From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 19 11:48:17 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from lariat.org (lariat.org [12.23.109.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CA97C37B422 for ; Tue, 19 Sep 2000 11:48:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mustang.lariat.org (IDENT:ppp0.lariat.org@lariat.org [12.23.109.2]) by lariat.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA01905; Tue, 19 Sep 2000 12:46:52 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20000919124101.05089eb0@localhost> X-Sender: brett@localhost X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 12:46:46 -0600 To: j mckitrick From: Brett Glass Subject: Re: new license idea? Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <20000919175403.B71735@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20000919104443.00bf44b0@localhost> <20000919160157.A70731@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <4.3.2.7.2.20000919104443.00bf44b0@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 10:54 AM 9/19/2000, j mckitrick wrote: >What about the fragmentation issue? >Someone takes my code, reuses it, keeps the changes, and has created a new, >incompatible version? Fragmentation can and does occur regardless of licensing. XEmacs is a good example. However, fragmentation/forking does not mean that standards will not be followed or that compatibility will not be maintained. At the February LinuxWorld, Linus Torvalds said that he actually thought that a bit of fragmentation -- in the form of specialization -- would be good for Linux. Ironically, this is exactly what has happened with the BSDs, and we now have five and a half very good OSes. (I count PicoBSD as a half, because it is small and derived from the FreeBSD source tree.) Fragmentation/forking can be as much a sign of creativity and progress as a problem. It is only problematic when it is used by a large company (e.g. Microsoft) as a bludgeon. Or when it breaks compatibility and there's not appropriate backward compatibility. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message