From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jun 26 04:03:27 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 999A937B401 for ; Thu, 26 Jun 2003 04:03:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hannibal.servitor.co.uk (hannibal.servitor.co.uk [195.188.15.48]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 84DA744047 for ; Thu, 26 Jun 2003 04:03:26 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from paul@hannibal.servitor.co.uk) Received: from paul by hannibal.servitor.co.uk with local (Exim 4.14) id 19VUXR-000Epp-19; Thu, 26 Jun 2003 12:03:37 +0100 Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 12:03:37 +0100 From: Paul Robinson To: The Hermit Hacker Message-ID: <20030626110336.GW34365@iconoplex.co.uk> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20030625214311.00e5e240@localhost> <20030626010357.J508@hub.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20030626010357.J508@hub.org> Sender: Paul Robinson cc: FreeBSD Chat cc: Michael Carr Subject: Re: RMS says: "Use BSD, for goodness sake!" X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 11:03:27 -0000 On Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 01:07:39AM -0300, The Hermit Hacker wrote: > # grep GPL */* | awk -F\/ '{print $1}' | sort -u If we take the output of that, and also mix in the stuff in /usr/src/gnu then we get the list (and my rough, top of the head, first stab on whether they're needed and/or can be reimplemented) below of around 35 (there is some duplication) packages that would need to be re-implemented, replaced or removed for FBSD to be GPL free. as - could be replaced, maybe even re-implmented. awk - encourage people to port their code away from awk. Big. bc - an undergrad could re-implement based on man page binutils - collection of some 20 smallish apps, all manageable bzip2 - could be reimplemented cc - find an alternative compiler? From where? cpio - reimplement from man page, or replace/remove requirement for cvs - Don't need this do we? :-) look at another version control? dc - see bc dialog - need it now, kill it later, or re-implement based on man page diff - another undergrad project diff3 - see diff gcc - hahahaha. yeah, right. see "cc". gdb - ditto. gperf - remove? teach people better DS&A? :-) grep - the issue here is the regexp, otherwise re-implement. groff - look at alternate doc formatting? gzip - nasty, but re-implementable. Or we move to a non-GNU zip format. ipfilter - unclear on license... QNX_OCL.txt??? less - re-implementable quite quickly ld - similar issues to cc and as - quite small though. libgmp - alternatives available, with a performance hit libio - another stdio lib from somewhere to replace it? libpam - Linux PAM. Major effort to replace. libreadline - big one to replace, IMHO man - could be re-implemented based on file format information known ncurses - big, high-impact, hard to replace patch - see diff perl - it's not part of base anymore is it? If people want it, they grab it ptx - remove/replace/re-implement. Probably the former. rcs - remove and make an optional package? sdiff - see diff/patch send-pr - remove! OK, re-implement, if you must. :-) sort - another undergrad project based on the man page tar - find alternative, or re-implement tcpdump - remove from base? texinfo - find alternative, or remove from base There's actually quite a few there that could be removed out to optional packages or ports. Some of it though - like the compiler - just has to stay unless an alternative is found. The ones that could be taken out straight away without much impact (I think!) are bc/dc, gperf, groff, ipfilter, libgmp (maybe?), libpam, perl, ptx, rcs and texinfo. That would bring us down to around two dozen GNU apps distributed with FBSD, and 10 of those could be re-written to be command line compatible but under BSD license quite quickly. Thoughts? -- Paul Robinson