. I don't have a problem with any of this. If the BSD people want to focus on improving their code, well, that indicates focus and commitment, and those are good things. BUT -- if the same BSD people then turn around and complain that Bruce Perens isn't asking them to sign his petition -- *that* I have a problem with. That's hypocrisy. That's wanting things both ways. I'm thinking of expanding these views into a longer article, but thought I'd see how people react... Rahul To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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