From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Dec 24 07:07:15 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 046FA16A4CE for ; Fri, 24 Dec 2004 07:07:15 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.192.90]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4EAF743D46 for ; Fri, 24 Dec 2004 07:07:14 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) Received: from tedwin2k (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.197.130]) iBO77Bv63337; Thu, 23 Dec 2004 23:07:11 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 23:07:10 -0800 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <200412231732.12666.jaymo@cromagnon.cullmail.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441 Importance: Normal cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: The FreeBSD Foundation X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 07:07:15 -0000 > -----Original Message----- > From: Jay Moore [mailto:jaymo@cromagnon.cullmail.com] > Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 3:32 PM > To: Ted Mittelstaedt > Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > Subject: Re: The FreeBSD Foundation > > > > Yes - I buy from FreeBSD mall which I thought was run by Walnut > Creek. I've > had this subscription since 3.0 or 3.1... the cd's keep coming. > I'd say if > the new owners aren't giving the project the same cut as the > previous owners, > then maybe consider doing something else??? > The story here actually begins back in 1978 when 1BSD was created by UCB's CSRG as a fork of UNIX6. The BSD project continued at UCB for another 10 years. Towards the end of the project the maintainers saw the need to detoxify the open BSD code from AT&T's copyrighted UNIX source, and began an effort to do this. This effort completed with several things as a result - the release of the Net/2 tape, and the collapse of the CSRG. The primary movers and shakers at CSRG went on to become employees at a new startup company named BSDI which began marketing the Net/2 tape - except for one person, William Jolitz, who was opposed to this. William then commenced a project to port Net/2 to the Intel 80386 which resulted in the creation of 386BSD. By 1992 we had 2 parallel releases of BSD, one - the commercial one - by BSDI, the other, the free one 386BSD - by Jolitz. Unfortunately Jolitz had a different vision of the future of the free BSD release 386BSD. He broke with the community and the 386BSD release became impossible to work with. This resulted in the fork of 386BSD into 2 children - NetBSD and FreeBSD in 1993. NetBSD's charter was all BSD on all non-Intel platforms, FreeBSD's charter was only Intel platforms. This is when Walnut Creek CDROM came into the picture. W.C. had been founded by Bob Bruce who grew it through the 1990s. WC bought completely into FreeBSD, providing the build and hosting servers, and financial assistance to several developers. FreeBSD became Walnut Creek's flagship product and they eventually ran all their own servers on it. In it's heyday, ftp.cdrom.com became the single busiest and most powerful uniprocessor server on the Internet. While all this was going on, Keith Peterson created the Simtel archive on the Army's computers and later moved it to simtel.net which he retained rights to. Keith entered into a deal with Coast to Coast Telecommunications to host the Simtel.net archive. In December 1995, Keith had a falling out with CCT and was basically locked out of his server and collection by CCT. Keith then moved simtel.net and the original 1993 Simtel collection from the old Army computers (which he had archived) to Walnut Creek, later Walnut Creek obtained rights to the SimTel trademark from Keith. Over time they rebuilt the Simtel archive and ended up surpassing the CCT simtel collection. Eventually CCT's rights to use the Simtel trademark expired and they went away. The interesting details of this fight are here: http://www.softouch.on.ca/rc/simtel1.htm In the late 90's Bob Bruce saw that as DSL and larger hard disks came into vogue that the revenue from Walnut Creek/Simtel would diminish. By then the Simtel archive was eclipsing the FreeBSD distribution in commercial value. Bob began to take steps to separate the FreeBSD revenue stream from Simtel by creating freebsdmall.com In October 1999 Bob sold the entire Simtel archive and rights to Digital River for 4 million dollars in cash and stocks. Digital River then proceeded to build simtel.net into what it is today. In 2000, BSDI came back into the picture and purchased freebsdmall.com and the FreeBSD distribution CD business from Bob and cashed him out. In 2001, Wind River acquired BSDI from it's founders - ie: Marshall Kirk McKusick and cashed them out. It is interesting to note that Wind River is a major military supplier - and DARPA was the principle funder and motivator of the BSD project at UCB in the 80's. There have been many closed circles in BSD. ;-) In 2002 Wind River decided to stop selling the commercial BSDI distribution and they spun off everything having to do with FreeBSD including freebsdmall.com. Bob Bruce came back into the picture again and picked up freebsdmall.com which he currently owns and operates today. Wind River still has the BSDI copyright and presumably is using the commercial code in some product or other of theirs. In any case the BSDI fork of the Net/2 tape has pretty much died, as all the principle BSD developers have quit or been fired from Wind River, and from what I understand, many have gone to Apple Computer and are running the Darwin project, which is based on FreeBSD 3.2 (and NeXT) Darwin as everyone knows, is used as the base for MacOS X. Today, 'Walnut Creek' as far as I can tell remains a trademark of Digital River, who is not using it nor is using it's domain. It is pretty much a dead brand. I don't think that at this time that Digital River is contributing anything to any BSD. FreeBSDmall.com is a shadow of what Walnut Creek was in WC's heyday, and it is not hosting