Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 11:38:09 +0100 From: Nils Holland <nils@tisys.org> To: Jeremy Karlson <karlj000@unbc.ca> Cc: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, Craig Harding <crh@outpost.co.nz>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: GPL nonsense: time to stop Message-ID: <20011219113809.A2730@tisys.org> In-Reply-To: <20011219111842.B2186@tisys.org>; from nils@tisys.org on Wed, Dec 19, 2001 at 11:18:42AM %2B0100 References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011218095233.028ea920@localhost> <Pine.LNX.4.21.0112190048271.29122-100000@ugrad.unbc.ca> <20011219111842.B2186@tisys.org>
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On Wed, Dec 19, 2001 at 11:18:42AM +0100, Nils Holland stood up and spoke: > > This is another issue. In theory, this "work" on re-writing what we already > have, only to make it GPL-free, would probably be much more needed > somewhere else - for example for working on some completely new programs. May I reply to my own message? Ok, well, the stuff mentioned above would indeed have some more weird implcations. Imagine we started to re-write all GPL code currently in use. That would take us, well, let's say a year or two. While the rewrite is in process, there may be some things that users would need much more. Although it isn't true, let's assume that FreeBSD only supported IDE hard disks up to 8.4 GB. Now, this would be something that we'd better get fixed, but as everybody is concentrating in rewriting GPL code, we cannot fix it (replace the hard disk example with anything else that comes to your mind, the effect would be the same). Now, what would happen? Users, who generally care most about the functionality a system has to offer, while BSDL vs. GPL is probably something they don't care about, would leave FreeBSD and go to some other system that does already provide them the functionality they need. After the rewrite, when we can finally look ahead once again, we'd probably have lost a whole bunch of users. Additionally, the FSF guys would probably find us rewriting GPL code very interesting, too! *They* might propagate that not they are the fanatics, but we are, since we basically lock up our project only to get free of any code that is under their license. Practically, FreeBSD is a volunteer driven project. We don't have the resources as big companies do, and therefore, an effort to totally get free of GPL code would indeed be a major waste of resources. What does this tell us? Probably that totally getting rid of GPL code is not practically possible. However, I fully agree with suggestions that say that care must still be taken, in order to prevent the camel / gnu to get into our tent and further than we can possibly stand... Greetings Nils -- Nils Holland Ti Systems - FreeBSD in Tiddische, Germany http://www.tisys.org * nils@tisys.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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