From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 9 14:13:54 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 55F3237B401; Wed, 9 Oct 2002 14:13:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from papagena.rockefeller.edu (papagena.rockefeller.edu [129.85.41.71]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C91C43E75; Wed, 9 Oct 2002 14:13:52 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from rsidd@papagena.rockefeller.edu) Received: (from rsidd@localhost) by papagena.rockefeller.edu (8.11.6/8.11.6) id g99LDpb18013; Wed, 9 Oct 2002 17:13:51 -0400 Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 17:13:51 -0400 From: Rahul Siddharthan To: Terry Lambert Cc: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" , chat@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Real UNIX history (was: Congrats to Brett Glass for new BSD hist Message-ID: <20021009171351.A17992@papagena.rockefeller.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <3DA48404.3E886F85@mindspring.com> X-Operating-System: Linux 2.4.9-12smp i686 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Terry Lambert wrote: > > > No, you;re right. It was the "them not charging for it" that made > > > it free. 8-). > > > > Remind me again -- why was there a flap, across all three BSDs, about > > Darren Reed's "no modification" licensing of IP Filter around a year > > ago? He never tried to charge for it, did he? What was that fuss > > about? > > I don't understand the relevence of the question. The relevance is to the meaning of the word "free". In the context of the BSDs, I always understood it meant "freely redistributable" including the possibility of modifications/bugfixes. AT&T's code was not. I can't think of any counter-examples in the FreeBSD base system. There are several in the ports, many of which are not shipped on the CDROM for that reason. > This was a problem because the ipfilter code was in a security > critical area, where an OS which incorporated it would need to" > be able to provide timely and accurate fixes to problems. It would have been a problem even for a non-security-critical component. It is even a problem if bugfixes are allowed but the code has other, eg patent-related constraints, see for example Theo de Raadt's posting on the OpenSSL/Sun issue: http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=3291 The OpenBSD people have a rather lengthy document on their copyright policy: http://www.openbsd.org/policy.html Perhaps FreeBSD's policy is different, but I always understood not. - Rahul To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message