From: h...@pelican.cs.ucla.edu (Jack Hou)
Subject: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/14
Message-ID: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 119358787
organization: UCLA CS Dept
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
Hello,
I am choosing between Linux and FreeBSD for my home PC. Can anyone please
tell me the difference between the two? Which one is more stable?
Which one is easier to install and maintain? How many applications
can each operating system run? Is there something that Linux can do
and FreeBSD can't do or vice versa? Any answer is greately
appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Jack
h...@cs.ucla.edu
From: j...@dostoevsky.ucr.edu (Joe Sloan)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/14
Message-ID: <48ajsj$f5p@galaxy.ucr.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 119358795
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu>
organization: University Of California
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
In article <489kuu$...@pelican.cs.ucla.edu>,
Jack Hou <h...@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I am choosing between Linux and FreeBSD for my home PC. Can anyone please
>tell me the difference between the two? Which one is more stable?
>Which one is easier to install and maintain? How many applications
>can each operating system run? Is there something that Linux can do
>and FreeBSD can't do or vice versa? Any answer is greately
>appreciated. Thanks in advance!
They are both bitchen.
FreeBSD is more well developed, has more things working smoothly.
Linux has attracted more commercial interest.
FreeBSD is more secure.
Linux is a bit easier to learn on.
FreeBSD is more stable.
Linux has more games.
FreeBSD is based on 4.4 BSD
Linux appears to be based on SVR3 with a lot of BSD features.
Running bash & fvwm, it gets really hard to tell them apart sometimes.
I don't think you can lose, whichever one you choose.
--
Joe Sloan | http://dostoevsky.ucr.edu
j...@engr.ucr.edu | College of Engineering
Upgrade to Linux95! | University of California
~
From: sj...@will.ct.monash.edu.au (Simon Lai)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/14
Message-ID: <48b7ra$26a@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 119358810
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <48aoee$j59@post.gsfc.nasa.gov>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
organization: Monash University
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
Steve McLaughlin (mclau...@bolero.gsfc.nasa.gov) wrote:
: In article <489kuu$...@pelican.cs.ucla.edu>,
: Jack Hou <h...@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
[Question about Linux vs. FreeBSD deleted]
: It depends on whether you perfer BSD to SV. If it
: doesn't matter, I'd choose Linux only because it
: has a bigger base. We have a few PCs' around here
: running FreeBSD (mostly project servers) and trying
: to install freeware on them is usually a pain.
: There's never any FreeBSD platform option to choose
: from when installing so one has to choose a BSDish
: platform and start tweaking.
: Steve
I'm not sure what software you are trying to compile, but I've rarely
had a problem trying to compile software for FreeBSD. Generally if it
comes with GNU configure, I just run that, it configures itself and
compiles without a problem. Some older software can present problems,
but if it's older it generally has support for a BSD-type system
anyhow(?). FreeBSD also has a lot of prebuilt packages, Linux
has a similar system.
Choosing something because "more people have it" is not necessarily
the best way of making a choice. I would choose the tool
that does the job best, whether it be FreeBSD, Linux, etc ... .
Simon
PS I run both FreeBSD and Linux which helps when comparing the two.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Lai | Philospher's Union : "We demand
sj...@broncho.ct.monash.edu.au | rigidly defined areas of doubt
Department of Computer Technology, | and uncertainty!".
Monash University (Caulfield Campus) | Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe
Caulfield 3145, Australia, Earth. | (Douglas Adams)
-------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------
A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't
even know existed can render your own computer unusable.
-- Leslie Lamport, CACM, June 1992
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <j...@FreeBSD.org>
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/15
Message-ID: <30A9C704.5D0C6A5@FreeBSD.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 119429094
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <48aoee$j59@post.gsfc.nasa.gov>
to: Steve McLaughlin <mclau...@bolero.gsfc.nasa.gov>
content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
organization: Walnut Creek CDROM
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
x-mailer: Mozilla 2.0b2 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.1-STABLE i386)
That's interesting, since I generally have very little trouble porting
stuff to FreeBSD. However, papering over those niggling little
annoyances is what the FreeBSD ports collection (see
http://www.freebsd.org/ports) is all about. It's currently up to 361
ports, in 26 different categories, and requires about 1.5MB of space
compressed. Clearly, we could triple this number (1000 ports being a
reasonable goal) and cover just about every branch of free software
without expanding much beyond 5MB, so I think it's reasonable to say
that rather than curse the darkness, why not light another candle in the
FreeBSD ports collection? :-) We've plenty of room for expansion, and
having a utility expressed as a port also buys you the ability to have a
packaged binary version of it (which can be added or deleted easily) at
no extra cost.
--
Jordan
From: r...@ritz.mordor.com (Chris Mauritz)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/15
Message-ID: <DI37qp.Jyo@ritz.mordor.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 119429161
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <48aoee$j59@post.gsfc.nasa.gov>
<30A9C704.5D0C6A5@FreeBSD.org>
organization: Mordor International
followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
Jordan K. Hubbard (j...@FreeBSD.org) wrote:
: That's interesting, since I generally have very little trouble porting
: stuff to FreeBSD. However, papering over those niggling little
: annoyances is what the FreeBSD ports collection (see
: http://www.freebsd.org/ports) is all about. It's currently up to 361
: ports, in 26 different categories, and requires about 1.5MB of space
: compressed. Clearly, we could triple this number (1000 ports being a
: reasonable goal) and cover just about every branch of free software
: without expanding much beyond 5MB, so I think it's reasonable to say
: that rather than curse the darkness, why not light another candle in the
: FreeBSD ports collection? :-) We've plenty of room for expansion, and
: having a utility expressed as a port also buys you the ability to have a
: packaged binary version of it (which can be added or deleted easily) at
: no extra cost.
Note, my experience has been that a noticeable portion of the ports
are broken. The pine/pico and tcsh ports come to mind.
This isn't really a complaint, just a point of information. Turns
out there were binaries available in the packages area. I just
prefer to build my own (when it's possible).
Best regards,
Chris
p.s. For future reference, where does one send a port? :)
--
Christopher Mauritz | For info on internet access:
r...@mordor.com | finger/mail i...@ritz.mordor.com OR
Mordor International | http://www.mordor.com/
201/212/718 internet access | Modem: (201)433-7343,(212)843-3451
From: ols...@kodiak.ee.washington.edu (Clint Olsen)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/15
Message-ID: <48dnoj$55s@nntp5.u.washington.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 119439135
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <48aoee$j59@post.gsfc.nasa.gov>
<30A9C704.5D0C6A5@FreeBSD.org> <DI37qp.Jyo@ritz.mordor.com>
organization: University of Washington, Seattle
nntp-posting-user: news
newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc,
comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
In article <DI37qp....@ritz.mordor.com>,
Chris Mauritz <r...@ritz.mordor.com> wrote:
>
>Note, my experience has been that a noticeable portion of the ports
>are broken. The pine/pico and tcsh ports come to mind.
>
>This isn't really a complaint, just a point of information. Turns
>out there were binaries available in the packages area. I just
>prefer to build my own (when it's possible).
Here's another point of information :) The lynx port is busted as well.
I find that BSD make is a big pain in the ass. If GNU ever adds the BSD
extensions to make, I will be free from this beast forever. Yes, some of
the ports are plug and pray :)
-Clint
From: micha...@MindBender.HeadCandy.com (Michael L. VanLoon)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/17
Message-ID: <MICHAELV.95Nov16213746@MindBender.HeadCandy.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 119507105
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <48aoee$j59@post.gsfc.nasa.gov>
organization: HeadCandy Associates... Sweets for the lobes.
newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc,
comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
In article <48dnoj$...@nntp5.u.washington.edu> ols...@kodiak.ee.washington.edu
(Clint Olsen) writes:
In article <DI37qp....@ritz.mordor.com>,
Chris Mauritz <r...@ritz.mordor.com> wrote:
>Note, my experience has been that a noticeable portion of the ports
>are broken. The pine/pico and tcsh ports come to mind.
>This isn't really a complaint, just a point of information. Turns
>out there were binaries available in the packages area. I just
>prefer to build my own (when it's possible).
Here's another point of information :) The lynx port is busted as well.
I find that BSD make is a big pain in the ass. If GNU ever adds the BSD
extensions to make, I will be free from this beast forever. Yes, some of
the ports are plug and pray :)
Last I checked, gnu make built and ran on NetBSD and FreeBSD.
Not that I have ever use it...
--
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Michael L. VanLoon micha...@HeadCandy.com
--< Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x >--
NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac 68k, Amiga, HP300, Sun3, Sun4,
DEC PMAX (MIPS), DEC Alpha, PC532
NetBSD ports in progress: VAX, Atari 68k, others...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
From: ols...@kodiak.ee.washington.edu (Clint Olsen)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/17
Message-ID: <48j0j9$p56@nntp5.u.washington.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 119579046
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <DI37qp.Jyo@ritz.mordor.com>
<48dnoj$55s@nntp5.u.washington.edu> <MICHAELV.95Nov16213746@MindBender.HeadCandy.com>
organization: University of Washington, Seattle
nntp-posting-user: news
newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc,
comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
In article <MICHAELV.95Nov16213...@MindBender.HeadCandy.com>,
Michael L. VanLoon <micha...@MindBender.HeadCandy.com> wrote:
>In article <48dnoj$...@nntp5.u.washington.edu> ols...@kodiak.ee.washington.edu
>(Clint Olsen) writes:
>
> In article <DI37qp....@ritz.mordor.com>,
> Chris Mauritz <r...@ritz.mordor.com> wrote:
>
> >Note, my experience has been that a noticeable portion of the ports
> >are broken. The pine/pico and tcsh ports come to mind.
> >This isn't really a complaint, just a point of information. Turns
> >out there were binaries available in the packages area. I just
> >prefer to build my own (when it's possible).
>
> Here's another point of information :) The lynx port is busted as well.
> I find that BSD make is a big pain in the ass. If GNU ever adds the BSD
> extensions to make, I will be free from this beast forever. Yes, some of
> the ports are plug and pray :)
>
>Last I checked, gnu make built and ran on NetBSD and FreeBSD.
>
>Not that I have ever use it...
Yeah, so phase out BSD make so we don't have to have two versions of
make on our systems. It makes compiling the ports a real bitch when you
have to switch between the two (as in the case of lynx). "You can
compile this, but you have to switch to the _other_ make to do _this_".
Fooey...
-Clint
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <j...@FreeBSD.org>
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/18
Message-ID: <30ADBF37.2F26DCCF@FreeBSD.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 119660148
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <DI37qp.Jyo@ritz.mordor.com>
<48dnoj$55s@nntp5.u.washington.edu> <MICHAELV.95Nov16213746@MindBender.HeadCandy.com>
<48j0j9$p56@nntp5.u.washington.edu>
to: Clint Olsen <ols...@kodiak.ee.washington.edu>
content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
organization: Walnut Creek CDROM
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc,
comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
x-mailer: Mozilla 2.0b2 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.1-STABLE i386)
That's a ridiculous idea, since GNU make doesn't do the *same things*
that BSD make does. It's easy to think that there would be room for
only one make if all makes were created equal, but they're not. If we
ever came up with a make that combined the best features of both, I'd be
interested. For now, bmake has the ability to create macro files and
such that don't look like the forest of spaghetti that GNU make macro
files look like. GNU make is the wider used, due to its easy
portability to multiple platforms. Combine, perhaps. Throw one away?
Hah, in your dreams!
--
Jordan
From: cra...@os.com (Craig Shrimpton)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/23
Message-ID: <490p3m$6c7@news.iii.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 119933086
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <48ajsj$f5p@galaxy.ucr.edu>
organization: Shrimpton Consulting
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
In article <48ajsj$...@galaxy.ucr.edu>,
>
>They are both bitchen.
>
My sentiments exactly!
I really think you need both if you want to run an ISP. FreeBSD for your
network gateway/router and news server. Linux for your FTP/Web/Shell machine.
I think FreeBSD excels in fast networking and I/O activity but I think it
makes a terrible Web server or shell machine. Linux is more suitable for
interactive type work but blows as a network router.
If all you want is a home Unix PC, either is fine but Linux is probably easier
for a newbie.
Craig
===================================================================
Shrimpton Consulting Orbit Systems
Craig Shrimpton Email: cra...@os.com
17 Monroe Avenue Phone: (508) 753-8776
Worcester, MA 01602 http://www.os.com/
From: r...@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/24
Message-ID: <4949f5$25t@dyson.iquest.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120093979
sender: n...@iquest.net (News Admin)
x-nntp-posting-host: dyson.iquest.net
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <48ajsj$f5p@galaxy.ucr.edu>
<490p3m$6c7@news.iii.net> <30B47F81.41C67EA6@FreeBSD.org>
organization: John S. Dyson's home machine
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
In article <30B47F81.41C67...@FreeBSD.org>,
Jordan K. Hubbard <j...@FreeBSD.org> wrote:
>Craig Shrimpton wrote:
>>
>> In article <48ajsj$...@galaxy.ucr.edu>,
>>
>> >
>> >They are both bitchen.
>> >
>> I think FreeBSD excels in fast networking and I/O activity but I think it
>> makes a terrible Web server or shell machine. Linux is more suitable for
>> interactive type work but blows as a network router.
>
>May I ask by which data you came to your conclusions?
>--
Web servers require quick TCP connect times, disk reads and (given use of cgi
scripts) fork/exec times. FreeBSD is very good at each. The key is (as in
any system with SVR4/SunOS style shared libs) to build frequently executed
programs static. My measurements have shown that FreeBSD is on par with Linux
for fork/exec when both systems use shared libs (FreeBSD-SunOS, Linux-SVR3), and
is faster than Linux for fork/exec when both systems do not. Note that I
would expect that Linux-SunOS (ELF) would be even slower. There are some
very impressively (big, not just 10K-100K hits/day) large Web sites
that use FreeBSD -- very effectively.
Also, except under certain circumstances, FreeBSD has very smooth
performance (and has had for quite a long time) when using X-windows in
an interactive environment. Some changes were made in '94 (a long time ago)
to fix the BSD scheduling algorithm especially in the area of interactive
response.
