Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 01:14:43 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" <dyson@FreeBSD.ORG> To: jack@germanium.xtalwind.net (jack) Cc: shimon@simon-shapiro.org, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Sendmail going commercial, and ? Message-ID: <199803180614.BAA16353@dyson.iquest.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980317231402.3664A-100000@germanium.xtalwind.net> from jack at "Mar 17, 98 11:46:17 pm"
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jack said: > > I don't. Not your post specifically, but the tone of the thread > has been to imply that with the release of a commercial version > sendmail will immediately have to be ripped from the tree in its > entirety. > As a member of -core, (but not officially speaking for -core) I can say that we *like* commercial software. However, we also don't want (and will not allow) a slippery slope to happen such that critical run-time pieces of FreeBSD will become commercially encumbered (such as GPL or worse.) If various components of UNIX clones can be enhanced and commercialized, so that the code is more useful, and people are willing to pay for the enhancements, I cannot see any problem with that. One of the things that makes FreeBSD valuable is that it is relatively unencumbered. The day that FreeBSD becomes significantly encumbered will be the day that I will no longer be able to justify working on it very much. I suspect that most other FreeBSD contributors will agree with me. It would be extremely self-destructive for significant parts of FreeBSD runtime to be encumbered. It just won't happen, or if so, it will likely kill the project. Note that one reason why Kirk's adoption of Ganger + Patt's work got developed (and completed) was because Kirk could justify his effort, by making some money. It would be terribly self destructive if the base FreeBSD system would be so encumbered that projects like Kirk's would never be able to happen. I believe that people like him need to keep the option to be able to profit on their work in various creative ways. So it is important to seperate "add-on's" from the base system. I think that it is cool that people can spend time and money to develop sophisticated add-on's. However, for that to be possible, there has to be a free software base for them to create the add-ons. Eventually, some of the add-on's will become closer to true BSD-free, but that will be after the developers make whatever $$$ they think that they can make. Again, we *must* keep the license(s) for the base system as simple and free as possible. Tricky or confusing licenses scare corporate lawyers (and smart business people) away. The FreeBSD core team can not allow tricky, confusing, or non-BSD-style licenses into the BASE system code. This attitude has nothing to do with philosophy, but mostly has to do with long term survival of the project. -- John | Never try to teach a pig to sing, dyson@freebsd.org | it just makes you look stupid, jdyson@nc.com | and it irritates the pig. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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