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Date:      Wed, 18 Apr 2001 08:29:41 +0100
From:      Scott Mitchell <scott.mitchell@mail.com>
To:        John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.ORG>, David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com>
Cc:        freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, mij@osdn.com
Subject:   Re: Windriver, Slackware and FreeBSD
Message-ID:  <20010418082941.16321@localhost>
In-Reply-To: <XFMail.010417190935.jhb@FreeBSD.org>; from John Baldwin on Tue, Apr 17, 2001 at 07:09:35PM -0700
References:  <3ADCF592.8C695855@acuson.com> <XFMail.010417190935.jhb@FreeBSD.org>

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On Tue, Apr 17, 2001 at 07:09:35PM -0700, John Baldwin wrote:
> 
> On 18-Apr-01 David Johnson wrote:
> > It's more than just not liking the GPL. I don't like the GPL. I think it
> > sucks. But mere mentioning of the differences between the BSD and GPL
> > licenses is bizarre. My biggest problem with Windriver's GPL statements
> > is one of attitude. They bought the *rights* to BSD/OS, so they can do
> > whatever they want with it, regardless of its licensing. If they had
> > said "we're going to use FreeBSD because of its licensing", that would
> > have been well and good. But instead they said "we're going to buy the
> > rights to BSD/OS because of its licensing." That just doesn't make
> > sense. BSD/OS is not under the BSD license, and FreeBSD is not up for
> > sale. 
> > 
> > Windriver's actions had nothing at all to do with licensing, but a lot
> > to do with casting fear, uncertaintly and doubt upon their Linux
> > competitors.
> 
> No, that is incorrect.  WindRiver (not WinDriver or Windriver </rant>)
> does plan on using at least some FreeBSD technologies in some shape or
> another.  As they said in their statement, many of the modifications are
> in the kernel, and they don't want to open up the source of VxWorks or
> Tornado to their competitors, so the BSD license is a bit more to their
> liking than the GPL.  Please stop spreading FUD.  There are some other
> issues at hand as well, but suffice it so say that WindRiver is
> legitimately interested in BSD moreso than Linux at least partially due
> to licensing issues.

But WindRiver didn't need to *buy* anything in order to use FreeBSD
technologies in their products.  That's the whole point of the licence,
right?  Like David says, the licencing of the BSD/OS code is irrelevant.

Of course they also bought some key FreeBSD developers as part of the deal,
which will clearly be to their benefit in integrating the BSD technology
with their own stuff.

	Scott

-- 
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Scott Mitchell          | PGP Key ID | "Eagles may soar, but weasels
Cambridge, England      | 0x54B171B9 |  don't get sucked into jet engines"
scott.mitchell@mail.com | 0xAA775B8B |      -- Anon

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