Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 16:13:27 -0800 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Reko Turja <reko.turja@pp.inet.fi> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: OpenWatcom (was Re: GCC as a selling point for FreeBSD? (Not!)) Message-ID: <3E2DE227.4AE34D4E@mindspring.com> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20030119130825.00b21ee0@localhost><4.3.2.7.2.20030119133833.00e422f0@localhost><200301201620.37863.jrhoden@unimelb.edu.au><3E2B89EC.4000107@kanga.org> <xzpd6mqy7br.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> <005801c2c174$05513390$0a06a8c0@reko> <3E2DD631.BAAFC804@mindspring.com> <01b101c2c1a7$4af0a7e0$0a06a8c0@reko>
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Reko Turja wrote: > Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> wrote > > Oversimplified: > > > > 1) Similar to GPL, but... > > License matters aside - I guess that their interest in BSD's isn't a bad > thing in any case. At least my point was the interest from their part. > Watcom is/was a nice compiler anyway ;) We use Watcom at Novell, for developing NLMs. I believe it was also the default compiler on a number of odd systems that people have probably never heard of before, unless they went to school in the late 1970's, early 1980's. I have a lot of respect for the Watcom technology. But they have removed most of the utility, by removing, rather than getting rights grants, all of the Novell and other code copyright other companies (e.g. in order to do compilations for these target systems, you now have to come up with your own header files). I understand this; they are attempting to leverage Open Source dynamics, in order to extend the product lifecycle of a product whose marginal value is about to be exceeded by the cost of maintenance, and they are attempting to leverage the Open Source branding in order to be able to shift costs from corporate communications into maintenance for the product, in order to extend its value as a property. This all makes sense... and they are smart enough that they did not spend more than six months in the foot-shooting that Mozilla engaged in by shipping non-working code: the code works, which removes the incredible barrier to participation that Mozilla was facing wh it was first released: Mozilla's subsidy-cycle was a good three years plus (I have not seen significant activity on the FreeBSD Mozilla list, to which I'm subscribed, for a very long time). Still, it seems to me that they don't understand licensing, and that the issue of participation in Mozilla was not that the license wasn't GPL-like enough, it was that the code did not compile to anthing that would run. Like the original Net/1 and Net/2 releases of BSD UNIX, you got an wet suit with arms, legs, and a head in it (maybe the left hand was missing, too), and SCUBA tanks, when what you were expecting to get was a living diver, not body parts. It took Bill Jolitz making the thing into a bootable system before people started coding on it. A good key to the motivation for participation comes from the damping effect that the AT&T lawsuits and cease-and-desist orders hasd on the various BSD-derived projects. Instead of noting that it happened, ask yourself why a cease-and-desist order was at all meaningful to people who ESR and RMS would have us believe were coding for themselves? It seems to me that the "competition" for talent that Watcom is facing is GCC, and that in order to get people working on their code for them, they need to ensure that their pool of available talent is a superset of the talent available for GCC. And that, sir, is an artifact of the license they are using. Consider it from this point of view: how many people who now work on GCC will be willing to change horses -- effectively, admit that they backed the wrong project -- and learn an entirely new code base, in order to be able to continue to do what they are already doing in the context of their work on GCC? I submit that this will be a small number of people... if any. If people do jump ship, it will be in order to work on something new, or to establis themselves as prinicple contributors (if those roles are not already gone, to Watcom employees, and therefore unavailable). If they are truly interested in BSD as a market, then they have to provide some value, other than "just like GCC, except you lose patent rights, and we can change the license on your code out from under you!". If they were to change the license, such that: 1) It were more similar to the MPL 2) It did not have the section 2.1 limitation on R&D and personal use and/or it was more clear that section 2.2 in fact included the subelements of 2.1, rather than 2.1, itself 3) The license "update" was not mandatory for third party supplied code in a derivative work It would be much more attractive, at least to me. The ultimate question is "what changes would it take to get `The Brett Glass Seal Of Approval'", I think, since anything that could include that would include all points in between. As it is, they are attempting to compete head-to-head with GCC, for the market that GCC has already captured. I don't expect that they will be successful in this. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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