Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 23:12:42 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Robert Marella" <hoe-waa@hawaii.rr.com> Cc: Garance A Drosehn <gad@freebsd.org> Subject: Why in the world you should have a vote: was RE: Please don't change Beastie to another crap logo suchas NetBSD!!! Message-ID: <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNGEFPFAAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <1108160150.45718.5.camel@p4>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> -----Original Message----- > From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Robert Marella > Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 2:16 PM > To: Ted Mittelstaedt > Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Garance A Drosehn > Subject: RE: Please don't change Beastie to another crap logo suchas > NetBSD!!! > > > On Thu, 2005-02-10 at 21:31 -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > > > > What if they put it > > to a vote and the userbase all votes for logos that clearly > > represent the Beastie image? What will have been the point of > > the contest? > > I am a FreeBSD user. I read and sometimes respond to several of the > lists. I have donated money and will continue to donate money > to FreeBSD > no matter what the logo will be. > > I also donate money and volunteer my time to Hospice. I do not get nor > expect to be able to vote on any issues that may arise at a board > meeting for The Hospice of Kona. > > Why in the world should I expect to be able to vote on whether a new > logo is adopted or not? > I will tell you exactly why and it is one of the most exciting reasons to use FreeBSD. With almost ALL OTHER so-called "open source" projects, and this includes Linux, Apple's open source, etc. the source code copyright is held by a company or an individual, not by a non-profit that specifically exists for the purpose of holding the copyright in public trust. The exceptions are, of course, the HANDFUL of GNU utilities (such as gcc) where the copyright was assigned over to the FSF by the authors. Most of this code is also under the GPL, which is a restrictive license, not an open one. Because of this, LOTS of situations exist such as MySQL AB, where the owners of the copyright - in this case Mysql AB - license mysql out to companies. At the same time they issue mysql under the GPL. Of course, as long as they continue feeding the advances that are driven by their commercial customers back into the open source code that is under the GPL, then everything is great for the rest of us. But, NOTHING prevents them from simply NOT doing this. Even the Linux kernel itself remains copyrighted by Linus Torvalds. So what you say, Linus would never do anything to harm Linux so why does this matter? Well, unfortunately the copyright on the Linux kernel is going to supersede Linus's lifespan. His heirs will determine what happens to it. He has shown no interest in donating it to the FSF. So what you say, the GPL-licensed Linux kernel will just immediately fork if his heirs try going after anybody. Yes, that will happen. Then for the next 20 years the heirs will file lawsuits that will make the SCO-suing-IBM lawsuit look like child's play. Imagine how the FUD will affect commercial users. And I'm sorry to say but forking WON'T remove the heir's copyright on Linux - all it will do is make it possible to continue adding new stuff to it. This could potentially happen to ANY GPL software that has a copyright retained by the developer. The GPL has NEVER YET BEEN TESTED IN COURT. The FSF in fact has an entire team of lawyers that specialize in out-of-court settlements SPECIFICALLY TO PREVENT the GPL from EVER being legally tested. So far this HAS worked because all plaintiffs have had their price. But sooner or later a plaintiff will come along that will not give a crap how much money the FSF offers them, they will insist on going to trial and having a judge decide. If the judge then rules the GPL is a pile of dog poop - imagine what will happen. In fact, no less than the FSF themselves, STRONGLY ENCOURAGE anyone licensing their code under GPL to donate the copyright to the FSF simply to avoid this kind of problem. Very few so far have done so. With BSD, the copyrights on it are held by the University of Berkeley and by the FreeBSD Project. The COPYRIGHT, (not the license) is SPECIFICALLY written to PERMIT COMPLETELY UNRESTRICTED USE of the code - with the one exception - that is if you use any BSD code in your product, that YOUR OWN COPYRIGHT MUST mention that some of the code is copyrighted by UCB and the FreeBSD Project. YOU ARE NOT PREVENTED FROM ANY REDISTRIBUTION of the software. Meaning that you can use it and sell it the SAME as if you wrote a product from scratch and sold it. And here is the best part: WHO makes up The FreeBSD Project? Is it the committers? NO Is it UCB? NO Is it any single developer? NO It is EVERYONE WHO CONTRIBUTES ANYTHING TO FREEBSD. You, me, anyone who wants to be involved in the FreeBSD Project, all you need to do is start contributing and YOU ARE IN IT!!! Thus, FREEBSD BELONGS TO YOU!! That's, right YOU!! Your a member of the FreeBSD Project - you are one of the owners of the FreeBSD code. That's it, simple as that. So, of course you should have a vote. Ted
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNGEFPFAAA.tedm>