FWIW,
John
dy...@freebsd.org
From: Craig Bergren <cberg...@mcs.net>
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/29
Message-ID: <30BD2617.23585C28@mcs.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120488591
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <48ajue$3h6@muirwood.convex.com>
<poulosioDI20sJ.5vz@netcom.com> <48buod$cue@solaria.cc.gatech.edu>
<poulosioDIFAnC.ECw@netcom.com> <4972bn$psq@bell.maths.tcd.ie>
<49ijf9$9rc@tombstone.kent.edu>
to: Butler Gerald E <gbut...@Phoenix.kent.edu>
content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
organization: MCSNet Internet Services
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
x-mailer: Mozilla 2.0b3 (X11; I; Linux 1.2.11 i586)
When this thread started out, it was so promising. I thought I might
get some insight into the design differences that distinguish FreeBSD
from Linux. Unfortunately this discourse has rapidly degenerated into
noise.
Before I decided to run Linux, I was also considering FreeBSD, but I
couldn't find enough information about it to have a good idea of what
I might be getting myself into. I'm still interested in some reasons
why I might want to run FreeBSD instead of Linux.
Is there any way to bring this discussion back to a comparison of the
differences between Linux and FreeBSD that might make one choose one
over the other?
I decided to run Linux for these reasons; none are very technical. It
all boils down to a support issue for me:
1) There was a book with a CD ROM in Barnes and Nobel that I could buy
on impulse. There were no such books on FreeBSD, nor CD ROMS.
2) There was tons of traffic on the Linux usenet news groups. For the
most part the discussion seemed to have a high signal to noise ratio.
This was in August before all the undergraduate riff-raff came back
to school.
3) The FreeBSD news groups appeared disearted.
4) Reading the Linux news groups I got a good idea of what hardware
was supported (before I bought my new Micron).
5) The information I could get from web pages from Caldera, Red Hat,
Info Magic,Pacific HiTech and the Linux Documentation Project gave
me a good enough feel for what Linux is and is not for me to feel
comfortable purchasing a CDROM in a bookstore.
Why am I still running Linux?
1) There was plenty of help on usenet and the web for me to know enough
to dump the SAMS CDROM and book (it was really old and not too useful
for such a thick book), and purchase one from InfoMagic (4CD set).
At the time, it was the only one I could find on-line that had
XFree86-3.1.2, which I needed to get my Diamond Stealth 64 Video
VRAM PCI card to work with X.
The RedHat distribution on the set was an added bonus that
I didn't even expect. The Slackware on the set didn't work very
well, Red Hat made re-install of Linux easy.
2) All the good help I was able to get from people in the comp.os.linux
news hierarchy. Thanks guys and gals.
CB
From: f...@Lehigh.EDU (FRANK JUDE WOJCIK)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/30
Message-ID: <49ksgl$2pit@ns4-1.CC.Lehigh.EDU>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120488543
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4972bn$psq@bell.maths.tcd.ie>
<49ijf9$9rc@tombstone.kent.edu> <30BD2617.23585C28@mcs.net>
<49k0dd$pfg@nntp5.u.washington.edu>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
Note: I run Linux, and am very happy. I don't know tons about FreeBSD. I
tried installing it but couldn't get past the bootdisk. It is my belief (and
someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that FreeBSD is the whole distribution.
(as opposed to Linux, which is just the kernel).
Clint Olsen (ols...@kodiak.ee.washington.edu) wrote:
: I would like to dedicate this to "Why are we no longer running Linux?"
: 1) At the time of Linux's rise to fame, Slackware was the big
: distribution. It took us a lot of struggling to figure this out. SLS
: sucked. With FreeBSD, this is not a problem. One distribution, no
: ambiguity, no sweat.
Well, that's just an inherent difference between the two. Linux proper is
just the kernel. The way I look at it, I have more options with linux.
In my mind it's a plus to be able to upgrade any individual part of my
installation w/o affecting anything else.
: Most importantly, Slackware releases rearely synced with stable
: releases of the kernel!!! Separate distributions from the kernel
: caused us no end of grief.
I fail to understand why getting and compiling new kernel sources is a
problem. True, installing a new kernel requires a reboot, but...
: 2) At the time of Linux 1.0.9, console hangs were prevelant, causing
: grief for users. The only solution was to upgrade, but there was
: only so far we could upgrade w/o installing a totally new Slackware and
: going through the same grief (ELF).
Hm. It's my recollection that you could upgrade pretty far (kernel wise) w/o
any of the utilities breaking.
: 3) Linux NFS performance sucked. The only way to fix this was to go to
: a 1.3.X kernel (apparently), and we were not interested in screwing
: around with alpha kernels or upgrading daily.
So don't. Pick a kernel you like and go with it. There's no need to
always get the latest kernel. You can ask on newsgroups for people's
reccomendations/experiences with various kernel releases...
: 4) In general, Linux networking was unreliable with slow connections.
Well, I don't think that anyone will argue that FreeBSD's networking code is
more robust that Linux's. For now. :)
: 5) Linux does not seem to have an up-to-date kernel blurb page explaining
: enhancements or apparent TODO lists. For example, where would I look
: to see if they were fixing NFS performance? No apparent centralized WEB
: page (like www.freebsd.org). Although the HOWTOs are nice, they seem
: to be often out of date.
Try http://www.nvg.unit.no/linux/changes/.
True, no one centralized web page exists, but there are many. As a starting
point try http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/linux.html.
The HOWTO's have been of tremendous help to me and my friends. Does FreeBSD
have something similar? I can't think of any that are particularly out
of date.
: NFS installs with Slackware was like pulling teeth!
We seem to have entirely opposite experiences. I had major trouble trying
to install FreeBSD. I have SW 2.3 NFS exported from my machine and have done
multiple flawless installs from there...
: Happy hacking!
: -Clint
--
-----
Frank J. T. Wojcik Linux - the choice
http://www.lehigh.edu/~fjw2/fjw2.html of a GNU generation...
"Life is the crummiest book I ever read, there isn't a hook.
Just a lot of cheap shots, pictures to shock, and characters
an amateur would never dream up." - Bad Religion
From: Terry Lambert <te...@lambert.org>
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/30
Message-ID: <49lf9j$it5@park.uvsc.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120488611
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <48ajue$3h6@muirwood.convex.com>
<poulosioDI20sJ.5vz@netcom.com> <48buod$cue@solaria.cc.gatech.edu>
<poulosioDIFAnC.ECw@netcom.com> <4972bn$psq@bell.maths.tcd.ie>
<49ijf9$9rc@tombstone.kent.edu> <30BD2617.23585C28@mcs.net>
organization: Utah Valley State College, Orem, Utah
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
Craig Bergren <cberg...@mcs.net> wrote:
] Is there any way to bring this discussion back to a comparison of the
] differences between Linux and FreeBSD that might make one choose one
] over the other?
Are you "into" kernel architecture, writing device drivers, etc.?
Are you stressing the hardware to it's boundries (ie: you are a
large ISP, WWW, or FTP site?
If the answer to both of these questions is "no", then all the
differences are effectively environmental and thus cosmetic in
nature -- and subject only to presentation of opinion.
Neither system is POSIX compliant, not having had NIST/PCTS run
by a certified testing laboratory and paid the certification fee;
even if they were, that would only apply to a particular release.
Add any "new stuff" and the certification is gone.
Neither system is certified to an orange book C or B security
level; no one has paid for the audit, and any such audit would
require picking particular hardware to run the audit on.
Linux has more commercial software.
FreeBSD can run Linux binaries.
Both can run IBCS2 binaries, but both require you to have a
licensed SCO or SVR3 system to do installs of any commercial
IBCS2 products, so it's mostly a "geek toy".
> I decided to run Linux for these reasons; none are very technical. It
> all boils down to a support issue for me:
[ ... reasons elided ... ]
It all boils down to emotional arguments, you mean. Unless you
have a considered opinion on the architectural differences, you
are really blowing smoke.
Which one is "easier to install" depends on who you have to help
you and what your computing background is.
Which one is "better supported" depends on what your buddies run
and your degree of net connectivity re: email vs. netnews.
Which one is better documented depends on whether you think a
book has to describe the commands and tools, or be a bit of
fluff with the name of the OS on the cover somewhere.
Supported hardware varies. If you buy high end hardware like
the people coding both systems, you will never have a problem.
If you buy fringe hardware, then you will. Neither has a good,
reliable, up to date "hardware compatability list" that you
can trust enough to plug a system together from it and have it
work. Suprise! Neither does SCO or UnixWare.
It's silly trying to compare covers on books and ask "which book
is best", when both books take an equal amount of shelf space and
have an equal number of pages (footprint & capabilities), both
books have the same color cover (nominally POSIX interface), etc..
If you actually *read* the books and discover one is on cooking
and one is on gardening, *then* you have a basis to make a
judgement.
And even then, it's opinion, since you may be a gardener, while
I may be a cook.
Before you ask, yes, I've seen the internals of both, and yes, I
have opinions that would be outdated a week after I posted them
because the camps would immediately work to remove any negative
comparisons to render the opinions presented invalid, or reverse
them. Then I'd get flamed for being "wrong". 8-).
If you want an honest comparison, and someone is foolish enough
to open themselves to attack a week after they post when the
comparisons are no longer valid, don't expect the comparison to
remain accurate long enough for you to install one or the other
and allow you to claim you made "the best choice".
Regards,
Terry Lambert
te...@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
From: ols...@kodiak.ee.washington.edu (Clint Olsen)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/11/30
Message-ID: <49k0dd$pfg@nntp5.u.washington.edu>
X-Deja-AN: 120691414
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4972bn$psq@bell.maths.tcd.ie>
<49ijf9$9rc@tombstone.kent.edu> <30BD2617.23585C28@mcs.net>
organization: University of Washington, Seattle
nntp-posting-user: olsenc
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <30BD2617.23585...@mcs.net>,
Craig Bergren <cberg...@mcs.net> wrote:
>When this thread started out, it was so promising. I thought I might
>get some insight into the design differences that distinguish FreeBSD
>from Linux. Unfortunately this discourse has rapidly degenerated into
>noise.
Yes, that is to be expected :)
>Is there any way to bring this discussion back to a comparison of the
>differences between Linux and FreeBSD that might make one choose one
>over the other?
Glad you asked!
>I decided to run Linux for these reasons; none are very technical. It
>all boils down to a support issue for me:
>
>1) There was a book with a CD ROM in Barnes and Nobel that I could buy
> on impulse. There were no such books on FreeBSD, nor CD ROMS.
When? Just curious.
>2) There was tons of traffic on the Linux usenet news groups. For the
> most part the discussion seemed to have a high signal to noise ratio.
> This was in August before all the undergraduate riff-raff came back
> to school.
I find the majority of the traffic to be very uninformative and directed
towards people who don't have that much experience with UNIX.
>3) The FreeBSD news groups appeared disearted.
Before 2.0, most FreeBSD traffic was contained within mailing lists.
This appears to have changed.
>4) Reading the Linux news groups I got a good idea of what hardware
> was supported (before I bought my new Micron).
Good point. I went out and asked amongst the mailing lists and
newsgroups to find this info out. Generally, most decent hardware is
supported by both FreeBSD and Linux. Linux may support a lot of funky
hardware, but I would probably not be interested in running an OS on it.
At some point, you have to decide whether or not you want to make an OS
run on your hardware or select hardware to run an OS :)
>Why am I still running Linux?
I would like to dedicate this to "Why are we no longer running Linux?"
1) At the time of Linux's rise to fame, Slackware was the big
distribution. It took us a lot of struggling to figure this out. SLS
sucked. With FreeBSD, this is not a problem. One distribution, no
ambiguity, no sweat.
Most importantly, Slackware releases rearely synced with stable
releases of the kernel!!! Separate distributions from the kernel
caused us no end of grief. Slackware still gets quite a bit of
criticism. Gee, is it a kernel or a distribution problem?
What would Linus know about Slackware? :) If you ask the
distribution owners, they'd say, "What kernel are you running?
Maybe you should upgrade? I'm using 1.X.X and it works fine."
2) At the time of Linux 1.0.9, console hangs were prevelant, causing
grief for users. The only solution was to upgrade, but there was
only so far we could upgrade w/o installing a totally new Slackware and
going through the same grief (ELF).
3) Linux NFS performance sucked. The only way to fix this was to go to
a 1.3.X kernel (apparently), and we were not interested in screwing
around with alpha kernels or upgrading daily. I couldn't even find
out if this was being addressed at the time (see #5).
4) In general, Linux networking was unreliable with slow connections.
See reason #3 for why we didn't want to upgrade. The kernel would
get into some funky race conditions, and the load would shoot up
beyond 30. We would either have to reboot or leave the machine alone
for a couple of hours to sort itself out.
5) Linux does not seem to have an up-to-date kernel blurb page explaining
enhancements or apparent TODO lists. For example, where would I look
to see if they were fixing NFS performance? No apparent centralized WEB
page (like www.freebsd.org). Although the HOWTOs are nice, they seem
to be often out of date.
6) Linux's chaotic development scares me. This is probably largely due
to the newsgroup exposure and all the OOPS I see posted on the odd
kernel revisions.
7) Kernel drivers frequently get to alpha stages, but seem to be poorly
supported after that. I've noticed that on a couple of occasions
that a driver gets created and the author takes a "sabbatical". With
FreeBSD, drivers that are submitted by more "seasoned" kernel hackers
continue to get support and bugfixes throughout its lifetime . I won't
point any fingers, but I have heard of some Linux hardware drivers
ported over to FreeBSD, fixed, and then ported back to FreeBSD :)
8) One of the bigger things attracting us to FreeBSD was the fact that
ftp.cdrom.com runs it. Pretty damn impressive serving 400+
simultaneous connections (and fast!). It's kind of humorous that
the Slackware repository is actually a FreeBSD box :) Now, if you
want to run a stable OS that gets plenty of hammering, why not follow
by example? :) In light of our Linux problems, FreeBSD looked like
something to give a whirl.
In short, we were not interested in daily (or weekly) kernel upgrades.
We are not in a situation where we can take down a machine for repairs.
We needed an OS that runs reliably between releases with reasonable
separation between major revisions. For us, that is FreeBSD 2.0.5.
