From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Jul 20 10:42:51 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from smtp01.primenet.com (smtp01.primenet.com [206.165.6.131]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AA8F815347 for ; Tue, 20 Jul 1999 10:42:48 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert@usr02.primenet.com) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp01.primenet.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA01505; Tue, 20 Jul 1999 10:40:20 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr02.primenet.com(206.165.6.202) via SMTP by smtp01.primenet.com, id smtpd001430; Tue Jul 20 10:40:16 1999 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr02.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA09850; Tue, 20 Jul 1999 10:40:15 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199907201740.KAA09850@usr02.primenet.com> Subject: Re: Oh my, penguins are a'comin': DebianBSD To: brett@lariat.org (Brett Glass) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 17:40:15 +0000 (GMT) Cc: regnauld@ftf.net, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.19990720092854.00a91100@localhost> from "Brett Glass" at Jul 20, 99 09:32:54 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org [ ... "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