Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 02:26:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Chris Coleman <chrisc@vmunix.com> To: James Howard <howardjp@wam.umd.edu> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Response to ZDNet's anti-BSD Story Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0006070226010.758-100000@vnode.vmunix.com> In-Reply-To: <200006070415.AAA05828@rac5.wam.umd.edu>
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Very good. It represents my sentiments very well. BTW, you used "First" where "Third" should have been. Otherwise, very good. Chris Coleman Daemon News http://www.daemonnews.org Bringing BSD together On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, James Howard wrote: > Okay, so I prepared a response to ZDNet's BSD bashing. I intend to submit > it to OSOpinion sometime tomorrow. I decided to send it to the mailing > list first to solicit suggestions and recomendations on it. So, without > further ado, here it is, enjoy. > > Jamie > > > > Kerberos and the GPL > > James Howard > > On Tuesday, June 6, Evan Leibovitch wrote > (http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,5859,2582875,00.html) > about Microsoft's wrangling of the Kerberos protocol. Microsoft had > taken the open source MIT software, made changes affecting compatibility, > and released the new version without the source code. The Kerberos > code is licensed under a license similar to both the BSD operating > system and the X11 Windowing system. > > Leibovitch blames the license for allowing Microsoft to introduce proprietary > extensions into the protocol and claims that if Kerberos had been > licensed under the Free Software Foundation's General Public License > (GPL) Microsoft would have been unable to embrace and extend the Kerberos > standard. However, Leibovitch does not get it. This was the best possible > outcome and it was forced by the liberal license. > > There are three paths this project could have taken: > > * First, Microsoft could have ignored Kerberos completely and left > the broader community with an entirely new standard with zero support > from other software in the community. > > * Second, the Kerberos code could have been released under the GPL. > If this had happened, the Microsoft would have surely refused to > use the code to prevent having to reveal proprietary source. Microsoft > would have then reimplemented the code and still modified the protocol. > Had Microsoft been forced to reimplement the code, it would surely > contain an unknown number of bugs and compatibility issues. > > * First, the Kerberos code could have been released under a Berkeley-style > license. Microsoft could have then taken the code and distributed > a modified version and maintained some level of compatibility with > existing implementations and installations of Kerberos. This is, > in fact, what happened and by far the best possible outcome of this > scenario. > > As can be clearly seen, the liberal licensing of the Kerberos code > permitted and encouraged a potentially nightmare scenario in software > development to become a smaller and containable issue. Further, as > we can see, other licensing of the software would have only made the > situation worse and forced increased headaches and problems upon systems > administrators and implementors. > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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