Although I haven't installed Linux for a while, the installation was
much easier than Linux (we installed via ftp with FreeBSD w/o a hitch).
NFS installs with Slackware was like pulling teeth!
This is not to say Linux is bad. Linux is fine to use when the machine
does not need to serve mission critical apps. Linux will likely get
certain fancy features before other free OSs, and they would be interesting
to try out. This is probably why Linux is frequently used in the home by
people in single-node/single user mode. You obviously won't encounter
networking problems w/o any network! This just doesn't match our application.
Linux is likely going to mature over time and become very stable. BSD
didn't get where it is today without lots of time in hackers' hands! :)
Happy hacking!
-Clint
From: j...@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/01
Message-ID: <JKH.95Dec1013851@time.cdrom.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120595241
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4972bn$psq@bell.maths.tcd.ie>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
organization: Walnut Creek CDROM
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <49ksgl$2...@ns4-1.CC.Lehigh.EDU> f...@Lehigh.EDU (FRANK JUDE WOJCIK)
writes:
I have no desire to get into a Linux vs FreeBSD war (gawd haven't we had
enough), but just to clarify a few misconceptions of this poster's:
tried installing it but couldn't get past the bootdisk. It is my belief (and
someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that FreeBSD is the whole distribution.
(as opposed to Linux, which is just the kernel).
I don't think it's reasonable to call "linux" (by popular definition)
just a kernel. When people say "I'm running Linux" they're generally
not saying "I'm magically running a kernel without any user utilities
or a shell!" :-) So I think if you say "linux" to Linus Torvalds then
yes, it's just a kernel, but that's about the only circumstance in
which it would be. Otherwise it would appear that you're talking
about Slackware or Red Hat Linux when you talk about "Linux."
In my mind it's a plus to be able to upgrade any individual part of my
installation w/o affecting anything else.
Assuming that you could do this on a practical basis from day to day
then yes, it would be a plus.. :-)
: 2) At the time of Linux 1.0.9, console hangs were prevelant, causing
: grief for users. The only solution was to upgrade, but there was
: only so far we could upgrade w/o installing a totally new Slackware and
: going through the same grief (ELF).
Hm. It's my recollection that you could upgrade pretty far (kernel wise) w/o
any of the utilities breaking.
Read what he's saying again - he'd have had to go to ELF, hardly a
"without any of the utilities breaking" scenario..
: 3) Linux NFS performance sucked. The only way to fix this was to go to
: a 1.3.X kernel (apparently), and we were not interested in screwing
: around with alpha kernels or upgrading daily.
So don't. Pick a kernel you like and go with it. There's no need to
always get the latest kernel. You can ask on newsgroups for people's
reccomendations/experiences with various kernel releases...
Again, read what he's saying. He said he had performance problems
which mandated an upgrade, yet such an upgrade would have landed him
in ALPHA territory. He was in a no-win situation.
The HOWTO's have been of tremendous help to me and my friends. Does FreeBSD
have something similar? I can't think of any that are particularly out
of date.
We're trying to consolidate all of that together into a Handbook. See
http://www.freebsd.org for the latest efforts.
Jordan
--
Jordan
From: t...@maths.tcd.ie (Timothy Murphy)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/01
Message-ID: <49lmm8$qvn@bell.maths.tcd.ie>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120595243
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <48ajue$3h6@muirwood.convex.com>
<poulosioDI20sJ.5vz@netcom.com> <48buod$cue@solaria.cc.gatech.edu>
<poulosioDIFAnC.ECw@netcom.com> <4972bn$psq@bell.maths.tcd.ie>
<49ijf9$9rc@tombstone.kent.edu> <30BD2617.23585C28@mcs.net> <49lf9j$it5@park.uvsc.edu>
organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
Terry Lambert <te...@lambert.org> writes:
>FreeBSD can run Linux binaries.
How?
--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail: t...@maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <j...@FreeBSD.org>
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/01
Message-ID: <30BF8386.167EB0E7@FreeBSD.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120595277
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <48ajue$3h6@muirwood.convex.com>
<poulosioDI20sJ.5vz@netcom.com> <48buod$cue@solaria.cc.gatech.edu>
<poulosioDIFAnC.ECw@netcom.com> <4972bn$psq@bell.maths.tcd.ie>
<49ijf9$9rc@tombstone.kent.edu> <30BD2617.23585C28@mcs.net> <49lf9j$it5@park.uvsc.edu>
<49lmm8$qvn@bell.maths.tcd.ie>
to: Timothy Murphy <t...@maths.tcd.ie>
content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
organization: Walnut Creek CDROM
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
x-mailer: Mozilla 2.0b3 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2-CURRENT i386)
Using the Linux emulation LKM. You should read through
http://www.freebsd.org if you're that unfamiliar with the features
provided by FreeBSD.
--
Jordan
From: b...@uwrf.edu (BENJAMIN A LINDSTROM)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/01
Message-ID: <49o2n2$t4e@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
X-Deja-AN: 120595290
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4972bn$psq@bell.maths.tcd.ie>
<49ijf9$9rc@tombstone.kent.edu> <30BD2617.23585C28@mcs.net>
<49k0dd$pfg@nntp5.u.washington.edu>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
Clint Olsen (ols...@kodiak.ee.washington.edu) wrote:
: In article <30BD2617.23585...@mcs.net>,
: Craig Bergren <cberg...@mcs.net> wrote:
:
: I would like to dedicate this to "Why are we no longer running Linux?"
:
: Most importantly, Slackware releases rearely synced with stable
: releases of the kernel!!! Separate distributions from the kernel
: caused us no end of grief. Slackware still gets quite a bit of
: criticism. Gee, is it a kernel or a distribution problem?
: What would Linus know about Slackware? :) If you ask the
: distribution owners, they'd say, "What kernel are you running?
: Maybe you should upgrade? I'm using 1.X.X and it works fine."
:
When ever you have the Kernel hackers seperate from the distribution(s)
you will have this type of problem.
: 2) At the time of Linux 1.0.9, console hangs were prevelant, causing
: grief for users. The only solution was to upgrade, but there was
: only so far we could upgrade w/o installing a totally new Slackware and
: going through the same grief (ELF).
:
<strange look>...Umm..Why did I never run into that problem? I've installed
many slackware additions...It could be I never stayed at 1.0.x kernel.=)
1.2.x kernels have a lot of improvements with consoles..You don't need to
upgrade slackware to support 1.2.x kernel.=)
: 3) Linux NFS performance sucked. The only way to fix this was to go to
: a 1.3.X kernel (apparently), and we were not interested in screwing
: around with alpha kernels or upgrading daily. I couldn't even find
: out if this was being addressed at the time (see #5).
:
NFS sucks in general. It was known that Linux NFS has been bad for a long
time. There are people making attempts to fix this. (Example: NFS
file systems in kernel space, etc.)
: 4) In general, Linux networking was unreliable with slow connections.
: See reason #3 for why we didn't want to upgrade. The kernel would
: get into some funky race conditions, and the load would shoot up
: beyond 30. We would either have to reboot or leave the machine alone
: for a couple of hours to sort itself out.
:
Never saw that.=) Only time I saw 30+ load average is when I would write
a major tight loop when polling.=) What kernel? 1.0.X again..move to 1.2.x
: 5) Linux does not seem to have an up-to-date kernel blurb page explaining
: enhancements or apparent TODO lists. For example, where would I look
: to see if they were fixing NFS performance? No apparent centralized WEB
: page (like www.freebsd.org). Although the HOWTOs are nice, they seem
: to be often out of date.
:
When 1.4.x is released the 1.3.x permate changes are released. I have
seen a list of changes with the 1.3.x kernels. As for centralize WWW
server...Correct.. wehave www.linux.org, www.linux.uk, etc. But most
stuff endups at www.linux.org.
: 6) Linux's chaotic development scares me. This is probably largely due
: to the newsgroup exposure and all the OOPS I see posted on the odd
: kernel revisions.
:
<shrug> If you maked BSD alpha/beta kernels public you would see the same
results. Where as Linux as a community tends to helpout in debugging
the alpha/beta kernels and can move to newer beta kernels if need be.
(In my case..I'm using Appletalk stuff..So I orignally started with
1.2.x kernel + appletalk patches, but had to move to 1.3.37 (I ran this
at home and it was stable enough.) to get a better supported Appletalk
kernel protocal because it was causing minor problems on our net.
Where in the BSD world, I would either have to patch it myself, or get
my way into the "Developer's guild".=)
Yes, Linux's method of kernel development is different, but you have to
admint that 1.2.13 is rock stable...And I'm sure 2.0.lastX or 1.4.lastX
will be rock stable.
Does BSD release a major change per year for kernels and packages?
Linux kernel has a major revision change every year.
: 7) Kernel drivers frequently get to alpha stages, but seem to be poorly
: supported after that. I've noticed that on a couple of occasions
: that a driver gets created and the author takes a "sabbatical". With
: FreeBSD, drivers that are submitted by more "seasoned" kernel hackers
: continue to get support and bugfixes throughout its lifetime . I won't
: point any fingers, but I have heard of some Linux hardware drivers
: ported over to FreeBSD, fixed, and then ported back to FreeBSD :)
:
can't argue, but I don't know of any drivers besides ftape (which was
REALLY bad to start with.=) that has ever not had an other programmer
take over the work.
: 8) One of the bigger things attracting us to FreeBSD was the fact that
: ftp.cdrom.com runs it. Pretty damn impressive serving 400+
: simultaneous connections (and fast!). It's kind of humorous that
: the Slackware repository is actually a FreeBSD box :) Now, if you
: want to run a stable OS that gets plenty of hammering, why not follow
: by example? :) In light of our Linux problems, FreeBSD looked like
: something to give a whirl.
:
I'd like to try BSD some day, but I have been very happy with Linux. I'm
move to RedHat 2.1 after 'living' with slackware since I stared, and after
playing around (I'm too cheep to get the cdrom of it.=) I have it running
(not talking via CSLIP yet..but soon.=)
: In short, we were not interested in daily (or weekly) kernel upgrades.
: We are not in a situation where we can take down a machine for repairs.
Then just use the final 1.<evennumber> releases..No one is forcing you
to run beta kernals. I personally do run the lastest newest version
so I know what breaks really quickly so I can help Idenify problems
with my combination of hardware.
: We needed an OS that runs reliably between releases with reasonable
: separation between major revisions. For us, that is FreeBSD 2.0.5.
: Although I haven't installed Linux for a while, the installation was
: much easier than Linux (we installed via ftp with FreeBSD w/o a hitch).
: NFS installs with Slackware was like pulling teeth!
:
RedHat, Slackware, and Debian have all grown up alot...NFS is still pulling
teath...But it was pulling teath for our SunOS machine also.=-) Personally
if I had multiply Linux boxes I would use Samba for file transfers and
such..Since it is really nice.
: This is not to say Linux is bad. Linux is fine to use when the machine
: does not need to serve mission critical apps. Linux will likely get
: certain fancy features before other free OSs, and they would be interesting
: to try out. This is probably why Linux is frequently used in the home by
: people in single-node/single user mode. You obviously won't encounter
: networking problems w/o any network! This just doesn't match our application.
: Linux is likely going to mature over time and become very stable. BSD
: didn't get where it is today without lots of time in hackers' hands! :)
:
<shrug> Networking has always been a breeze to install on the different
networks I've been on...I have it integrated with Mac/win95 machines..
<shrug> It runs really nicely off my 386 hardware at work.
Oh well....
From: jul...@mailhub.tfs.com (Julian Elischer)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/02
Message-ID: <49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com>
X-Deja-AN: 120774490
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <30BD2617.23585C28@mcs.net>
<49k0dd$pfg@nntp5.u.washington.edu> <49o2n2$t4e@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
organization: TRW Financial Systems, Oakland, CA
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <49o2n2$...@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>,
BENJAMIN A LINDSTROM <b...@uwrf.edu> wrote:
:
:Where in the BSD world, I would either have to patch it myself, or get
:my way into the "Developer's guild".=)
Whoops, can't let you get away with that one I'm afraid..
The entire FreeBSD system are available on a DAILY basis
(or should I say CONTINUAL basis) The releases are just the time
when we make an EXTRA effort to snapsot it and we
'freeze development' for a while to get that snapshot
'right'.
To understand how this works you need to understand how The FreeBSD
System is worked on...
Firstly the ENTIRE SYSTEM (kernel, utilities etc)
is under CVS. there is ONE CVS repository that represents "THE TRUTH"
as to what happens to be FreeBSD at any instant.
We have a tool called SUP, that will duplicate the CVS (logfile) tree
on your machine if you are Well connected TCP-wise, and another
called CTM that does the same for people only connected by email.
Both CTM and SUP only update those files in your tree that have CHANGED.
The result of this is that Here I have My own CVS tree, from which I check out
sources that are guarenteed to be up-to date. I make patches which
are relative to that, and check those patches back into the Central tree.
That's too much work for most people, who get the sources updated but
don't keep their own CVS tree on it.
Anyone can get the resulting source tree copied to their machine..
they need only ask SUP to give it to them (or subscribe to the CTM service.)
The source tree for FreeBSD that is available generally lags behind
what is the 'TRUTH' by, on average 2 hours.. Can you do THAT with Linux..?
That's EVERYTHING on my machine here is on average about 2 hours
behind freebsd.org. kernel sources, utility sources, games, docs, the lot.
if I go to /usr/src and type "make all install", It'll recompile anything
that may have been affected by any changed files, AND istall them into
the running system.. (it won't make and install a new kernel..
I have to ask for that.. (duh))
It's all guaranteed to work together, because it all comes from the
same place..
You do NOT have to be in "The Guild" (hey nice term.. like it..)
to get upto date stuff. I personally tend to follow the 'Truth'
by a couple of hours.. when I'm working on FreeBSD. :)
When I'm ready to commit my patches, I ask Sup and CVS to bring my tree RIGHT
up to date (to the second), and merge any changes that might have happenned
in the last few hours (amazing how often that happens), draw off
a large 'patch file' and send it in to the TRUTH where it's checked, and
committed to the tree.
the kernel is only one program (though the largest (hmm X?))
it's exactly the same if I'm working on 'ls'
:Yes, Linux's method of kernel development is different, but you have to
:admint that 1.2.13 is rock stable...And I'm sure 2.0.lastX or 1.4.lastX
:will be rock stable.
