Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 19:01:54 -0700 From: David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com> To: mij@osdn.com Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Windriver, Slackware and FreeBSD Message-ID: <3ADCF592.8C695855@acuson.com> References: <3ADCDCA7.A01F5F40@acuson.com> <20010417205309.A1533@guinness.osdn.com>
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Jim Mock wrote: > > On Tue, 17 Apr 2001 at 17:15:35 -0700, David Johnson wrote: > > Today's announcement of the abandonment of Slackware caught me by > > surprise. All Slackware employees laid off. Slackware was *profitable* > > for Walnut Creek and BSDi. I think they've lost more in good will than > > they will gain. That, plus some blatant GPL baiting, makes Windriver > > pretty slimy. > > Why? Because they don't want to use GPL'd software in their products? > Wind River wanted BSD licensed stuff. They'd have no reason to hire the > Slackware guys (by the way, "all" equals 4 people). Slackware wasn't a > part of the deal in the first place. Go read the FAQ that accompanied > the press release: It's more than just not liking the GPL. I don't like the GPL. I think it sucks. But mere mentioning of the differences between the BSD and GPL licenses is bizarre. My biggest problem with Windriver's GPL statements is one of attitude. They bought the *rights* to BSD/OS, so they can do whatever they want with it, regardless of its licensing. If they had said "we're going to use FreeBSD because of its licensing", that would have been well and good. But instead they said "we're going to buy the rights to BSD/OS because of its licensing." That just doesn't make sense. BSD/OS is not under the BSD license, and FreeBSD is not up for sale. Windriver's actions had nothing at all to do with licensing, but a lot to do with casting fear, uncertaintly and doubt upon their Linux competitors. David To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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