Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 23:46:59 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: sos@freebsd.dk Cc: nate@mt.sri.com, tlambert@primenet.com, julian@whistle.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SUID-Directories patch Message-ID: <199711142346.QAA17421@usr06.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <199711140836.JAA01286@sos.freebsd.dk> from "S?ren Schmidt" at Nov 14, 97 09:36:38 am
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> > > One of the main incentives for commercial entities to give code > > > back is offloading of maintenance. You can of course pick and > > > choose what you want to take, but the fix seems generically > > > useful > > > > And is in 3.0-current, but doesn't belong in 2.2. On the flip side, > > just because a commercial entity donates code doesn't mean we should > > take it into the source tree lock/stock/and barrel. > > Exactly. I wont accecpt that YOU guys offloads YOUR maintenance on > our backs, we have had PLENTY of that allready, thankyou... Well, I've already answered this in context of a reply to Nate's message that you quote here. But you are furthering a misunderstanding. The "maintenance" that is being "offloaded" is not the code rot that normally occurs, but the possibility that the FreeBSD code tree will try to implement something similar because of similar (but not identical) needs. One good example is the IP firewall code, for which there were two versions for a long time. Another example (from your own experience) is the syscons/pccons code dichotomy. Many people spent a lot of bandwith beating on Dennis from ET Inc. for *not* donating his commercial code to FreeBSD (the sync serial drivers which could be applied to hardware not sold by Dennis). When a commercial organization donates code, they are "paid" in the FreeBSD code not changing to unusability out from under them. At the same time, FreeBSD is "paid" by getting code written by paid professional programmers that they might not otherwise have gotten. For example, a lot of the work John Dyson has done has been paid for by his employer -- another example is the invaluable work Jordan did as an employee of Walnut Creek CDROM. Both of these were instances of code contributed to the FreeBSD project in avoidance of the effort of tracking and maintaining an interface between an official FreeBSD source tree, and a source tree with commercial components. Linux has the GPL to encourage commercial vendors to donate back; FreeBSD has a lot of hackers pushing fast enough that a commercial vendor might have to spend all his time tracking instead of doing new work, after they've diverged far enough from the main line. Both are incentive. But neither *require* that the party being donated to accept the donation, unless they feel it's generally useful. My post was only intended to argue two points: o First, that we are seeing one of FreeBSD's *only* methods of incentivizing commercial donations in action, and it should be encouraged if at all possible so FreeBSD can point at it and say "see, you don't need GPL for the system to work". This helps FreeBSD's legitimacy, especially when it comes to *excellent* developers, like Larry McVoy, who have been burned by it not working, and have turned to GPL as a refuge more than as a political statement. If the system can work without GPL, then those people who view GPL as a necessary evil will be more likely to dual-license their code. o Second, that I think the change is genuinely useful to some audiences, even if I don't think it's as general as, say, a console driver. For those audiences (Samba and Appletalk server administrators, and perhaps PCNFS server administrators), this helps FreeBSD technically. I *personally* think it's a net win for FreeBSD, whether it helps a particular commercial user or not. If I *personally* thought it was bad for FreeBSD, I'd argue against it... whether it hurt a particular commercial vendor, or not. > Now kill this thread, and get back to work... Happy to... so long as no one yells "300 Joules! ...Clear!" ;-). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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