Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 00:57:21 +0200 From: Jeremy Lea <reg@shale.csir.co.za> To: Wilfredo Sanchez <wsanchez@apple.com> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Apple's open source... Message-ID: <19990324005720.N61840@shale.csir.co.za> In-Reply-To: <199903191936.LAA33678@scv4.apple.com>; from Wilfredo Sanchez on Fri, Mar 19, 1999 at 11:37:31AM -0800 References: <199903191936.LAA33678@scv4.apple.com>
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Hi, On Fri, Mar 19, 1999 at 11:37:31AM -0800, Wilfredo Sanchez wrote: > Jeremy Lea <reg@shale.csir.co.za>: > | I'm not one for Brett style advocacy, but this takes the cake. They > | used BSD and CMU licensed software to develop most of the OS, and then > | release it with a big announcement of 'open source' under a more > | restrictive license... > > Actually large parts of what we are redistributing are done so > under the original license. I put the Apple License on anything that > might have code in it which is significantly ours, whether that is > in fact the case or not, because that was to best way for me to get > more code out early. I hope to clean that up some later, when I get > more time to go through things carefully. This makes me a bit happier. I haven't had a chance to look into the code, since when I posted this the site was on it's knees. I can't say that I'm really comfortable with people re-licensing source code, although the BSD licence allows it, I feel that the spirit of the licence is to allow binary re-licensing of closed extensions, but that patches should be released under the original licence. However, your later comments about relaxing the licence go a long way to making me happier. I don't mind you using your licence for your own work. > I don't think we're hiding the fact that BSD provided much of our > code. 4.4BSD is an advertised component of Mac OS X Server. In any > case, the code speaks for itself. It would be nice to get a direct mention of NetBSD and FreeBSD on the main page, since people seeing 4.4BSD wont associate it directly with either product, and people only follow links anyway. > We are trying, by the way, with the advertising clause. The > installation manual for Mac OS X Server (both printed and on-disk) > includes a big list of acknolwegdements for the BSD stuff as well as > every other copyright I could find (just to be fair, even though it's > not required). Keep in mind that it's not a trivial thing to paste > that much spew into every document we produce. This nice to hear. > "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com>: > | If Apple actually contributes code back, I won't actually care so > | much what their PR dept. does or does not acknowledge. It would be > | *very nice* to get public acknowledgement, don't get me wrong, but > | there are all kinds of "technology partners" out there and the ones > | who contribute technical assistance (bug fixes, reports, etc) are > | just as valuable in their own way. > > We'd love to get a better-established relationship with FreeBSD, > as I mentioned before. We really like FreeBSD. We have a nice > arrangement with NetBSD and a really excellent one with the Apache > Group. I think we may want to be more plublic about these things; it > may be good for all involved. I'll see what I can do about that. What's stopping this, and what do you have in mind? From Jordan's message above, you can see that FreeBSD's main concern is code. You mentioned NFS, which is an area where FreeBSD could really do with some help. I'm sure an area of concern to you is also kernel threads. The second concern is licensing. FreeBSD needs to remain free, so that others can use the code in the way you have (and hopefully not release it under YAPL - Yet Another Public Licence :). Lastly comes PR. You need to be sensitive to the fact that FreeBSD is taking a lot of flak from people who want FreeBSD to be as big as Linux, and this is a big PR win for us. With even with one mention of FreeBSD on the web site (although NetBSD deserves a place before us from your comments), we can spin this to gain mind-share. I think what irritated me the most was that Eric Raymond was invited to the launch, and that Linux was given most of the credit in the press - while Eric Raymond subtly slammed us with comments about Linux having a 'better licensing situation and better social organisation'. It would have been really nice to have some BSD people there. How about also putting FreeBSD on that Dell Poweredge on http://www.apple.com/macosx/server/apache.html or did it beat out the Mac... :-P I realise that Apple has it's own PR department, who want to spin this their own way, but this could have been a big chance to put FreeBSD's name in front of the press. Probably would have avoided the bad PR from associating with the FSF and OSI, and their incessant struggles about what's "open source" and "free software". A suggestion: Do you want to regain some PR ground that you've been loosing due to infighting amongst the FSF and OSI? Get a gentleman's agreement about contributing back patches to NetBSD and FreeBSD, and then do a joint press release with Apple, NetBSD and FreeBSD (and OpenBSD?). Announce that Darwin has been welcomed into the BSD family, how the BSD license allows for development of commercial products like MacOS X Server from the source base and how BSD technology provides an excellent base for the development of internet servers. Win, win? Regards, -Jeremy -- | ------------------------------------------------------ --+-- "Maybe tomorrow will be better than today, | or maybe it will not come at all..." - Pam Thum | ------------------------------------------------------ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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