Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2001 17:47:43 +0100 From: j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: BSD, .Net comments - any reponse to this reasoning? Message-ID: <20010630174743.A85268@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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--1yeeQ81UyVL57Vl7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I'm curious to get some thoughts on this. Just when i am convinced BSD is doing great, i get concerned by material like this. Is this just FUD? It seems the GPL became relevant more than ever with the advent of an everyman's Unix in the face of a dominant, evil software empire. A radical solution for an overwhelming problem. It is being contended that the BSD license is too altruistic, ignoring market motivations and expecting the best when we have seen that most companies do not operate that way. Please, someone give me some sound reasoning that can clear the air of this FUD. Jonathon -- Microsoft complaining about the source license used by Linux is like the event horizon calling the kettle black. --1yeeQ81UyVL57Vl7 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="netstuff.txt" <begin comment> Over and over again it is stated in LT and its readers' comments that Microsoft hates Linux because they cannot misappropriate code protected by the GPL, and they love BSD because they can steal the whole thing and not have to give anybody anything-- BSD is just there for the plucking, like fruit on a wild fruit tree in the forest. A comment was made in today's comments reaffirming the fairly commonly known fact (among the cognoscenti) that the miscreant Gates and friends lifted Basic intact from the public domain, made some changes to it, copyrighted it, started selling it for an outrageous price, and then wrote a disgusting letter to the world's computer hobbyists who shared the the Basic code, decrying the fact that they were stealing Micro Soft's "intellectual property" and must stop at once. Bill Gates was already on his way to becoming the single most disgusting person in the entire world, and now he has arrived, full blown and without shame. He is the personification of greed, and totally devoid of any slightest redeeming human quality. You can be sure-- absolutely sure-- that BSD's days are numbered now that Gates & Company have embraced it. If Microsoft absorbs BSD and releases it to the public as their "open source" product, you can be sure that development on it outside of Redmond will stop dead in its tracks, because no genuine open source developer, including those from BSD itself, who has any intelligence at all, or pride in his work, or sense of fairness, will continue to work on it, knowing that Microsoft's miscreants will steal the fruit of his labor without the slightest qualm of conscience. Once BSD belongs to Microsoft, it will be on a slippery slope to oblivion. Microsoft can take a perfectly good product and, with their onerous licensing schemes, proprietary extensions to the code, and generally evil intentions, ruin it and drive it to extinction. The same will happen to BSD under Microsoft. But such a thing cannot happen to code protected by the GPL, and this is driving Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer absolutely insane as attested to by their recent statements in the press! That is why Microsoft hates Linux: They can't buy it or steal it, and that fact is driving them nuts. They can see that Linux is on the path to making Microsoft redundant. And maybe all of this constitutes some of the reasons why BSD has not been embraced by the business community as widely as Linux. <next comment> Leo - Subject: BSD license is weak for software commons ( Jun 30, 2001, 13:51:44 ) This has been said a million times before. I guess it's time to say it again. BSD license is great for proprietary companies. BSD license would also be good if, and only if, we could honestly say that 99% of all people are good and altruistic. However that is not the case. The reality is different. In the real world you have many companies and powerful individuals that only wait for an opportunity to use something without paying back. I don't think I need to give examples, do I? We all know many such examples. Some of them were mentioned in the talkbacks here. In light of this, the GPL is the *only* license that effectively protects a software commons. GPL license makes it very hard and cost inneficient to produce a proprietary version with locked-in features and customers. GPL license *encourages* developers to contribute to the commons, because they can be safe in the knowledge that their competitor is not easily going to use this against them, nor could a competitor create an incompatible and secret fork (other than for internal use). BSD is great for companies like M$ and Apple, because they can take what they want and give nothing back. They're free to produce proprietary and incompatible extensions. But tell me, WHAT IS THE ECONOMICAL INCENTIVE FOR THEM TO ACTUALLY *CONTRIBUTE* TO BSD, UNDER A BSD LICENSE??? None whatsoever. None at all. None. Nil. Nie, No, Net, Non! They gain *nothing* by releasing their own source code under a BSD license. They can't even use that for creating a de-facto standard, because the commons is not protected, thus the standard is not protected under a BSD license. Now, there are a few exceptions from this rule. One of them, for example, M$ might release some stuff under BSD for political reasons. Not because they actually benefit from this move directly, but because it may piss of GNU/Linux people or something like that. Or maybe just to say, "See, we really do support FreeBSD." But it would be nothing but a loss leader and not any kind of commitment. Nor would M$ really enjoy it, but rather do it out of political necessity, IF AT ALL. And as soon as the political necessity stops, they would stop immediately all BSD code releases, and quickly fork everything into a locked-in, secret, and incompatible version. None of this crap is possible with GPL. I've seen many BSD people post. They strike me as very bright and very altruistic. In fact, they're too altruistic. They're more altruistic and more naive than the GPL people. GPL people are more pragmatic. GPL person would say, "yea, I wanna share, but I am also going to cover my a**, thank you very much." BSD person says, "I share without any strings attached, even if this kills me or does harm in the marketplace...I don't care. I just share, and if someone uses this for ill gain, it's their own problem." I sympathize with BSD people, but I can't agree with their irresponsible sharing. They altruism and trust is misplaced. Just because a thing like apache did not get seriously forked is no indication that it cannot ever happen. Why take risk? Why use the economical lever, when the legal lever is much more direct and more powerful in this case? It beats me. I figure most developers will continue to prefer GPL, because it makes good sense to use it. The OS/app with the most developer mind share will win. The most open OS/app will win. GPL is more open than BSD. GPL code base does not spawn dark shadows and hidden corners around itself. It IS more open. Openness wins. <end comment> --1yeeQ81UyVL57Vl7-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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