From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Mar 9 00:24:44 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id AAA12687 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Mon, 9 Mar 1998 00:24:44 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from localhost.my.domain (ppp6471.on.bellglobal.com [206.172.208.63]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA12667 for ; Mon, 9 Mar 1998 00:24:32 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from ac199@hwcn.org) Received: from localhost (tim@localhost) by localhost.my.domain (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id CAA00439; Mon, 9 Mar 1998 02:45:09 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from ac199@hwcn.org) X-Authentication-Warning: localhost.my.domain: tim owned process doing -bs Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 02:45:09 -0500 (EST) From: Tim Vanderhoek X-Sender: tim@localhost Reply-To: ac199@hwcn.org To: John Kelly cc: Karl Denninger , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Someone needs to re-develop "Softupdates" In-Reply-To: <35034f2e.134015736@mail.cetlink.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, John Kelly wrote: > >According to Kirk, if someone wants to use it in a "Production ISP System" > >(to cite one of his examples) they need to negotiate a license from him. > > > >To use a single word Kirk: NO. > > >That's nothing short of incredible, if you ask me. > > It's amazing how some of the same people who decry commercializing > FreeBSD with donor control of funding have no objection to Kirk's > commercial hooks. FreeBSD is proud to encourage commercial co-operation! We are not fanatasiscts out to change the world, doomsayers intent on converting the masses, or prophets on a mission. We are here to provide you, yes you Karl Denninger and John Kelly, you, with the best operating system that we can. When we were approached by a commercial entity with a commercial proposition that would allow us to give you more options, options to use a better, faster, and safer operating system, we were happy to take them up, especially since their offer required us to sacrifice nothing! Sure, it would have been nice if the commercial entity had been able to provide its products for free, but this was not feasible, and truthfully, we had to make a choice between providing you with a better operating system or not providing you with a better operating system. I am confident that the right choice was made! Let me expound, for just a minute, on why I believe the right choice was made. In this world, in this day, we are more and more living in what I would call a truly cosmopolitan environment. There are people everywhere, each with their own individual goals and ends, going about their own individual work, split-out and spread-out over the entire earth. We, the world, are not Sparta, carefully molded into commune with each other, all working in sync. Some, for whom we have the greatest respect even as we laugh at their foolishness, would try to make us into Sparta. They have forgotten that it is the plurality and multiplicity that has made modern civilization into the success it is, which, for all its shortcomings, must be acknowledged as greater and higher than that of any preceeding era. They have forgotten that they, themselves, are rebels against the very Spartan environment they advocate. They have lost sight of their roots, of their own. We, at FreeBSD, recognize reality and believe, in the greatest of Asian traditions, that it is not possible to fight reality! Rather, we must work with it, using it to enhance both itself, and us. We are not inseparable from reality, but rather, we exist only through this reality! To us, this is really only stating the obvious, but to one who has forever been smashing their head against the cornerstones of the earth, to finally appreciate this is a revelation. What is this reality that we are part of? To be sure, it is outlined above through the implicit and through the general. But, all true ideas, all noble ideas, all ideas of any significance at all, have specifics. Right now, at this time, on this day, in this world, that specific happens to be that some members of our cosmopolitan world are different from us. They are not able, perhaps due to location, perhaps history, perhaps mental stability, to provide code in the same way that we do. Consistent with our above guiding philosophy, the same one that attracted you to us, we have said "Ok, we cannot change the world to match our conception of it, therefore we must change our conception of the world." With this maxim in hand, we looked at Kirk and said: "By golly! Soft updates are way cool! How can we use them?" The result is part of one of the best operating systems in the world! Now, let's agree that, sure, it would have been sexier if this commercial entity had provided all of the code in the form we usually make our code available. However, we are adults here! There is more to life than sex! Would we be so shallow as some others in the computing community to insist that all our partners have only the highest level of sex appeal? Never! This is the 90's, and we have to recognize that once the lights are off, intercourse is intercourse, and all those sexy features that make you want to sleep with rms instead of gates amount to absolutely nothing. When all is said and done, a pretty face is only a pretty face, which can alone by itself accomplish nothing save for looking pretty. Microsoft, the great evil empire, has released software called "FrontPage". "Horror of Horrors" I hear cried, as I explain that, yes, people, good, sexy people, have gone out of their way to work with this software. Why? Because, my friends, "FrontPage" has the appropriate desired sex organs, and, while it may not be pretty, it gets the job done. Now, to address what is hopefully one last issue one last time: One of the necessities for a cosmopolitan world is a common means of exchange. Money, in our case. Alas, however, plastic surgeons do not come cheap. To buy a facelift for each of our partners, majestically transforming them from an ugly beast into only the fairest and handsomest of people, is simply not feasibly at this time, in this world. We take them as they come, since, after all, it is from this maelstrom of population that we, ourselves, have risen, and to fight our birth parents, our heritage, indeed, ultimately ourselves, is foolishness. However, should you provide funds for the various sex toys that we purchase at our discretion, which are, of course, relatively cheap, we should be most grateful! I must caution, though, a sex toy does not a partner make --- rather, these toys we purchase are useful in only the most general of senses. Now, I realize I probably lost most of my audience with the very message header I maintained, and probably most of those remaining after paragraph #2, but for those hardy souls, those intent on gaining wisdom and knowledge, who have read and followed and understood thus far, to them I say: remember what you have learned! Don't let it die! Hold onto it in your hearts! I do not claim any great wisdom for myself; I am no prophet, no seer, no leader. I can only speak what I see, and see what is to be found here on this physical world. If you have found some great wisdom in here, then it is you who have found it, rather than I who have given it to you. Comparatively, if you have not found any great wisdom in here, perhaps you are blind as a bat? Speaking of which, incidentally, has anyone else noticed that there now exists a WWW.FreeBSD.NET? -- tIM...HOEk OPTIMIZATION: the process of using many one-letter variables names hoping that the resultant code will run faster. [I should also take this space to do my obligatory egging on of all participants in the most recent debate. Rather than being specific, I shall merely suggest to you that spirit. Consider this the suggestion! Now go! Fight!] [Rated "R" for stupidity] To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message