FreeBSD 'Releases' are pretty stable.. we don't stop the process
for releases, however, we BRANCH everything, and one BRANCH
stops development and get's fixed up for release, while the main
branch plows on.. (You have to know RCS/CVS etc. to know what I'm
saying here but hopefully you do).. The moment we Branch a release it's
effectively left behind....
:
:Does BSD release a major change per year for kernels and packages?
:Linux kernel has a major revision change every year.
Our Aim was a FULL (CDROM and all) release 3 or 4 times a year,
but practicallity looks like being every 6 months..
but between those times there are usually several 'half releases'
Not quite as much QC as a full release, but a new boot-floppy, and
stuff.. No cdrom though.(well we could but people would get upset about the
reduced QC if they had bought something, so we don't
for self preservation reasons)
Usually you grab the latest half or full release, (one every couple
of months), install that, and then use SUP or CVS to catch up
to where things are now....
+----------------------------------+ ______ _ __
| __--_|\ Julian Elischer | \ U \/ / On assignment
| / \ jul...@tfs.com +------>x USA \ in a very strange
| ( OZ ) 300 lakeside Dr. oakland CA. \___ ___ | country !
+- X_.---._/ USA+(510) 645-3137(wk) \_/ \\ ><DARWIN>
v LL LL
From: nickk...@parker.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Kralevich)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/02
Message-ID: <49pb5g$di8@agate.berkeley.edu>
X-Deja-AN: 120691388
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49k0dd$pfg@nntp5.u.washington.edu>
<49o2n2$t4e@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu> <49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com>
organization: Electrical Engineering Computer Science Department,
University of California at Berkeley
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <49osrd$...@times.tfs.com>,
Julian Elischer <jul...@mailhub.tfs.com> wrote:
>Whoops, can't let you get away with that one I'm afraid..
>The entire FreeBSD system are available on a DAILY basis
>(or should I say CONTINUAL basis) The releases are just the time
>when we make an EXTRA effort to snapsot it and we
>'freeze development' for a while to get that snapshot
>'right'.
This is funny.
I've been following a thread in comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc.
The title of the thread is "NetBSD camp reaction to OpenBSD?".
It seems that some of the NetBSD people rejected a person named Theo
De Raadt from the core development team, and that person went out and
created another distribution called OpenBSD (http://www.openbsd.org/).
So I agree with the person who called BSD a "Developer's Guild".
It just doesn't seem that open to me when the developers of an
operating system kick someone out of the development environment.
Included below are some articles that may be of interesting reading:
| From: Todd C Miller <mill...@cs.Colorado.EDU>
| Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.
| + bsd.freebsd.misc
| [1] Re: NetBSD camp reaction to OpenBSD?
| Date: Sat Nov 25 09:44:30 PST 1995
| Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
|
| Speaking simply as someone who watched all of the sillyness that
| transpired on the NetBSD mailing lists during the Theo escapade,
| I'm sorrow that the schism happened, but that's about it.
| Theo has done some amazing work and I hope that the copyright
| for OpenBSD is in the Berkeley style so that the other BSD's
| can pick up some of his stuff. I'm sure that there will be
| quite a few people upset about yaBSD (yet another BSD), but
| I don't see healthy competition being a real problem as long
| as both camps are free to incorporate the other's ideas and
| code. Not surprisingly, this is how I felt about the NetBSD/FreBSD
| split.
|
| - todd
| --
| Todd C. Miller Sysadmin--University of Colorado Todd.Mil...@cs.colorado.edu
And another follow to this thread:
| Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.
| + bsd.freebsd.misc
| From: s...@epcc.ed.ac.uk (Scott Telford)
| [1] Re: NetBSD camp reaction to OpenBSD?
| Organization: Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre, University of Edinburgh,
| + UK.
| Date: Tue Nov 28 05:34:35 PST 1995
|
| In article <498sl3$...@ector.cs.purdue.edu>, David Moffett
| (d...@cs.purdue.edu) wrote:
| > Would it be opening Pandoras Box for us non-list readers to get a one
| > screen summary of what caused this split? Was it a people vs people or
| > technical ideas vs technical ideas kind of problem?
| >
| > Please no flames, just a short summary.
|
| OpenBSD appears to be a result of Theo De Raadt's ejection from the
| NetBSD core team, which, in short, was a people thing, not a technical
| thing.
|
| --
| Scott Telford, Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre, <s.telf...@ed.ac.uk>
| University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Rd, Edinburgh, EH9 UK.(+44 131 650 5978)
| "Is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?" "What's difference?" (Snow Crash)
As for the "openness" of FreeBSD development, I refer you (again) to the
following threads from comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:
| Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.
| + bsd.freebsd.misc
| From: craca...@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer)
| [1] Re: NetBSD camp reaction to OpenBSD?
| Organization: BSD User Group Hamburg
|
| "Jordan K. Hubbard" <j...@FreeBSD.org> writes:
|
| >Just looking at http://www.openbsd.org this evening, and it looks like a
| >significant NetBSD clone in many respects - at least most of the
| >platforms would appear to be NetBSD "rebadges" for the time being.
|
| [...]
|
| Well, one thing that seems really more "open" in OpenBSD is public
| readonly CVS access (as advertised, don't know if this is up for
| now).
|
| I'd really like to see this for NetBSD/FreeBSD, too. As an example, it
| would make it much easier to look at John Dyson's work on the VM
| system without having to ask someone to check out all these changes.
|
| Martin
| --
To which Jordan K. Hubbard replied:
| From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <j...@FreeBSD.org>
| Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.
| + bsd.freebsd.misc
| [1] Re: NetBSD camp reaction to OpenBSD?
| Date: Wed Nov 29 19:27:19 PST 1995
| Organization: Walnut Creek CDROM
|
| Martin Cracauer wrote:
| > ...
| > I'd really like to see this for NetBSD/FreeBSD, too. As an example, it
| > would make it much easier to look at John Dyson's work on the VM
| > system without having to ask someone to check out all these changes.
|
| Let's ask the NetBSD Project: What do you say, guys? A year or so ago,
| both groups shut down mutual read access for fears both real and
| imagined. What's our situation today? Anyone over there having
| seditious thoughts about tearing down the Berlin wall? I personally
| would not mind at all.
| --
| Jordan
So far, there has been *NO* announcement of the opening of the CVS
tree.
Summary: You have to be a member of the BSD core team to be able
to see any real changes in the source code. Membership is restricted
to a select group, and if your not in that group, tough luck. Even
if your a good programmer, but other people in the group don't
like you, you can get kicked out. Not exactly what I call "open" or
a conductive development environment.
Personally, I prefer Linux.
Of course, all of this has nothing to do with the technical merits
of the two operating systems. But then again, that's never stopped
an advocacy group before. :)
(in followups, please be sure to include CORRECT attribution lines.
I don't want to be coming back later on and trying to claim
that I did or didn't make certain statements).
Take care,
-- Nick Kralevich
nickk...@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu
From: Robert Sanders <rsand...@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/02
Message-ID: <87rayn8ion.fsf@interbev.mindspring.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120691408
sender: rsand...@interbev.mindspring.com
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu>
organization: MindSpring Enterprises, Inc.
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
On 2 Dec 1995 10:52:32 GMT, nickk...@parker.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Kralevich) said:
> Summary: You have to be a member of the BSD core team to be able
> to see any real changes in the source code. Membership is restricted
> to a select group, and if your not in that group, tough luck. Even
> if your a good programmer, but other people in the group don't
> like you, you can get kicked out. Not exactly what I call "open" or
> a conductive development environment.
FreeBSD makes the latest sources available via SUP. No, I personally
can't check things out of the CVS tree. I don't know of any single
CVS tree that defines the Linux kernel (or userland, for that matter).
FreeBSD has a core team capable of committing changes to the source
tree. Linux has one person (Linus) capable of committing changes to
the source tree. The situation is the same for the average Joe
working on either system: you develop on your own system(s) and send
your patches to somebody with write access to the main source tree.
That's either one of the FreeBSD core team or Linus.
I'm not saying that FreeBSD is the final word in open software
development or that Linux is absolutely closed, but in the spirit of
this thread I must ask: how is Linux development *more* open?
-- Robert
From: nickk...@parker.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Kralevich)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/02
Message-ID: <49qa85$q80@agate.berkeley.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120774477
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com>
<49pb5g$di8@agate.berkeley.edu> <87rayn8ion.fsf@interbev.mindspring.com>
organization: Electrical Engineering Computer Science Department,
University of California at Berkeley
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <87rayn8ion....@interbev.mindspring.com>,
Robert Sanders <rsand...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>FreeBSD makes the latest sources available via SUP. No, I personally
>can't check things out of the CVS tree. I don't know of any single
>CVS tree that defines the Linux kernel (or userland, for that matter).
If you reread the articles I posted, you'll find that
craca...@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer), a member of the
"BSD User Group Hamburg", was complaining about lack of access to the
changes in FreeBSD. If a BSD user group member is complaining about
lack of access, can you imagine a common joe like you or I getting
access to it?
Take care,
-- Nick
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <j...@FreeBSD.org>
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/02
Message-ID: <30C10D2F.4E81D442@FreeBSD.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120691404
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com>
<49pb5g$di8@agate.berkeley.edu> <87rayn8ion.fsf@interbev.mindspring.com>
<49qa85$q80@agate.berkeley.edu>
to: Nick Kralevich <nickk...@parker.EECS.Berkeley.EDU>
content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
organization: Walnut Creek CDROM
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
x-mailer: Mozilla 2.0b3 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.1-STABLE i386)
Nick Kralevich wrote:
> If you reread the articles I posted, you'll find that
> craca...@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer), a member of the
> "BSD User Group Hamburg", was complaining about lack of access to the
> changes in FreeBSD. If a BSD user group member is complaining about
> lack of access, can you imagine a common joe like you or I getting
> access to it?
This is simply ridiculous.
Read Julian Elischer's posting. Do you see that *current up to the
hour* sources are available to all, via both SUP (for the network
endowed) and CTM (for the email-only)? We also make change log
information available on the mailing lists, to which anyone can
subscribe, and the *one* little thing that people are flapping about so
much here is CVS repository access, something that's not even AVAILABLE
for Linux! There's no central repository available for Slacware or Red
Hat, and most of those folks don't even USE source code control!
So forgive me if it strikes me as more than a little unfair to be
assailed as not being "open" enough because whereas Linux provides you
with a box of cake mix and a fork, we only provide the cake, the icing,
the candles but *no chocolate sprinkles*! Gawd, we should all be shot
or something! :-)
--
Jordan
From: micha...@MindBender.HeadCandy.com (Michael L. VanLoon)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/03
Message-ID: <MICHAELV.95Dec2230815@MindBender.HeadCandy.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120774465
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com>
organization: HeadCandy Associates... Sweets for the lobes.
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <49qa85$...@agate.berkeley.edu> nickk...@parker.EECS.Berkeley.EDU
(Nick Kralevich) writes:
In article <87rayn8ion....@interbev.mindspring.com>,
Robert Sanders <rsand...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>FreeBSD makes the latest sources available via SUP. No, I personally
>can't check things out of the CVS tree. I don't know of any single
>CVS tree that defines the Linux kernel (or userland, for that matter).
If you reread the articles I posted, you'll find that
craca...@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer), a member of the
"BSD User Group Hamburg", was complaining about lack of access to the
changes in FreeBSD. If a BSD user group member is complaining about
lack of access, can you imagine a common joe like you or I getting
access to it?
If you read more carefully, you'll find he's not complaining about
availability of source changes, he's asking for specific CVS versions
to be retrievable by normal users. There's a big difference. All the
source code, and changes less than a day old are already available.
He just wants to be able to say "give me a diff between
/sys/vm/vm_kern.c version 1.15 and 1.16".
Currently, that is not possible without asking a core member to check
out the two specific back-versions and doing the diff for you.
If you sup the stuff and keep it in your own CVS tree, you can get
this functionality, because daily releases of the current source tree
*are* available. You simply currently have to do your own version
management if you want to retrieve specific back-versions of a file.
But once again, the fact is raised that at least the *BSD groups keep
the entire source tree in a well-managed CVS enlistment system. Is
there any of the native Linux system in such well-managed state?
Could you retrieve a specific kernel file from a specific date for me?
Any commercial company who developed software like that would quickly
go out of business, after their software got buggier and harder to
maintain, and users quit buying the stuff.
--
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Michael L. VanLoon micha...@HeadCandy.com
--< Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x >--
NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac 68k, Amiga, HP300, Sun3, Sun4,
DEC PMAX (MIPS), DEC Alpha, PC532
NetBSD ports in progress: VAX, Atari 68k, others...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
From: o...@pell.chi.il.us (Orc)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/03
Message-ID: <49sql5$99f@pell.pell.chi.il.us>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120849521
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <87rayn8ion.fsf@interbev.mindspring.com>
<49qa85$q80@agate.berkeley.edu> <MICHAELV.95Dec2230815@mindbender.headcandy.com>
organization: Every flame is sacred, every flame is great
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <MICHAELV.95Dec2230...@mindbender.headcandy.com>,
Michael L. VanLoon <micha...@MindBender.HeadCandy.com> wrote:
>But once again, the fact is raised that at least the *BSD groups keep
>the entire source tree in a well-managed CVS enlistment system. Is
>there any of the native Linux system in such well-managed state?
>Could you retrieve a specific kernel file from a specific date for me?
>Any commercial company who developed software like that would quickly
>go out of business, after their software got buggier and harder to
>maintain, and users quit buying the stuff.
I don't know how Linus does internal version control, but there
are plenty of companies that don't use version control (or have got
Company Standards(tm) like DEC's CMS, which is worthless) that are
not known for 'buggier and harder to maintain' software. SCCS is
an unqualified Good Thing(tm), but, regretfully, it's not necessary
to use it to produce good reliable code.
