Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 11:06:33 -0700 From: David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com> To: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft and FreeBSD, as reported in the Wall Street Journal Message-ID: <3B2F94A9.A539BB45@acuson.com> References: <003601c0f89b$8a362f00$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
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Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > But, many in the GPL community have already tried taking GPL and labelling > it as the Whole Open Source so Microsoft isn't doing anything that hasn't > already been attempted by some people in GPL. There's malcontents and rabble-rousers in every faction. We've got enough of our own people saying that the GPL isn't truly free (and I tend to sympathize). Numerically they've got more people bashing us then we do bashing them, but percentage-wise it may be equal. > I know it's humbling but we just don't represnt that big a chunk of the > market compared to Linux. Expending effort splitting us off won't gain them > the same advantage that > spending that effort directly fighting the GPL would. We don't represent much in the way of market share. But we represent a hell of a lot in terms of philosophy, ideas and ethics. Open Source licensing has two basic licenses: copyleft and unencumbered. The GPL is the standard bearer for copyleft, and BSD is the standard bearer for unencumbered. Creating a split between these two poles would be devastating. Right now the majority of developers aren't taking sides. Most currently seem to prefer the GPL, but not because of philosophy. The most common answer to "what license should I use" is "use whatever one fits your needs". Right now the the "battle" between GPL and BSD is only fought by a very small handful of zealots. If the general rank and file start taking the view that it's an "us versus them" war, then Open Source will split. Think about this: the Open Source software that poses the biggest threat to Microsoft isn't Linux. It's Apache. It's the only software that they've lost market share to. Copyleft threatens Microsoft on ideological grounds. Unencumbered threatens Microsoft on pragmatic grounds. Both are real threats to them. David To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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