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Date:      27 Jun 2003 10:24:37 -0700
From:      swear@attbi.com (Gary W. Swearingen)
To:        FreeBSD Chat <freebsd-chat@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: RMS says: "Use BSD, for goodness sake!"
Message-ID:  <qrisqrzb56.sqr@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <3EFBFEBD.B8772772@mindspring.com>
References:  <4.3.2.7.2.20030625214311.00e5e240@localhost> <20030626110336.GW34365@iconoplex.co.uk> <20030626113553.GA53078@packet.org.uk> <20030626122023.GB763@nitro.dk> <20030626124601.GB57378@iconoplex.co.uk> <3EFBFEBD.B8772772@mindspring.com>

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Paul Robinson <paul@iconoplex.co.uk> writes:

> [snip] if the goal of moving to a non-GPL environment was going to be
> met. [snip]

Thank you for using "if".  As much as I dislike copyleft, it's clear
(from this thread alone) that moving to a no-copyleft FreeBSD should not
be a goal.  Developing as much good non-GPL software as possible is a
better goal, regardless whether some GPL software is being used.  Using
some GPL software helps with that goal more than replacing it would,
given the number of FreeBSD developers (and level of *BSD cooperation).

The reason for removing copyleft software should not be to fend off lies
like "FreeBSD is a GNU system".  The reason should be to give people the
ability to modify the OS's software without having to participate in the
development of copyleft software.

But the value of that ability (to modify under a good license), or the
value of candidate modifications, is sometimes not worth the costs of
re-developing the software and/or keeping it in sync with the
often-de-facto-standard copyleft version and otherwise maintaining it,
especially when that cost is measured in terms of equivalent efforts
which could have been used for developing other FreeBSD software.  And
sometimes the modifications are small enough to be done under copyleft
with a tolerable level of shame. :)


But after someone has scratched their "itch", I suppose it's hard to not
accept the results into the OS and to complain that the efforts should
have been used elsewhere or that it is unworthy of the maintenance
burden it will place on FreeBSD.  But I think it should be resisted in
some cases.  For example, I can't imagine it makes sense to shoulder the
burden of maintaining a competitor to "gawk"; I'm thinking that the
value of any modifications to this de-facto standard setter, is less
than zero, so that there's no good reason to maintain a competitor that
can be modified under a good license.  (I guess it could be justified
for performance improvements, but I doubt that performance is an issue.)



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