Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 19:46:16 +0100 From: Brad Knowles <blk@skynet.be> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, "Matthew N. Dodd" <winter@jurai.net> Cc: Doug Barton <Doug@gorean.org>, Paul Richards <paul@originative.co.uk>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The Merger, and what will its effects be on committers? Message-ID: <v04220808b4f2e572befc@[195.238.24.123]> In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20000313110822.03d71ee0@localhost> References: <4.2.2.20000313103859.0410fe30@localhost> <4.2.2.20000313110822.03d71ee0@localhost>
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At 11:18 AM -0700 2000/3/13, Brett Glass wrote: > Part of the BSD philosophy is that anyone should be able to take >the project's > IP and use it for any purpose. Code, yes. IP, no. If they allowed you to take any of their IP and use it for whatever you want, then it would be in the "public domain", and there would be no such thing as a BSD license. I think you've just demonstrated your fundamental lack of grasp on the issue. > I don't want to hurt FreeBSD. If I ship a product which doesn't have the > FreeBSD name on it, it will hurt FreeBSD and in fact all of the BSDs > by giving the Linux zealots the opportunity to claim that the BSDs are > fragmenting rather than consolidating. I don't think there's anything you need to worry about here. The members of the FreeBSD Core Team and the FreeBSD Foundation won't lose any sleep at night because you are not allowed to call your product "Brett's x86-only no-EIDE/ATA laptop-specific customized FreeBSD", or whatever the heck it is you want to call it. The people at BSD, Inc. are going to be the ones concerned with the image of the BSD family as a whole, and I'm sure that they'll give you all the help they can. However, BSD, Inc != FreeBSD Core Team/FreeBSD Foundation, and they may well do things that you might otherwise think seem to be at odds with each other. > There's also a fundamental issue of fairness which needs to be resolved > here. If Walnut Creek is allowed to ship products and packages which bear > the name FreeBSD and which include enhancements and additions to the > FreeBSD project's output (including whole CD-ROMs of third party software!), > I (or anyone else) should be able to do so as well. I don't think there is a fairness issue here at all. The FreeBSD Core Team (and the FreeBSD Foundation, once it has been created) can do whatever the heck they want with the FreeBSD trademark, and there's little you or I or anyone else can say about it. Myself, I think there *is* a "sour grapes" issue here. You want to ride on their coat-tails and get the benefit of associating your product (over which the FreeBSD Core Team and FreeBSD Foundation have no control) with their name (which they are required by law to protect, lest it be released into the public domain). Besides, Jordan has already said that you can produce something that has the FreeBSD name on it, so long as it includes everything on the FreeBSD CD-ROMs. So, take the four ISO images he creates and then add whatever additional content you want on the additional CD-ROMs you will bundle. Create your own "Brett's FreeBSD Power Pak" (or whatever the heck you want to call it) and stop moaning about not being allowed to ship something with the FreeBSD name on it that does not include all the standard stuff according to the ISO images generated by Jordan. -- These are my opinions -- not to be taken as official Skynet policy ====================================================================== Brad Knowles, <blk@skynet.be> || Belgacom Skynet SA/NV Systems Architect, Mail/News/FTP/Proxy Admin || Rue Colonel Bourg, 124 Phone/Fax: +32-2-706.13.11/12.49 || B-1140 Brussels http://www.skynet.be || Belgium To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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