From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 5 20:46:08 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D5C4316A417 for ; Fri, 5 Oct 2007 20:46:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [209.31.154.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A140C13C47E for ; Fri, 5 Oct 2007 20:46:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [209.31.154.41]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B3A0D472F9; Fri, 5 Oct 2007 16:46:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007 21:46:07 +0100 (BST) From: Robert Watson X-X-Sender: robert@fledge.watson.org To: d@delphij.net In-Reply-To: <4705CA47.9090101@delphij.net> Message-ID: <20071005214506.X88717@fledge.watson.org> References: <4705CA47.9090101@delphij.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, Aryeh Friedman Subject: Re: viral license free fork of freebsd X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:46:08 -0000 On Thu, 4 Oct 2007, LI Xin wrote: > Aryeh Friedman wrote: >> I am intrested in putting together a version of FreeBSD (at least the >> non-ports portion) that is 100% viral license (gpl and lgpl [not >> techinically viral but I don't trust it]) free... where would be a good >> starting point on this project? > > Set MK_GNU = no, and MK_GNU_SUPPORT = no? > > Well, if you want a moderate amount of work you may want to try replacing > sort(1) with the old BSD one, and optimize it. Also some *roff stuff, etc. > If you are really energyic then you will want to join a project like llvm or > so for a better compiler. > > My opinion is that, while licensing issue is important, but there are a lot > of other factors that must be taken into account. If a new piece of > software has better code quality, better performance, etc., then it would be > a big bonus over "just with a license we liked" :-) Optimizing libc/regex > might be a good start if you want to go this way. It's not clear this is comprehensive, but it may still be useful in discussing replacing GPL'd components with non-GPL'd ones: http://wiki.freebsd.org/ContribSoftware Robert N M Watson Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge