Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 13:44:58 +0000 From: Paul Richards <paul@originative.co.uk> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> Cc: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, Darren Henderson <darren@nighttide.net>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The Merger, and what will its effects be on committers? Message-ID: <38CB9F5A.8B1C364F@originative.co.uk> References: <Pine.LNX.4.20.0003112034290.431-100000@theory8.physics.iisc.ernet.in>
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Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > .... > The conflict of interest argument may be correct in principle, > but in practice there shouldn't be a problem if the employee in > question is a genuine FreeBSD core team member: it's in WC's > interest to act like "nice guys". (Isn't that the usual argument > about the BSD licence and commercial interests?) Likewise, in the > linux community there are kernel developers like Alan Cox who > work for Red Hat, and others who work for SuSE etc, and they all > develop together without worrying about conflict of interest. > Anyone who is allowed the word FreeBSD should be under some kind > of check, to make sure that it matches with the "official" > FreeBSD. Anyone can take the codebase and do something entirely > different with it, of course, if they're willing to use another > name for it. The difference between the Linux community and the FreeBSD community is that there is only one serious commercial player at the moment. In the Linux world, no one company can dictate direction because the key developers are scattered across many of them and so there is no majority control by any one player. In FreeBSD's case, WC has a hefty influence on the project for many reasons, not least the fact that they employ some of the most prominent project members. > The sort of question to be answered is not, should the FreeBSD > docs cite Cheapbytes as a supplier, but -- if some other company > like Red Hat came along and wanted to package FreeBSD in linux > style -- GUI install, packages, etc, etc -- performing real > "value addition" in commercial words -- should they be allowed to > call it FreeBSD, and what should the conditions be for that. And > yes, it should not be left to Walnut Creek, but to some committee > whose credentials are beyond doubt. But it may be unreasonable to > ask that no employees of Walnut Creek be involved in the process > at all. > > Incidentally, I think someone seriously suggested Linux International > on this list, as a suitable body to police the trademark. I think the foundation and the core team are perfectly reasonably solutions to this problem. The question instead should be, how do we think the core team should be selected so that we're confident that it *is* an impartial body. A self-selected body that is strongly influenced by a single company with a vested interest in the project is not really impartial. I personally feel that there are barriers in place that prevent other commercial players entering the FreeBSD market. For example, in the discussion over the use of the FreeBSD trademark, Jordan said that a distribution with a different installer would not be allowed to use the mark since it would increase the workload of support staff. It was innovations such as the installer that allowed Linux companies to compete in the market place and ultimately, it was the proliferation of Linux companies that brought it in to the mainstream of the industry. Surely, allowing other distributions to use different installers would provide an opportunity for value-add that would allow other companies to enter the market. I don't think the argument about support is a fair one. WC can get on with supporting their distribution, in the main people who buy other distributions will go elsewhere for their support. There will probably be some increase in the mailing lists regarding the different installer but we're all free to discuss more or less what we want in the lists anyway and if some FreeBSD members don't want to support alternate installers then that's up to them. Ultimately, I would hope that the installer from company X would get folded back in to the main distribution if it was a better one, if it wasn't then chances are no-one would buy that distribution. At the moment we are all encouraged to buy all FreeBSD products from WC. If company X produces a better installer, why shouldn't we put some money into their coffers by buying their installation in order to fund the development of a better installer? Paul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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