From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Oct 17 9:25:55 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from ims1.imagestream.com (ims1.imagestream.com [205.159.243.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 08E5637B401; Wed, 17 Oct 2001 09:25:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (dhass@localhost) by ims1.imagestream.com (8.9.3/8.8.7) with SMTP id LAA31166; Wed, 17 Oct 2001 11:19:06 -0500 Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 11:19:06 -0500 (EST) From: Doug Hass To: Ted Mittelstaedt Cc: Leo Bicknell , Jim Bryant , MurrayTaylor , freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RE: FYI In-Reply-To: <009301c15726$797d19a0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > Doug, in the entire history of the FreeBSD project, when given a choice > between a better driver or code that is closed source, and a worse > driver that has open source, the FreeBSD community has never chosen the > driver or code with closed source. In fact I can only remember ONCE > that the Project has recommended against freely available BSD code - and > they did so in favor of GPL code, not closed source code - and this was > for the coprocessor emulator (used for 386 and 486SX chips only) > The only time that FreeBSD gets involved in closed-source code is when > there is simply NO other alternative - like in this case where the > register interface specs are being withheld. We certainly support the right for companies to protect their intellectual property in whatever way they see fit, even if the FreeBSD community does not. The lack of flexibility in accepting various requirements illustrates the difference between an OS WITH legs in the market and one WITHOUT legs. Much to my chagrin, FreeBSD continues to fall more and more into the latter category. Doug To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message