the FreeBSD Project servers. The FreeBSD project's servers went off elsewhere when Wind River acquired BSDI. Because of this it isn't reasonable to expect the same level of support from freebsdmall.com as happened in the past. And in any case, it's not needed now anyway. In the long view it is actually much better to have the support for the FreeBSD Project hosting, servers, and development staff support spread around much more widely instead of having the burden fall on one single organization as it did 10 years ago on Walnut Creek. If BSDI had remained a viable entity by itself and Wind River had never been in the picture, and the FreeBSD Project would have maintained the same dependency on BSDI, it would by now have seriously compromised the independent nature of the FreeBSD Project. After the BSDI acquisition of FreeBSD distribution from Walnut Creek, Marshall announced the codebase of FreeBSD and BSDI would be merged (this ended up never happening) and if that had happened, we could have ended up with another copyright dispute over copyrighted BSDI code in FreeBSD which would have poisoned the distribution's useability to commercial organizations. > > Now, as for the Foundation's status as a charity: > > > > I'll start with asking you a simple question: Setting aside the > > legal definitions, what in your mind IS a charity, exactly? > > Hey look - I don't need a lecture about charity, and I'm not > disputing that > the foundation is "legally" classified as a charity. I never said that you were disputing the legal definition. But clearly you are disputing the idea that it is a charity. > In my mind, I would > consider it more like a not-for-profit organization; charities are > organizations that help the needy - people who can't help themselves. > Well, that is why I made the Robin Hood remark. I will point out that the FreeBSD Foundation in fact uses the actual term "public charity" on their website. And certainly the Foundation doesen't attempt to pass itself off as using the money to help the poor. I am aware that many people don't view a charity as anything more than a needy-person-helping apparatus. However I urge you to examine your view of the idea of 'need' There are many people out there also who feel that much of the 'need' served by charities isn't really need it is choice. Many people are incensed that some charities feed alcoholic bums that spend their nights sleeping in the streets. Many would weigh the 'need' of FreeBSD to have a good Java implementation against the 'need' of an alcoholic to continue to be fed day after day without quitting drinking, and feel that the FreeBSD need was greater. > And by the way - that IS the dictionary definition of a charity. > I'm not sure > what dictionary you're reading from. > It is one of the dictionary definitions. But it is not the only definition. Marriam-Webster is what I'm using. Here is the link: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=charity&x=8&y=7 And the definition, section 3: "...3 a : a gift for public benevolent purposes b : an institution (as a hospital) founded by such a gift..." > > I think you are as full of shit as a Christmas goose, Ted. Thanks! I've never eaten a Christmas goose with any shit in it, so I must be pretty clean, then. ;-) > But in my opinion, calling the FreeBSD foundation a "charity" > denigrates the > project. That's my opinion, and I don't care to debate it. > I think your missing the fact that the FreeBSD Foundation isn't the same thing as the FreeBSD Project. If you think that calling the FreeBSD Foundation denigrates the FreeBSD Foundation, or is a misuse of the term Charity, or denigrates the idea of charity, that is your opinion and I won't debate it - other than to point out that you are wrong when you state that the FreeBSD foundation isn't a charity in the dictionary definition. If you think Marrian-Webster is wrong in their definition of the word charity then I encourage you to write them. But if you want to communicate with any logic or reasonableness you must accept that there are words and there are dictionaries and that words carry definitions that are in those dictionaries, and that when you talk or write about something in the English language you must accept those dictionaries as they currently stand. Arguing over word meaning is a semantics debate and I enjoy these very much - but let's not mix the two debates here, shall we? I will argue with you though when you state that calling the FreeBSD Foundation a charity is a denegration of the Project. It is not. The Project existed without the FreeBSD Foundation before, and if the Foundation cannot stand on it's own in the future, the FreeBSD Project will still be around. These are separate entities here. The FreeBSD Foundation is trying to do something they (and I) consider charitable to the FreeBSD Project - but the Foundation isn't the Project, and it is wrong to assume that it is. And furthermore the FreeBSD Foundation isn't the only way to financially contribute to FreeBSD. The Foundation has nothing to do with the hosting of freebsd.org, and many people have sent money and hardware directly to FreeBSD developers without involving the Foundation. I don't know how it is in other countries but here in the United States there is a tax advantage to donation to a 501(c)(3) 'charity' which is a significant incentive to many people to donate money. Many people feel why should their tax dollars go to supporting an "immoral war in Iraq", when they can divert some of them to a charity of their choice. You might regard the Foundation as a way of using the laws to cheat the US Government out of what should be going to them instead, and perhaps it is. But, given what the government is currently spending the money on, I think a lot of people would weigh the 'denegration' of the 501(c)(3) charity laws against the 'denegration' of States Rights that the current administration is involved in, and decide that one good denegration deserves another. ;-) Ted