Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 12:58:18 -0700 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: "Jan B. Koum" <jkb@best.com> Cc: "Jason C. Wells" <jcwells@u.washington.edu>, FreeBSD-advocacy <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Whistle Claims and Copyrights Message-ID: <3634D45A.6152BFC@softweyr.com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9810251852020.4553-100000@s8-37-26.student.washington.edu> <19981025202200.B14664@best.com>
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"Jan B. Koum" wrote: > > On Sun, Oct 25, 1998 at 07:09:18PM -0800, "Jason C. Wells" <jcwells@u.washington.edu> wrote: > > http://www.whistle.com/products/prod-basicfaq.html#bsd > > > > They use BSD instead of free software? Gag!! I guess they are afraid to > > "come out of the closet." > > Read below. Keep in mind that to many people, probably including the marketroids at Whistle, "free software" means "GPL'd software." By the definitions of RMS, FreeBSD is indeed NOT free software, but it certainly is Open Source software. Even Snark has relented on that point, foaming-at-the- mouth-rabid Linux promoter that he is. > > To be fair, they do meet the requirements of the Board of Regents > > copyright terms. > > > > Why doesn't FreeBSD add FreeBSD, Inc to the copyright? Certainly /usr/src > > contains copyrightable contributions by FreeBSD. A statement in the > > copyright requiring... This is a darn good idea, although I would word it a bit differently. We certainly should consider doing this, although it would be a big, ugly thing to do to the CVS tree... > > Ahh.. C'mon. Whistle has done SO MUCH for FreeBSD community it is > simply not fair to blame them of something as small as this. > > If Whistle was "unwilling to advertise that they use free software", > I am sure they wouldn't come to ORA's Open Source day and tell > people that they do use FreeBSD. I personally heard Terry say this. I strongly doubt including a FreeBSD copyright in literature, boot messages, etc. would change Whistle's feelings about FreeBSD one iota. > Plus, I am sure this was done by Marketing, who had no idea that > "Linux Unix" is no such thing and that having OS "in very little > memory" is well.. uhm.. not very technical saying. Well, marketroids, what can you say? They were doing their best to explain that BSD systems are better than Linux for making cool little router/server machines. > If anything, I want to say to Whistle folks, it is Thanks, with > capitol "T". Thanks for picking FreeBSD, Thanks for sending code > you wrote and bugs and fixes you found back to FreeBSD. Thanks for > creating another company at which we can point and say: "Look, they > use FreeBSD". Thanks to Julian, Archie, Terry, David W., and many > many others. And to the "powers that be" at Whistle for having the courage and foresight to bank their fortunes on the ability of Julian, Archie, Terry, David W., et al to make this technology profitable. <PLUG MODE=unrepentant SRC=daemonsadvocate> You'll be reading a bit more about Whistle and similar uses of BSD systems in the November Daemon's Advocate. Please stop by and take a look. http://www.daemonnews.org/ </PLUG> ;^) -- Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket? Wes Peters +1.801.915.2061 Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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