Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 19:09:35 -0700 (PDT) From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> To: David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.org, mij@osdn.com Subject: Re: Windriver, Slackware and FreeBSD Message-ID: <XFMail.010417190935.jhb@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <3ADCF592.8C695855@acuson.com>
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On 18-Apr-01 David Johnson wrote: > 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. No, that is incorrect. WindRiver (not WinDriver or Windriver </rant>) does plan on using at least some FreeBSD technologies in some shape or another. As they said in their statement, many of the modifications are in the kernel, and they don't want to open up the source of VxWorks or Tornado to their competitors, so the BSD license is a bit more to their liking than the GPL. Please stop spreading FUD. There are some other issues at hand as well, but suffice it so say that WindRiver is legitimately interested in BSD moreso than Linux at least partially due to licensing issues. > David -- John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ PGP Key: http://www.baldwin.cx/~john/pgpkey.asc "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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