____
david parsons \bi/ o...@pell.chi.il.us
\/
From: r...@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/03
Message-ID: <49s93l$a6@dyson.iquest.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120774497
sender: n...@iquest.net (News Admin)
x-nntp-posting-host: dyson.iquest.net
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49o2n2$t4e@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com> <49pb5g$di8@agate.berkeley.edu>
organization: John S. Dyson's home machine
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <49pb5g$...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Nick Kralevich <nickk...@parker.EECS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>In article <49osrd$...@times.tfs.com>,
>Julian Elischer <jul...@mailhub.tfs.com> wrote:
>>Whoops, can't let you get away with that one I'm afraid..
>>The entire FreeBSD system are available on a DAILY basis
>>(or should I say CONTINUAL basis) The releases are just the time
>>when we make an EXTRA effort to snapsot it and we
>>'freeze development' for a while to get that snapshot
>>'right'.
>
>This is funny.
>
Please refer to my previous posting as to the instructions. I claim
that the Linux kernel development is NOT open, but just a tease. Not
only is Linux encumbered, but the CVS tree (if there is one), is NOT
available AFAIK. When you use Linux, you have to agree to certain
usage restrictions.
Nick, you do not seem to understand the issues, and I am sorry that you
have not been able to accept reality. Reality is, that FreeBSD development
is *extremely* open and the OS runtime is unencumbered. Begging the question
is silly -- so your above statement is vacuous.
Why don't you just try supping the daily FreeBSD-current tree or perhaps
randomly ftp down any FreeBSD source file -- you can do it, no problem. If
you choose not to -- that is your decision also, but you and anyone else have
that choice.
If the big Linux suppliers would make their daily source trees available, then
is the Linux kernel available for daily update??? Linus owns
Linux and through his generosity, you can use it -- isn't that nice of him?.
John
dy...@freebsd.org
From: r...@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/03
Message-ID: <49s7lg$84@dyson.iquest.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120774498
sender: n...@iquest.net (News Admin)
x-nntp-posting-host: dyson.iquest.net
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49o2n2$t4e@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com> <49pb5g$di8@agate.berkeley.edu>
organization: John S. Dyson's home machine
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <49pb5g$...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Nick Kralevich <nickk...@parker.EECS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>
>As for the "openness" of FreeBSD development, I refer you (again) to the
>following threads from comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:
>
>So far, there has been *NO* announcement of the opening of the CVS
>tree.
>
Likewise for Linux!!!! ANYONE have access to the
daily up-to-date FreeBSD sources... I sure would like to see the
daily source for Linux!!!
>
>Summary: You have to be a member of the BSD core team to be able
>to see any real changes in the source code. Membership is restricted
>
Wrong wrong wrong, so wrong about FreeBSD, that again, your credibility
is in question!!! Most people that have CVS commit authority are not
on the core team. Last I counted, 58 people have full CVS commit
authority on FreeBSD (including kernel.) That is quite a bit more open
than you are representing, and approx 5X the core team size.
>
>to a select group, and if your not in that group, tough luck. Even
>if your a good programmer, but other people in the group don't
>like you, you can get kicked out. Not exactly what I call "open" or
>a conductive development environment.
^^^ Spelling error??? or is this about flow of some kind ??!?!?!?
>
People are not programmers only -- and in fact, on a job -- you can be fired
even if you are a good programmer. There was a severe personality conflict,
and since the core team of Linux is of size '1', it is not likely that
that person will be removed from the team. Theo is doing the right
thing for himself by starting OpenBSD -- I do not think that it is
necessary, but that is his choice. Also, I think that it is not good to
judge that situation from the outside -- only part if the information has
become public, and I, myself don't want to prejudge.
>
>Personally, I prefer Linux.
>
Ok -- the only thing that I can agree with you about... :-)
Personally, I prefer higher performance, thereby further distinguishing
the OS from Microsoft with its sluggish OSes and apps.
...FreeBSD...
John
dy...@freebsd.org
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <j...@FreeBSD.org>
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/03
Message-ID: <30C22309.41C67EA6@FreeBSD.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120774506
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <87rayn8ion.fsf@interbev.mindspring.com>
<49qa85$q80@agate.berkeley.edu> <MICHAELV.95Dec2230815@mindbender.headcandy.com>
<49sql5$99f@pell.pell.chi.il.us>
content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
organization: Walnut Creek CDROM
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
x-mailer: Mozilla 2.0b3 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.1-STABLE i386)
Orc wrote:
> not known for 'buggier and harder to maintain' software. SCCS is
> an unqualified Good Thing(tm), but, regretfully, it's not necessary
Just for the record, SCCS is most definitely NOT an "unqualified Good
Thing(tm)" and, in point of fact, it sucks rocks. RCS is a far better
alternative now, and CVS even better still.
No, a good CASE tool does not guarantee code quality - that is true.
All it does for you is help you to manage *complexity*. This frequently
results in engineers producing better code, but your mileage may, of
course, vary. In the FreeBSD Project, we find CVS to be indispensible
in managing *multiple* developers converging on a single source tree.
For Linus, this probably isn't an issue nor is it for any of the other
one man band Linux operations who aren't *developing* so much as they
are *packaging* the bits. There's a big difference between the tools
required for the guy who sells hot dogs and the factory that makes them.
--
Jordan
From: mandt...@news.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/03
Message-ID: <49smvs$8gd@josie.abo.fi>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120774552
distribution: comp
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy
organization: Unorganized Usenet Postings UnInc.
reply-to: mandt...@abo.fi
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
Robert Sanders, in <87rayn8ion....@interbev.mindspring.com>:
>On 2 Dec 1995 10:52:32 GMT, nickk...@parker.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Kralevich) said:
[...]
>FreeBSD makes the latest sources available via SUP. No, I personally
>can't check things out of the CVS tree. I don't know of any single
>CVS tree that defines the Linux kernel (or userland, for that matter).
As far as Linux is "defined" at all, it's in the kernel source trees
on ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/OS/Linux/PEOPLE/Linus/v1.$VERSION
where $VERSION is in [0-3]; 3, at the moment. New patches come out
whenever Linus releases them, which can be daily to biweekly.
That's probably as close to the development of Linux as most people
care to get; not all of the development kernels even compile, as
they're released on that site. Probably if you wanted to get much more
up-to-date you'd have to start emailing the individual developers for
whatever patches they haven't submitted to Linus yet.
And yes, the site is open (for reading, anyway) to everybody, as are
all the mirrors of it I know of; the best one is supposed to be on
nether.net I think.
Am I correct to think that the FreeBSD "equivalent", this CVS or
whatever you called it, can't be _read_ except by a small core team?
Whatever for? Keeping people from making their own changes and writing
to it I can see, but...?
>FreeBSD has a core team capable of committing changes to the source
>tree. Linux has one person (Linus) capable of committing changes to
>the source tree. The situation is the same for the average Joe
>working on either system: you develop on your own system(s) and send
>your patches to somebody with write access to the main source tree.
>That's either one of the FreeBSD core team or Linus.
Actually, if I wanted to nitpick, not _every_ Linux kernel change
should go to Linus; for example, the ext2fs is maintained by Remy
Card, so patches to it should be sent to him. But yes, you're
essentially right.
Out of interest, what happens if I develop something completely new
for FreeBSD, some driver never seen before; with Linux, I could just
proclaim myself its developer/maintainer, send it to Linus and hope
it gets into the kernel. Who approves new stuff into FreeBSD?
>I'm not saying that FreeBSD is the final word in open software
>development or that Linux is absolutely closed, but in the spirit of
>this thread I must ask: how is Linux development *more* open?
It probably isn't; in the case that Linus should lose access or maybe
just get himself a life, it's probably more closed, since he could
prove a difficult man to replace. But you'd have to be mildly daft to
consider either one "closed" when compared to most commercial
offerings.
--
" ... got to contaminate to alleviate this loneliness
i now know the depths i reach are limitless... "
-- nin
From: b...@uwrf.edu (BENJAMIN A LINDSTROM)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/03
Message-ID: <49rm0g$o8o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120849446
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <30BD2617.23585C28@mcs.net>
<49k0dd$pfg@nntp5.u.washington.edu> <49o2n2$t4e@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
Julian Elischer (jul...@mailhub.tfs.com) wrote:
: In article <49o2n2$...@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>,
: BENJAMIN A LINDSTROM <b...@uwrf.edu> wrote:
: :
: :Where in the BSD world, I would either have to patch it myself, or get
: :my way into the "Developer's guild".=)
:
[Note: Now..THIS is what I wanted to know =)..Deleted 'Guild Operations of
BSD.=)]
BTW...No as far as I know we don't have a nice complex system..Linus controls
what goes into the kernel and what does not. I think there was talk on
what Linus did for kernel modifications..but that was 1/2 a year ago and
since Kernels are not my favorate place to 'play' in..I leave it to the
more intelligent hackers in that field.
: :Yes, Linux's method of kernel development is different, but you have to
: :admint that 1.2.13 is rock stable...And I'm sure 2.0.lastX or 1.4.lastX
: :will be rock stable.
:
: FreeBSD 'Releases' are pretty stable.. we don't stop the process
: for releases, however, we BRANCH everything, and one BRANCH
: stops development and get's fixed up for release, while the main
: branch plows on.. (You have to know RCS/CVS etc. to know what I'm
: saying here but hopefully you do).. The moment we Branch a release it's
: effectively left behind....
:
Ya...1.0/1.1 tried that...But we had more headaches then it was worth for
Linus from the sounds of it..And the Linux community cried out for a
TOTAL 'freeze' so that we can put 100% effort into making sure all
production kernels were stable as posiable.
: :
: :Does BSD release a major change per year for kernels and packages?
: :Linux kernel has a major revision change every year.
:
: Our Aim was a FULL (CDROM and all) release 3 or 4 times a year,
: but practicallity looks like being every 6 months..
: but between those times there are usually several 'half releases'
: Not quite as much QC as a full release, but a new boot-floppy, and
: stuff.. No cdrom though.(well we could but people would get upset about the
: reduced QC if they had bought something, so we don't
: for self preservation reasons)
:
I think RedHat is going towards this, but they are doing a package-by-package
upgrade. I just installed 2.1 of redhat and threw 3 patches on it. And
it's just great. =)
Soo..As I said...the way Linux and *BSD operate differently. <shrug>
I doubt Linux will ever totally move to the FreeBSD method of kernel
hacking unless Linus decides to move that way (or there is a major
uprising.=)
From: e...@kroete2.freinet.de (Erik Corry)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/03
Message-ID: <DJ1B47.83F@kroete2.freinet.de>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120921646
sender: n...@kroete2.freinet.de (news)
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49o2n2$t4e@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com> <49pb5g$di8@agate.berkeley.edu> <49s93l$a6@dyson.iquest.net>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
organization: Home
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
John S. Dyson (r...@dyson.iquest.net) wrote:
: Linus owns Linux and through his generosity, you can use it -- isn't
: that nice of him?.
I'm wondering what you mean by this. Linus does not own all the copyright
in the Linux kernel, and certainly not in a complete Linux system. He
has no way of regretting his generosity and withdrawing permission to
use old versions. He couldn't even do it for future versions without
replacing vast amounts of code written by others, or getting their
permission.
What Linus could do is withdraw from Linux development altogether.
That wouldn't kill Linux, but it would be a heavy blow. Or he could
go mad and start releasing really bad code. That would be even worse,
but I think in both cases Linux could move to a FreeBSD-style
core team type system, or a new 1-person core team might appear.
The Linux distribution creators would probably have a lot of
influence in this case.
Linus also can't prevent anyone creating a core team now, grabbing
the Linux kernel sources and developing using a similar system
to FreeBSD. But if anyone did that they would have to be pretty
damn good to compete with Linus, and to persuade other developers
to send their work to them, rather than to Linus.
--
Erik Corry ehco...@inet.uni-c.dk
From: j...@violet.berkeley.edu (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/04
Message-ID: <49triv$f7a@agate.berkeley.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120774548
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49smvs$8gd@josie.abo.fi>
organization: University of California, Berkeley
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy
In article <49smvs$...@josie.abo.fi>, Mats Andtbacka <mandt...@abo.fi> wrote:
>Am I correct to think that the FreeBSD "equivalent", this CVS or
>whatever you called it, can't be _read_ except by a small core team?
No on several counts. First, the equivalent to Linus's little
repository on the finnish site is probably sup and CTM, not CVS.
They show you the state of the system at any given time, and they're
open to all.
The CVS repository is the actual *revision history*, that is the actual
diffs and log entries produced at each step of the way. That was restricted
not to a small core team, but to a larger set of developers and 3rd
party folks. Access to the repository has always been available for the
asking, though we plan to get even more open than that.
>Out of interest, what happens if I develop something completely new
>for FreeBSD, some driver never seen before; with Linux, I could just
>proclaim myself its developer/maintainer, send it to Linus and hope
>it gets into the kernel. Who approves new stuff into FreeBSD?
The project members - you send details of your proposed change to the
curr...@freebsd.org mailing list and give people a chance to comment on
it before asking for its inclusion. A group of some 53 people have been
chosen, over the last 3 years, for their proven ability to know good
changes from bad and can be reached at committ...@freebsd.org - all
you need to do is get one of them to commit your changes for you.
If you submit many changes, and they appear to be of consistent
quality, then you become committer #54. :-)
Jordan
From: dy...@inuxs.inh.att.com (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/04
Message-ID: <DJ2IBL.71t@nntpa.cb.att.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120849452
sender: n...@nntpa.cb.att.com (Netnews Administration)
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49o2n2$t4e@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com> <49rm0g$o8o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
organization: AT&T
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <49rm0g$...@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>,
BENJAMIN A LINDSTROM <b...@uwrf.edu> wrote:
>
>Soo..As I said...the way Linux and *BSD operate differently. <shrug>
>I doubt Linux will ever totally move to the FreeBSD method of kernel
>hacking unless Linus decides to move that way (or there is a major
>uprising.=)
>
So then finally, someone who uses Linux is admitting that the Linux
kernel development at least is not open and free. Sounds like a monarchy
to me. (FreeBSD is somewhere between monarchy and anarchy :-)), and
the FreeBSD kernel is unencumbered with GPL.
The approach used in FreeBSD has allowed for very quick development even
in the face of the Net/2 thing and the slow start from 386BSD. I think that
FreeBSD is really doing pretty well...
