Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 17:13:51 -0400 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog@FreeBSD.org>, chat@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Real UNIX history (was: Congrats to Brett Glass for new BSD hist Message-ID: <20021009171351.A17992@papagena.rockefeller.edu> In-Reply-To: <3DA48404.3E886F85@mindspring.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
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
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20021009171351.A17992>