Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 22:06:36 -0600 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Revisionism Message-ID: <394461CC.AEC1E4C2@softweyr.com> References: <394337DA.6F05BA42@softweyr.com> <20000611135830.C79101@physics.iisc.ernet.in>
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Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > > Wes Peters said on Jun 11, 2000 at 00:55:22: > > Mr. Vereen, > > > > I am writing you directly because neither the print version nor the > > on-line version of your magazine, Embedded Systems Programming, > > includes information on who to contact for errors and omissions. I am > > writing about Mr. Alexander Wolfe's article, "Alliances Drive Embedded > > Linux Toward Prime Time" in Vol. 13 no. 6, June 2000. > > Do you have a URL? http://www.embedded.com/internet/0006/0006ia1.htm > > While generally factual and well written, Mr. Wolfe repeats a bit of > > revisionism that I must ask you to correct. In the article he writes > > > > And because Linux is "open source" -- a concept pioneered by > > the Cambridge, MA Free Software Foundation... > > > > This is patently untrue. Both the UNIX /usr/group and the Berkeley > > Software Distributions existed for many years before the FSF and the > > Gnu Project were created. Richard M. Stallman did NOT create the > > concept of open source software, his "innovation" was to use the > > distribution of open source software to advance his political agenda. > > Please clarify this situation for your readers. > > True enough if you define "open source" simply as "having access to > source code". However, you should note that that's not how Stallman > or the open source initiative define it If you visit the Open Source Initiative on the web, you will find that code under the Berkeley license *does* fit the open source definition. > and moreover Stallman refuses > to use the term "open source" for the FSF's software. Stallman refuses to do a lot of things, and wants to force you to join him. > Stallman's aim > at that time was to have a complete free (as defined by him) operating > system, and BSD was not a complete operating system by itself; When "pioneered", as Mr. Wolfe wrote, the entirety of the Gnu Project was Emacs. Much of the software on the early BSD tapes had NO AT&T content, and was ported to systems other than UNIX. Ports of termcap and vi were available on systems like CP/M before Emacs crawled out of Massachussetts. > moreover, I've heard you needed an AT&T license to use most BSD code > at all. There certainly was other free software around (apart from > BSD, there was TeX, X etc) but I don't think your suggested > clarification is any better than the original. You're making the same timeline mistakes Mr. Wolfe is perpetuating. TeX and X11 were not contemporaries of the early BSD distributions, they happened nearly a decade later. According to the FSF web page, the FSF was created in 1984, 8 years after the beginning of the CSRG at UC Berkeley. > > And perhaps while we're at it, Mr. Wolfe can clarify what the vendor > > of that internet radio is supposed to do when the user upgrades it to > > kernel 2.4.33 and glibc 6.1.43 and it no longer works? > > A valid point but I think these things can be much better expressed, > this sort of language would just tend to irritate a linux user rather > than spark any curiosity about BSD. Maybe the article provoked it, > but many linux people seem basically friendly towards the BSD's and > there's no need to sound so hostile. Besides, I don't think the > implication (that upgradation problems necessarily occur with linux > but cannot occur with BSD) is accurate, it's just that such problems > tend to be less common and less severe with BSD. The point is the Berkeley license allows vendors to make binary only distributions, which completely obviate this problem. The GPL does not. It is completely unsuitable for most embedded products for that reason. > On a related topic, sometime back I'd suggested writing an advocacy > howto similar to the one already available for linux users, and had > received a reply from Chris Coleman suggesting that I go ahead. I > wrote to the linux howto author, Paul Rodgers, and got a reply > (somewhat late) telling me that I am welcome to use parts of his > document, and he himself is thinking of including the BSD's in the > next version of his howto. I'm a bit busy at present, but I'll do > this as soon as I can. Thanks for your contributions. -- "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
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