John
dy...@freebsd.org
From: mig...@sphinx.nuclecu.unam.mx (Miguel de Icaza)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/04
Message-ID: <s8ivjwxvl8.fsf@sphinx.nuclecu.unam.mx>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120849495
sender: mig...@sphinx.nuclecu.unam.mx
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu>
organization: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
> >So far, there has been *NO* announcement of the opening of the CVS
> >tree.
> >
> Likewise for Linux!!!! ANYONE have access to the
> daily up-to-date FreeBSD sources... I sure would like to see the
> daily source for Linux!!!
Patches are issued about every 4-5 days, that is quite close to the
latest developement version.
Linux/SPARC is developed using CVS and I can't find myself time to
upgrade my kernel sources everytime someone commits changes. When we
get to a stable point code is then submited to Linus.
Miguel.
--
mig...@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx
The Midnight Commander: http://stekt.oulu.fi/~jtklehto/mc/
From: dy...@inuxs.inh.att.com (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/04
Message-ID: <DJ2I3J.6tp@nntpa.cb.att.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 121152745
sender: n...@nntpa.cb.att.com (Netnews Administration)
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49pb5g$di8@agate.berkeley.edu>
<49s93l$a6@dyson.iquest.net> <DJ1B47.83F@kroete2.freinet.de>
organization: AT&T
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <DJ1B47....@kroete2.freinet.de>,
Erik Corry <e...@kroete2.freinet.de> wrote:
>John S. Dyson (r...@dyson.iquest.net) wrote:
>: Linus owns Linux and through his generosity, you can use it -- isn't
>: that nice of him?.
>
>I'm wondering what you mean by this. Linus does not own all the copyright
>in the Linux kernel, and certainly not in a complete Linux system. He
>has no way of regretting his generosity and withdrawing permission to
>use old versions. He couldn't even do it for future versions without
>replacing vast amounts of code written by others, or getting their
>permission.
>
I retracted the statement about Linus having complete ownership of Linux,
however he still calls the shots, and this discussion has been pretty much
about the "closedness" of the FreeBSD development. It appears to me that
the Linux kernel is de-facto being controlled by one person, not so at all
on FreeBSD. We do have a chief architect, but he mostly acts as a tie
breaker. So, I would sure like to hear about the Linux CVS tree and
how concurrent development is handled. How does the Linux development
resolve differences given multiple developers making changes to the tree?
At least it appears that FreeBSD has admitted to a long history of having
a concurrent version control system -- is there a secret one somewhere in
Linux, or is it just not open, and a single developer maintains the tree???
John
dy...@freebsd.org
From: mig...@sphinx.nuclecu.unam.mx (Miguel de Icaza)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/04
Message-ID: <s8hgzgxv3o.fsf@sphinx.nuclecu.unam.mx>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120921630
sender: mig...@sphinx.nuclecu.unam.mx
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49pb5g$di8@agate.berkeley.edu>
organization: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
> So, I would sure like to hear about the Linux CVS tree and
> how concurrent development is handled. How does the Linux development
> resolve differences given multiple developers making changes to the tree?
Usually, there are people in charge of different parts of the Kernel
and Linus gives them authority over that (ie, he just applies patches
without doing much checking of them). The MIPS people have control
over the MIPS part; the SPARC people over the SPARC dependant part;
the network is handled by the network guy and so on.
> At least it appears that FreeBSD has admitted to a long history of having
> a concurrent version control system -- is there a secret one somewhere in
> Linux, or is it just not open, and a single developer maintains the tree???
I don't think Linux developement tree is closed at all, you can get
(as I said in a previous message) an almost updated look at what does
the kernel look like with about 4-5 days of delay.
If you want to touch some part of the kernel, Linus usually points you
to the person or team in charge of that part and you discuss that with
the appropiate team.
Having CVS would be nice (Linux/SPARC works like this), but I really
don't mind using any of the approachs for looking at kernel updates,
and I'm really impressed by OpenBSD's anoncvs site.
Miguel.
--
mig...@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx
The Midnight Commander: http://stekt.oulu.fi/~jtklehto/mc/
From: e...@kroete2.freinet.de (Erik Corry)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/05
Message-ID: <DJ3DM7.n0L@kroete2.freinet.de>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 120921679
sender: n...@kroete2.freinet.de (news)
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49o2n2$t4e@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com> <49rm0g$o8o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<DJ2IBL.71t@nntpa.cb.att.com>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
organization: Home
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
John S. Dyson (dy...@inuxs.inh.att.com) wrote:
: So then finally, someone who uses Linux is admitting that the Linux
: kernel development at least is not open and free. Sounds like a monarchy
: to me. (FreeBSD is somewhere between monarchy and anarchy :-)), and
: the FreeBSD kernel is unencumbered with GPL.
Monarchy? Benevolent dictatorship! :-)
Linux development is based on patch files. Anyone who has a kernel
enhancement that has not (yet) been accepted by Linus maintains
a set of patches, which have to be kept up to date as new versions
of the kernel are released. Inevitably, if Linus does not accept
the patches, they will probably die out as the effort to keep
them up to date becomes too large.
Until now Linus seems to have shown very good judgement in this, so
most people don't regard it as a problem. Of course the internal
layers in the kernel are used to minimise the interaction between
patches as far as possible.
Again, there is nothing stopping someone bringing in the FreeBSD model
if they prefer, but personally I find the multiplicity of BSD versions
(FreeBSD, NetBSD, BSDI, and now OpenBSD) a sign that your way of doing
things isn't without its problems, either. This must represent a similar
duplication of effort to the effort that goes into maintaining Linux
patch files. At least the patch files and new architectures are merged
into Linux eventually: is there an effort to reunify NetBSD and FreeBSD?
My impression is that the splits have mostly been caused by
ego-clashes. In the Linux community, we have so much respect for Linus
that such a clash has never been able to split the kernel.
You say the FreeBSD kernel is 'unencumbered with the GPL'. The GPL
may be an encumberance to you, but to Linux/GNU developers, the
BSD license is also an encumberance: which means you can't use
BSD code in the Linux kernel or in a GPL'ed application.
The other major encumberance of the GPL is that noone can 'do a BSDI'
with Linux, i.e. copy the code and create a private version. That's not
perceived as a disadvantage by most Linux developers, in fact for many
it is a prerequisite. For example, Alan Cox has stated that he does
GPL development for free, but wants to be paid for development under
other licenses.
The original Linux license, before the GPL was even more restrictive. It
was more like the Minix license, which clearly hindered the spread of
Minix. If Minix had been under the GPL or the BSD license, perhaps the
free Unix movement(s) would have happened much earlier.
The encumberance of the GPL hasn't stopped Caldera from making a
very nice-looking commercial package including Netware client support,
native Wordperfect, Zmail, spreadsheet and a nice desktop app,
and selling it as a complete Internet OS+program suite. And patches
have flowed back from Caldera in a way that I don't imagine BSDI has
done (corrections welcome).
I don't want to be seen as bashing the BSDs: there's probably room
for both.
--
Erik Corry ehco...@inet.uni-c.dk
From: r...@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/05
Message-ID: <4a14v5$1lq@dyson.iquest.net>
X-Deja-AN: 121152848
sender: n...@iquest.net (News Admin)
x-nntp-posting-host: dyson.iquest.net
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49rm0g$o8o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<DJ2IBL.71t@nntpa.cb.att.com> <DJ3DM7.n0L@kroete2.freinet.de>
organization: John S. Dyson's home machine
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <DJ3DM7....@kroete2.freinet.de>,
Erik Corry <e...@kroete2.freinet.de> wrote:
>John S. Dyson (dy...@inuxs.inh.att.com) wrote:
>: So then finally, someone who uses Linux is admitting that the Linux
>: kernel development at least is not open and free. Sounds like a monarchy
>: to me. (FreeBSD is somewhere between monarchy and anarchy :-)), and
>: the FreeBSD kernel is unencumbered with GPL.
>
>Monarchy? Benevolent dictatorship! :-)
>
>Linux development is based on patch files. Anyone who has a kernel
>enhancement that has not (yet) been accepted by Linus maintains
>a set of patches, which have to be kept up to date as new versions
>of the kernel are released. Inevitably, if Linus does not accept
>the patches, they will probably die out as the effort to keep
>them up to date becomes too large.
>
>Until now Linus seems to have shown very good judgement in this, so
>most people don't regard it as a problem. Of course the internal
>layers in the kernel are used to minimise the interaction between
>patches as far as possible.
>
That keeps people from becoming intimately involved and keeps the
development centralized. It still does not appear to be open -- in
fact, I accepted patches and mods from users when working on SVR4 --
that does not make SVR4 open :-).
>
>Again, there is nothing stopping someone bringing in the FreeBSD model
>if they prefer, but personally I find the multiplicity of BSD versions
>(FreeBSD, NetBSD, BSDI, and now OpenBSD) a sign that your way of doing
>things isn't without its problems, either. This must represent a similar
>duplication of effort to the effort that goes into maintaining Linux
>patch files. At least the patch files and new architectures are merged
>into Linux eventually: is there an effort to reunify NetBSD and FreeBSD?
>
You mean there are not various version of the Linux distributions :-). I'll
bet you that there are more variations on Linux than the 4 versions of BSD.
And how many versions of the Linux kernel are being distributed simultaneously?
Notice also, there have been some overtures that might be indicating future
cooperation between FreeBSD, and the other *BSDs -- that is not a sign of
weakness, but of strength, the previous problems appear to be working
themselves out. The teams will probably not merge -- but the spirit of
cooperation is appearing.
>
>My impression is that the splits have mostly been caused by
>ego-clashes. In the Linux community, we have so much respect for Linus
>that such a clash has never been able to split the kernel.
>
Also strong opinions -- note that the FreeBSD group is very dynamic and open!!!
Whatever the reasons for the seperate groups it has caused significant
competition in the BSD community and has caused the development to be open to
more people and many new ideas have formed. Case-in-point, my baby, the FreeBSD
VM system, we already had a VM system, and it sucked. I had a champion on the
newly emerging FreeBSD team (David Greenman) and both of us knew that the VM
system was "not very good". It had been meant to be a research project to prove
viability, but as such projects go, it turned into "product." I thought that
the original code was very very good as a feasibility study -- but it needed
to be made more robust. If we had a silly monarchy, the code would never
had been incorporated, as I would not have wasted my time trying to convince
someone long-distance as to the limitations of the current scheme.
I could probably say the same thing about the Linux networking code, or
the Linux VM system right now. Linux as it is, has not had the problems of
the Net-2 copyright thing, and it only performs marginally better in some
areas and is significantly slower in others... If it was a truely an open
development, then I think that others could take ownership of the broken
pieces (especially if they got some credit other than part of a GPLed thing.)
The copyright thing slowed us down by almost 1 year!!! Now we are moving
forward faster than ever.
>
>You say the FreeBSD kernel is 'unencumbered with the GPL'. The GPL
>may be an encumberance to you, but to Linux/GNU developers, the
>BSD license is also an encumberance: which means you can't use
>BSD code in the Linux kernel or in a GPL'ed application.
>
What is the problem with the BSD copyright? -- I'll bet it is primarily that
one must give credit to the developers and not take credit for work that
others have done... I think that is a very minor payback for lots of work.
I have a very strong philosophical belief that one should always reward
people for good performance -- it is part of a very important feedback
mechanism.
>
>The other major encumberance of the GPL is that noone can 'do a BSDI'
>with Linux, i.e. copy the code and create a private version. That's not
>perceived as a disadvantage by most Linux developers, in fact for many
>it is a prerequisite. For example, Alan Cox has stated that he does
>GPL development for free, but wants to be paid for development under
>other licenses.
>
I don't care if BSDI takes my code -- in some ways, BSDI is my friend, and
in others they are in competition. Isn't it great that FreeBSD is staying
ahead of BSDI in some ways -- and gives away its source code :-). Isn't
competition great -- I am not afraid of what BSDI can do, the *BSD teams
are keeping up pretty well. Bottom line, my work on FreeBSD is advertising,
and has helped me in the past to make very good money by Midwestern US
standards :-). My work on FreeBSD takes about 20Hrs/week or so average and
I believe that I am contributing to the community as a whole, and getting
something out of it (Like advertisers on PBS for example.) Seems that
I am being inconsistant, since I am a political (thinking) conservative :-).
>
>And patches
>have flowed back from Caldera in a way that I don't imagine BSDI has
>done (corrections welcome).
>
Actually, there was a time that BSDI patches made it into the other
*BSDs -- but it appears to be long gone. That is ok, we keep up pretty
well -- and have been proactive in finding and resolving bugs. FreeBSD
has been leading in several areas and out-performs other *BSDs by
being innovative.
>
>I don't want to be seen as bashing the BSDs: there's probably room
>for both.
>
Nor I. This discussion got started when allegations were made that the
FreeBSD development was closed unlike Linux... The end result has shown
that Linux is more closed -- but not all that bad.
I see the GPL as an ideal that if studied, is very scarey. Socialism
is another such ideal. I think that de-facto in both cases (BSD copyright
or GPL) people are giving away code. The difference is that the BSD copyright
is a gift without strings, except one -- give credit where credit is due. That
credit costs maybe about 4-5k -- the source code as the GPL implies, costs
multi-megabytes!!!
Let me explain a case-in-point... If someone makes a fancy mod to the FreeBSD
VM system thereby gaining a 50% performance increase and makes it private,
do you think that I cannot do the same??? FreeBSD is already so big and is
so complete, it is at very low risk that someone can take it away from the
public without a very large investment. I have confidence in the free *BSD
groups -- the worse thing that would happen is that the groups would pool
their efforts to become competitive again. There are some very powerful
and intelligent people backing these free *BSDs -- and they will keep them
free...
GPL to me is a bit more lazy -- "well, no-one can take the code and make
it private anyway, because I am protecting myself with a license". :-).
I have much more confidence in myself and the *BSD groups than that!!!
