Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 17:40:15 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: brett@lariat.org (Brett Glass) Cc: regnauld@ftf.net, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Oh my, penguins are a'comin': DebianBSD Message-ID: <199907201740.KAA09850@usr02.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.19990720092854.00a91100@localhost> from "Brett Glass" at Jul 20, 99 09:32:54 am
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
[ ... "DebianBSD" ... ]
> This has been talked about many times before, and -- yes -- it is
> a real danger. The best way to nip such things in the bud is to
> make FreeBSD development more open (the circle of developers
> currently works and acts too much like a secret cabal),
> become more evangelical and inclusive, and get more third-party
> software support. Then, FreeBSD as an effort would *recruit* the
> people who are interested in it rather than merely arousing their
> interest but leaving them in the Linux camp.
IMO, if you are going to talk the talk, be prepared to walk the walk.
The idea of a DebianBSD, so long as they are respective of the
copyright and license issues when choosing an agregate license,
is not, in itself, a bad thing.
Specifically, the people who develope FreeBSD have chosen their
license to _specifically_ allow people to take the code, and,
with due credit, if specific features or software packages are
mentioned in advertising materials, and suitable credit lists
in the documentation in any case (how many Linux distributions
fail to mention Linus Torvalds in the documentation?), do whatever
the hell they want with the code.
Like TCP/IP, which gained widespread acceptance because it was
(1) available in source form, and (2) licensed to allow commercial
"exploitation", a strategic technology is no use as a foundation
for other technology, strategic or otherwise, unless there is
universal adoption.
This is what is so ironic about Sun's Java, JINI, and HP's JetSend
technologies -- they are in the role of an SPX/IPX, with license
fees required to even play in the game. In other words, they
are engaging in a self-defeating behaviour.
People should ask themselves why they participate in FreeBSD at
all. If their answer doesn't include "to raise the baseline for
everyone, commercial and non-commercial alike, and advance the
state of the art", then perhaps they would be better off on a
project with an Artistic or GPL based licensing.
The entire point of a UCB style license is that you raise the
bar at the same time you level the playing field.
You will still get resistance from commercial companies, where
this means that they can't sit on their laurels and profit-take
as much as they would perhaps prefer to do. My answer to this
is "tough; lead, follow, or get the hell out of our way".
I think that this whole idea has been somehow lost, or sublimated,
by both advocacy ("mine is best") and inertia ("we can't integrate
that fast").
Instead, advocacy should be "mine is best; here, take it and use
it as your own", and policy should be "we can't integrate that
fast; here, let us give you a branch, change the tools we are
using so that it isn't a barrier to you, or, worst case, let us
get the hell out of your way".
I fully support getting the best bits to the most people, and I
don't give a damn who pushes those bits under what cover, so
long as the chosen cover doesn't reduce the possible total we
can count when we say "the most people" (e.g. "but not you, Bob;
you're an evil capitalist, and we hate you").
Terry Lambert
terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199907201740.KAA09850>