Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sat, 24 Feb 2001 14:19:31 -0700
From:      Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>
To:        Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org>
Cc:        Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com>, Dennis Jun <dennisjun@home.com>, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: BSD licence vs GPL
Message-ID:  <3A982563.407C41F2@softweyr.com>
References:  <046d01c09bd0$1e8bdfc0$0300a8c0@wilma> <007101c09be9$04ff4f60$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> <20010221023316.A49953@mollari.cthul.hu>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Kris Kennaway wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 01:31:07AM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> 
> > To give you some examples of why this is so stupid, there have been a number
> > of security vulnerabilities posted in the last couple of years that
> > were repaired in publc BSD code within a day of release of knowledge
> > of the vulnerability, yet commercial software vendors (who purported to
> > be using Real Live BSD networking code) took weeks to issue patches.
> > Well I can tell you, this is a recipie for getting your commercial software
> > ejected from any self-respecting ISP.
> 
> Worse; I have the nasty suspicion that a lot of them NEVER get fixed,
> and lurk around forever letting people who realise this fact take
> advantage of them.  So there's a definite advantage to staying close
> the BSD community, even though the license doesn't require them to.

This fits quite well in Terry's theory of "enlightened self-interest", that
drives companies to contribute their changes back to BSDL projects.  Staying
close to the current releases makes it a lot easier to apply critical fixes
as they become available, just as contributing your own fixes (and additions)
to the system back allows others to maintain them for you.

-- 
            "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"

Wes Peters                                                         Softweyr LLC
wes@softweyr.com                                           http://softweyr.com/

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?3A982563.407C41F2>