John
dy...@freebsd.org
From: mandt...@news.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/05
Message-ID: <4a2kme$32d@josie.abo.fi>
X-Deja-AN: 120921697
distribution: comp
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49rm0g$o8o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<DJ2IBL.71t@nntpa.cb.att.com> <DJ3DM7.n0L@kroete2.freinet.de>
<4a14v5$1lq@dyson.iquest.net>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
organization: Unorganized Usenet Postings UnInc.
reply-to: mandt...@abo.fi
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
John S. Dyson, in <4a14v5$...@dyson.iquest.net>:
>In article <DJ3DM7....@kroete2.freinet.de>,
>Erik Corry <e...@kroete2.freinet.de> wrote:
[deletia]
>>Until now Linus seems to have shown very good judgement in this, so
>>most people don't regard it as a problem. Of course the internal
>>layers in the kernel are used to minimise the interaction between
>>patches as far as possible.
>That keeps people from becoming intimately involved and keeps the
>development centralized. It still does not appear to be open -- in
>fact, I accepted patches and mods from users when working on SVR4 --
>that does not make SVR4 open :-).
I still fail to see what's so much more "closed" about Linux
development that isn't similarly closed in *BSD. In both systems, if
you want to change something, you've got to convince the Powers That
Be that it needs to be changed, and that your change is the right way
to do it; or become a Power That Is yourself.
In Linux, you need to convince (usually) one person, exactly who can
vary; in BSD, convincing one person is enough to get your change into
the code, unless maybe some of the other persons you could have
convinced instead objects. Same thing, different method.
[...]
>Whatever the reasons for the seperate groups it has caused
>significant competition in the BSD community and has caused the
>development to be open to more people and many new ideas have
>formed. Case-in-point, my baby, the FreeBSD VM system, we already
>had a VM system, and it sucked. I had a champion on the newly
>emerging FreeBSD team (David Greenman) and both of us knew that the
>VM system was "not very good". It had been meant to be a research
>project to prove viability, but as such projects go, it turned into
>"product." I thought that the original code was very very good as a
>feasibility study -- but it needed to be made more robust. If we had
>a silly monarchy, the code would never had been incorporated, as I
>would not have wasted my time trying to convince someone
>long-distance as to the limitations of the current scheme.
If the code had been so bad as you described, you wouldn't have had
much trouble convincing people about it; there would've been dozens or
hundreds of people screaming for it to be changed on the 'net. Such
outcries have happened repeatedly concerning Linux weaknesses, and are
still happening - the NFS inefficiency gathers complaints every few
months, and will likely get some seeing-to just as soon as somebody
gets sufficiently fed up with it to take the time to do it. (Linux
developers - anyone feel up to implementing write fusioning yet?)
>I could probably say the same thing about the Linux networking code, or
>the Linux VM system right now.
Could you? Care to look over the Linux VM system (since that is your
area of specialization) and offer some constructive criticism? The
networking code might be hard to comment on, since it's currently
seeing intense development; you might want to wait for 1.4 before
saying anything definitive.
>Linux as it is, has not had the problems of
>the Net-2 copyright thing, and it only performs marginally better in some
>areas and is significantly slower in others... If it was a truely an open
>development, then I think that others could take ownership of the broken
>pieces (especially if they got some credit other than part of a GPLed thing.)
What do you mean they're not getting credit? Looked at the Linux
sources recently - read the CREDITS file? There are people's names
smothered all over the sources; authors near as I can tell always get
credited for their work.
As for the GPL, I don't enter into political flamefests. All I know
is, I've read the thing, I've liked it; used properly for the things
it was meant to do, I happen to think it's a very Good Thing.
>>You say the FreeBSD kernel is 'unencumbered with the GPL'. The GPL
>>may be an encumberance to you, but to Linux/GNU developers, the
>>BSD license is also an encumberance: which means you can't use
>>BSD code in the Linux kernel or in a GPL'ed application.
>What is the problem with the BSD copyright? -- I'll bet it is
>primarily that one must give credit to the developers and not take
>credit for work that others have done...
No part of the GPL grants you any right to claim others' work as your
own. No part of the GPL forbids you from crediting your own work to
yourself.
I'll grant you that authorship crediting is not explicitly spelled
out in the text of the GPL, but it is certainly implied; many parts
of it would make little sense if authorship was not properly credited
and attributed. In fact, section 2.a of the GPL (version 2) would
make next to no sense unless this principle is seen as implicit.
As for what's "wrong" with the BSD copyright, I'm not sure if there's
anything wrong with it at all; I've never even read it, so I couldn't
tell.
>>The other major encumberance of the GPL is that noone can 'do a BSDI'
>>with Linux, i.e. copy the code and create a private version. That's not
>>perceived as a disadvantage by most Linux developers, in fact for many
>>it is a prerequisite. For example, Alan Cox has stated that he does
>>GPL development for free, but wants to be paid for development under
>>other licenses.
>I don't care if BSDI takes my code
Doesn't this somewhat contradict what you said above about crediting
people for their work? Or does BSDI list you as co-developer of their
private, proprietary OS? I really don't know.
[...]
>>And patches have flowed back from Caldera in a way that I don't
>>imagine BSDI has done (corrections welcome).
>Actually, there was a time that BSDI patches made it into the other
>*BSDs -- but it appears to be long gone. That is ok, we keep up pretty
>well -- and have been proactive in finding and resolving bugs. FreeBSD
>has been leading in several areas and out-performs other *BSDs by
>being innovative.
You seem to have proven his point, I'm afraid. I'm glad you're
managing anyway, but so long as Caldera makes money from their code
additions to Linux - the IPX stuff, foremost - *I* see it as only
right and proper that they contribute that code back to the rest of
Linux. Of course, the GPL pretty much forces them to, but...
[...]
>I see the GPL as an ideal that if studied, is very scarey. Socialism
>is another such ideal.
Careful, you're committing a logical fallacy here in trying to make a
connection GPL <==> socialism. If you want to argue against one of
them, showing the bad sides of the other won't do.
Me, personally, I find neither one of them scary; but my point is, I
definitely do not think there's any connection between them.
>I think that de-facto in both cases (BSD copyright or GPL) people
>are giving away code. The difference is that the BSD copyright is a
>gift without strings, except one -- give credit where credit is due.
>That credit costs maybe about 4-5k -- the source code as the GPL
>implies, costs multi-megabytes!!!
No it doesn't; you don't have to supply full source with every
ten-byte utility, you have to _make source available_. Naming a
publically available anon FTP site qualifies perfectly well; even an
explicit notice (good for >= 3 years, mind) that you'll snail-mail
anybody who wants it the source is good enough.
But even so, gzip'ped source trees tucked away on the last one in a
set of distribution CD-ROM's do not hurt these days. Don't try to fool
me that it does.
>Let me explain a case-in-point... If someone makes a fancy mod to
>the FreeBSD VM system thereby gaining a 50% performance increase and
>makes it private, do you think that I cannot do the same???
Maybe you can, I wouldn't know. If FreeBSD was GPL'ed, neither one of
you could legally do that.
[...]
>GPL to me is a bit more lazy -- "well, no-one can take the code and make
>it private anyway, because I am protecting myself with a license". :-).
>I have much more confidence in myself and the *BSD groups than that!!!
The GPL is more legalistic - it doesn't trust in the good intentions
of a lot of people, it puts down in legal terms what you can and can't
do, and if anybody does it anyway, they'll have _broken the law_.
So maybe you won't be able to do anything about it because you can't
afford the lawyers. But if the BSD copyright doesn't make those same
things explicit in much the same way, then even if you _could_ afford
the lawyers, you wouldn't be able to do anything.
At least the GPL tries.
--
" ... got to contaminate to alleviate this loneliness
i now know the depths i reach are limitless... "
-- nin
From: pe...@nmti.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/05
Message-ID: <4a1s2i$4l9@zuul.nmti.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 121032560
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49rm0g$o8o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<DJ2IBL.71t@nntpa.cb.att.com> <DJ3DM7.n0L@kroete2.freinet.de>
organization: Network/development platform support, NMTI
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <DJ3DM7....@kroete2.freinet.de>,
Erik Corry <e...@kroete2.freinet.de> wrote:
> You say the FreeBSD kernel is 'unencumbered with the GPL'. The GPL
> may be an encumberance to you, but to Linux/GNU developers, the
> BSD license is also an encumberance: which means you can't use
> BSD code in the Linux kernel or in a GPL'ed application.
How do you figure that?
--
Peter da Silva (NIC: PJD2) `-_-' 1601 Industrial Boulevard
Bailey Network Management 'U` Sugar Land, TX 77487-5013
+1 713 274 5180 "Har du kramat din varg idag?" USA
Bailey pays for my technical expertise. My opinions probably scare them
From: dy...@inuxs.inh.att.com (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/06
Message-ID: <DJ6IJE.78D@nntpa.cb.att.com>
X-Deja-AN: 121152739
sender: n...@nntpa.cb.att.com (Netnews Administration)
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <DJ3DM7.n0L@kroete2.freinet.de>
<4a14v5$1lq@dyson.iquest.net> <4a2kme$32d@josie.abo.fi>
organization: AT&T
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
In article <4a2kme$...@josie.abo.fi>, Mats Andtbacka <mandt...@abo.fi> wrote:
>John S. Dyson, in <4a14v5$...@dyson.iquest.net>:
>>In article <DJ3DM7....@kroete2.freinet.de>,
>>Erik Corry <e...@kroete2.freinet.de> wrote:
>
>[deletia]
>
>>development centralized. It still does not appear to be open -- in
>>fact, I accepted patches and mods from users when working on SVR4 --
>>that does not make SVR4 open :-).
>
>I still fail to see what's so much more "closed" about Linux
>development that isn't similarly closed in *BSD. In both systems, if
>you want to change something, you've got to convince the Powers That
>Be that it needs to be changed, and that your change is the right way
>to do it; or become a Power That Is yourself.
>
Linus calls the shots in the kernel doesn't he??? He ALLOWS people
to work on certain sections, right?? On FreeBSD, the development is
much more open and diverse.
>
>If the code had been so bad as you described, you wouldn't have had
>much trouble convincing people about it; there would've been dozens or
>hundreds of people screaming for it to be changed on the 'net. Such
>
Actually, NetBSD is looking into changing their VM system after seeing
the difference in performance between FreeBSD and NetBSD. They may
or may not adopt the FreeBSD stuff -- but they are seeing the
deficiency. Many of the VM system problems are only significant under
heavy load -- and FreeBSD has always targeted high performance under load
as one of its goals. So yes, there is acknowlegment -- even from Mike
Hibler (who did the original port of the MACH VM system) that there are
problems in the original stuff.. BTW, he did a tremendous job on the
original stuff -- it just needed some re-work, polishing and the MACH
stuff before his port wasn't really up to the task. Most of our work
has been removing the problems with the original MACH stuff.
One more thing, if you are stuck with a slow VM system, it mostly appears
that your machine is slow in starting up processes or slow in swapping. You
can get used to it pretty fast. Sometimes it isn't even noticed, because
the system is a single user workstation with light load. Start loading
the system and the VM system becomes a major player. It appears that VM
systems are a 'stepchild' and I think that there is alot that can be done.
(Even in FreeBSD -- but I think that others are a bit behind.)
>
>Could you? Care to look over the Linux VM system (since that is your
>area of specialization) and offer some constructive criticism? The
>networking code might be hard to comment on, since it's currently
>seeing intense development; you might want to wait for 1.4 before
>saying anything definitive.
>
Yes, I have not had much time -- but earlier results of some performance
test runs show some problems under heavy load and slowness under light load.
I haven't yet had time to see how the kswap (or 1.3.40 or so kernels) patches
do -- they should help alot, but from what I have heard some heuristics were
used, and those heuristic things scare me(1). But, the proof of the pudding
as they say, is in the eating. When I get the time, I will try to see how
it does.
(1) Heuristics scare me because they impose a policy. I found that in working
on the FreeBSD stuff, that all of my experimental heuristics ended up in being
a tradeoff between performance in certain situations. That is the reason
that the FreeBSD stuff is statistics driven.
>
>What do you mean they're not getting credit? Looked at the Linux
>sources recently - read the CREDITS file? There are people's names
>smothered all over the sources; authors near as I can tell always get
>credited for their work.
>
Is the CREDITS file necessary under GPL??? It is good that there is a
credits file in Linux, I guess, but it is not really necessary -- nor is
it in FreeBSD. But in the case of the VM system where I spent much
of my life with very little or no money reward, the BSD copyright protects
me from preditors that might try to take credit for it (and indemnifies
me from any damages, etc.) BTW, what about those files in the Linux
kernel without any copyright messages at all???
>
>>What is the problem with the BSD copyright? -- I'll bet it is
>>primarily that one must give credit to the developers and not take
>>credit for work that others have done...
>
>No part of the GPL grants you any right to claim others' work as your
>own. No part of the GPL forbids you from crediting your own work to
>yourself.
>
But the BSD copyright guarantees it.
>
>As for what's "wrong" with the BSD copyright, I'm not sure if there's
>anything wrong with it at all; I've never even read it, so I couldn't
>tell.
>
It is short and sweet -- probably 20 or so lines.
>
>Doesn't this somewhat contradict what you said above about crediting
>people for their work? Or does BSDI list you as co-developer of their
>private, proprietary OS? I really don't know.
>
It is guaranteed -- they can use my code without disclosing it. There is
very little that they can do to it that I can't either. In essence, they
can make proprietary mods that they feel can give them an edge -- and that
is okay with me. I can do the same mods if I want. There is very little
"magic" in any kernel that I know of.
>
>You seem to have proven his point, I'm afraid. I'm glad you're
>managing anyway, but so long as Caldera makes money from their code
>additions to Linux - the IPX stuff, foremost - *I* see it as only
>right and proper that they contribute that code back to the rest of
>Linux. Of course, the GPL pretty much forces them to, but...
>
You and I disagree about that, and that is okay. I believe that when
I give a gift, that it is best to give with as few conditions as reasonable.
You probably feel similar, and I believe that we just disagree on what is
reasonable :-).
>[...]
>>I see the GPL as an ideal that if studied, is very scarey. Socialism
>>is another such ideal.
>
>Careful, you're committing a logical fallacy here in trying to make a
>connection GPL <==> socialism. If you want to argue against one of
>them, showing the bad sides of the other won't do.
>
I wasn't calling GPL equivalent to socialism -- it is just that the two ideals
can be very scarey if carried out to their logical conclusion. (IMHO). I think
that socialism is worse than GPL though, but that is off the topic.
>
>>I think that de-facto in both cases (BSD copyright or GPL) people
>>are giving away code. The difference is that the BSD copyright is a
>>gift without strings, except one -- give credit where credit is due.
>>That credit costs maybe about 4-5k -- the source code as the GPL
>>implies, costs multi-megabytes!!!
>
>No it doesn't; you don't have to supply full source with every
>ten-byte utility, you have to _make source available_. Naming a
>publically available anon FTP site qualifies perfectly well; even an
>explicit notice (good for >= 3 years, mind) that you'll snail-mail
>anybody who wants it the source is good enough.
>
How can one guarantee the availablity of the site???? That sounds like
a significant encumberence to me. My little special program that has
a very small special interest following might not be available on such
an FTP site for long. I'd rather not deal with that encumberance.
>
>But even so, gzip'ped source trees tucked away on the last one in a
>set of distribution CD-ROM's do not hurt these days. Don't try to fool
>me that it does.
>
Hmmm... There is quite a space crunch on the latest WC cdroms lately :-),
I guess that they will just need to press more of them.
>>Let me explain a case-in-point... If someone makes a fancy mod to
>>the FreeBSD VM system thereby gaining a 50% performance increase and
>>makes it private, do you think that I cannot do the same???
>
>Maybe you can, I wouldn't know. If FreeBSD was GPL'ed, neither one of
>you could legally do that.
>
I wasn't meaning that I would make FreeBSD private -- I could easily reproduce
their work and keep it public. It is NOT in my interest to take FreeBSD
private, since I use it as advertising like advertisers do for PBS.
>
>The GPL is more legalistic - it doesn't trust in the good intentions
>of a lot of people, it puts down in legal terms what you can and can't
>do, and if anybody does it anyway, they'll have _broken the law_.
>
Legalistic does not mean clear cut. Legal language has been used to
be obscure at times (at least in the US.)
>
>So maybe you won't be able to do anything about it because you can't
>afford the lawyers. But if the BSD copyright doesn't make those same
>things explicit in much the same way, then even if you _could_ afford
>the lawyers, you wouldn't be able to do anything.
>At least the GPL tries.
>
GPL is definitely not a layman's contract -- but I can sure read the BSD
copyright. It was written by lawyers (apparently) and is very very simple.
I am not sure all that GPL encumbers, and it would take a team of lawyers
for me to be conviced that I would not be setting myself up for some kind of
strange lawsuit. BSD copyright is very short with very simple conditions.
Many people who gain more and more assets, become more risk adverse,
especially with very complicated licenses like GPL.
John
dy...@freebsd.org
From: mandt...@news.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/06
Message-ID: <4a54u5$jj5@josie.abo.fi>
X-Deja-AN: 121032638
distribution: comp
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <DJ3DM7.n0L@kroete2.freinet.de>
<4a14v5$1lq@dyson.iquest.net> <4a2kme$32d@josie.abo.fi> <DJ6IJE.78D@nntpa.cb.att.com>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
organization: Unorganized Usenet Postings UnInc.
reply-to: mandt...@abo.fi
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
John S. Dyson, in <DJ6IJE....@nntpa.cb.att.com>:
>In article <4a2kme$...@josie.abo.fi>, Mats Andtbacka <mandt...@abo.fi> wrote:
>>John S. Dyson, in <4a14v5$...@dyson.iquest.net>:
[...]
>Linus calls the shots in the kernel doesn't he??? He ALLOWS people
>to work on certain sections, right?? On FreeBSD, the development is
>much more open and diverse.
Rrright. Linux - one man; FreeBSD - a committee. Well, John, I don't
know what *your* experiences of interacting with committees are, but
_I_ would personally rather have just one person to worry about...
[...]
>>What do you mean they're not getting credit? Looked at the Linux
>>sources recently - read the CREDITS file? There are people's names
>>smothered all over the sources; authors near as I can tell always get
>>credited for their work.
>Is the CREDITS file necessary under GPL???
No; why should it be?
If you're anal about always getting credited, put your name in the
source files like most people do anyway; the CREDITS file is mostly
just a handy condensation of all those notes. But since that file is
part of the source tree, one could argue that distributing a source
tree without it would violate the GPL, yes.
(It would probably be an invalid line of argument if you read the GPL
literally, but...)
> It is good that there is a
>credits file in Linux, I guess, but it is not really necessary -- nor is
>it in FreeBSD. But in the case of the VM system where I spent much
>of my life with very little or no money reward, the BSD copyright protects
>me from preditors that might try to take credit for it (and indemnifies
>me from any damages, etc.) BTW, what about those files in the Linux
>kernel without any copyright messages at all???
What about them? If their authors had wanted credit, they could have
put attributions in those files. If you want to know what license
they're under, it's the same GPL as the rest of the kernel source -
including those source files that have explicit copyright notices.
Whether or not you explicitly spell it out in each source file, the
license on the Linux kernel is the GPL, and the copyrights are held by
the authors unless otherwise explicitly stated.
[...]
>>No part of the GPL grants you any right to claim others' work as your
>>own. No part of the GPL forbids you from crediting your own work to
>>yourself.
>But the BSD copyright guarantees it.
Rrright. So if I anonymously release something under a BSD copyright,
I'm guaranteed to get credit for this work I've never put my name on.
I think not. But the difference in practice is nil - put your name in
a GPL'ed source file, and the GPL protects it like it protects the
rest of that source.
>>As for what's "wrong" with the BSD copyright, I'm not sure if there's
>>anything wrong with it at all; I've never even read it, so I couldn't
>>tell.
>It is short and sweet -- probably 20 or so lines.
The reason I've never read it is that I've never had the occasion -
my Linux box runs no BSD-copyrighted software (to the best of my
knowledge). I tend to read copyrights only when I install and/or
compile some new package, and I've never yet installed BSD software
on that box; so far, diverse GNU stuff has done nicely in its place.
>>Doesn't this somewhat contradict what you said above about crediting
>>people for their work? Or does BSDI list you as co-developer of their
>>private, proprietary OS? I really don't know.
>It is guaranteed -- they can use my code without disclosing it.
If they use your code and don't disclose that they've done so, you're
guaranteed not to be credited for it. Did I misread you somewhere,
surely you didn't mean to say _that_?
> There is very little that they can do to it that I can't either.
>In essence, they can make proprietary mods that they feel can give
>them an edge -- and that is okay with me. I can do the same mods if
>I want. There is very little "magic" in any kernel that I know of.
Well, surprise - you can do just the same with GPL'ed software. Only
hitch is, the product you then release pretty much has to be GPL'ed as
well - if you can put up with that, you can do nearly anything you
please with GPL'ed source.
[...]
>I wasn't calling GPL equivalent to socialism -- it is just that the two ideals
>can be very scarey if carried out to their logical conclusion. (IMHO). I think
>that socialism is worse than GPL though, but that is off the topic.
I'm at a loss as to what you think is the logical conclusion of
releasing GPL'ed software, but you're probably right; it likely would
be off topic.
>>No it doesn't; you don't have to supply full source with every
>>ten-byte utility, you have to _make source available_. Naming a
>>publically available anon FTP site qualifies perfectly well; even an
>>explicit notice (good for >= 3 years, mind) that you'll snail-mail
>>anybody who wants it the source is good enough.
>How can one guarantee the availablity of the site????
By uploading it to ftp.cdrom.com, which runs BSD and hence will never
go down. ;-)
That part of the GPL (offering source access from FTP sites) strictly
only applies to binaries distributed via the same FTP sites (last
paragraph of section 3 of the GPL (v.2)), so if the site goes down,
you can't get either binary or source, and nothing is distributed.
> That sounds like
>a significant encumberence to me. My little special program that has
>a very small special interest following might not be available on such
>an FTP site for long. I'd rather not deal with that encumberance.
So distribute full source, or an explicit notice to the effect that
you (contact information provided) will supply such source to anyone
who wants it at no extra cost, for the following three years. Little
special programs with very small special interest followings oughtn't
overflow your mailbox, right?
Seriously, John, in 99% of any cases either one of us is interested in
this is a nonissue, since Unix software is still traditionally
distributed as source _only_. I've not run into any binary-only
distribution of any of the *BSD's so far, have you?
>>But even so, gzip'ped source trees tucked away on the last one in a
>>set of distribution CD-ROM's do not hurt these days. Don't try to fool
>>me that it does.
>Hmmm... There is quite a space crunch on the latest WC cdroms lately :-),
>I guess that they will just need to press more of them.
One more CD in a set of four or five to hold the compressed source for
what's on the other ones. For crying out loud, there are *games* being
delivered on no less than *seven* CD's already! Pressing one CD was
last I heard of it still cheap.
>>>Let me explain a case-in-point... If someone makes a fancy mod to
>>>the FreeBSD VM system thereby gaining a 50% performance increase and
>>>makes it private, do you think that I cannot do the same???
>>Maybe you can, I wouldn't know. If FreeBSD was GPL'ed, neither one of
>>you could legally do that.
>I wasn't meaning that I would make FreeBSD private -- I could easily
>reproduce their work and keep it public.
Even if you've no idea what they've done? Even if you lack the
manpower and resources to develop a parallel to whatever they did?
If you really can, then I salute you; but if that sort of coding is
really doable for most developers, how come anybody still bothers to
reverse-engineer anything?
>>The GPL is more legalistic - it doesn't trust in the good intentions
>>of a lot of people, it puts down in legal terms what you can and can't
>>do, and if anybody does it anyway, they'll have _broken the law_.
>Legalistic does not mean clear cut. Legal language has been used to
>be obscure at times (at least in the US.)
And stars know it took me a bit of brainwork to grok the GPL; but I
wasn't using the word properly, I apologize for being unclear. I meant
to say the GPL takes a more "legal", cut-in-stone approach, as opposed
to merely trusting that "nobody will do anything nasty with this
code"; it spells out what is and isn't allowed.
>>So maybe you won't be able to do anything about it because you can't
>>afford the lawyers. But if the BSD copyright doesn't make those same
>>things explicit in much the same way, then even if you _could_ afford
>>the lawyers, you wouldn't be able to do anything.
>GPL is definitely not a layman's contract -- but I can sure read the BSD
>copyright. It was written by lawyers (apparently) and is very very simple.
"Written by lawyers and is very simple" - isn't that a self-
contradicting statement? ;-)
But I disagree that the GPL is all _that_ impossible to understand. To
be sure, it takes some trying; but it can be done. I think I've a
reasonable grasp of its basic premises, and I'm certainly no lawyer.
But most importantly, that extra complexity probably gives you some
advantage that the simpler BSD copyright doesn't; the GPL goes into
great detail on what your rights are, as author, user, or
distributor.
--
" ... got to contaminate to alleviate this loneliness
i now know the depths i reach are limitless... "
-- nin
From: e...@kroete2.freinet.de (Erik Corry)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/07
Message-ID: <DJ6y7H.MIE@kroete2.freinet.de>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 121032618
sender: n...@kroete2.freinet.de (news)
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49rm0g$o8o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<DJ2IBL.71t@nntpa.cb.att.com> <DJ3DM7.n0L@kroete2.freinet.de>
<4a1s2i$4l9@zuul.nmti.com>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
organization: Home
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
Peter da Silva (pe...@nmti.com) wrote:
: In article <DJ3DM7....@kroete2.freinet.de>,
: Erik Corry <e...@kroete2.freinet.de> wrote:
: > You say the FreeBSD kernel is 'unencumbered with the GPL'. The GPL
: > may be an encumberance to you, but to Linux/GNU developers, the
: > BSD license is also an encumberance: which means you can't use
: > BSD code in the Linux kernel or in a GPL'ed application.
:
: How do you figure that?
I'm basing this on a post I have unfortunately lost from Russel
Nelson (I think. Or was it Alan Cox? I may be getting them mixed
up because of the Welsh connection). He said he had consulted
a lawyer on the subject, who told him that the prohibition
against using certain names in advertising in the BSD license
counts as an additional restriction in the sense of the GPL,
and hence they conflict.
I think this is actually generally accepted. I know of no apps
or kernels that mix GPL and BSD code, do you?
In a way its sad, but on the other hand, were the licenses
compatible, it would probably result in a tendency towards
everything becoming GPLed sooner or later, which might irritate
the BSDers. Maybe it wouldn't irritate them though. If they
don't mind their code ending up in a proprietary product,
why should they mind it ending up in a GPLed product?
Of course, if you do it right a loadable module for the Linux
kernel can be under any license. Thus there are commercial
binary-only device drivers and there's the BSD'ed PPP-LZW
compression module.
--
You couldn't deny that, even if you tried with both hands. -- The Red Queen
--
Erik Corry ehco...@inet.uni-c.dk
From: j...@violet.berkeley.edu (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/07
Message-ID: <4a6fgo$6lg@agate.berkeley.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 121152773
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <DJ3DM7.n0L@kroete2.freinet.de>
<4a1s2i$4l9@zuul.nmti.com> <DJ6y7H.MIE@kroete2.freinet.de>
organization: University of California, Berkeley
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <DJ6y7H....@kroete2.freinet.de>,
Erik Corry <e...@kroete2.freinet.de> wrote:
>I'm basing this on a post I have unfortunately lost from Russel
>Nelson (I think. Or was it Alan Cox? I may be getting them mixed
>up because of the Welsh connection). He said he had consulted
>a lawyer on the subject, who told him that the prohibition
>against using certain names in advertising in the BSD license
>counts as an additional restriction in the sense of the GPL,
>and hence they conflict.
That is utterly absurd. The BSD copyright claims that you can't
use the name of UCB or the Regents in advertising. That is,
you can't put "FooBSD - the official operating system of
the University of California, Berkeley!" all over your CD cover.
This is an "encumbrance?" I can't put "Official Operating System
of the U.S. Olympic Team" on the cover either, but that hardly
constitutes a hardship.
I'm sorry, but this is the most specious argument I've heard
in a long time. The BSD copyright is about as close to "public
domain" as you can get. Acknowledge the contributors and you
can do whatever the heck else you like. The GPL puts a whole
raft of extra restrictions on how the software must be distributed
or changed, and that is why we're less than willing to use it
for our kernels - the question of distributing source for
binaries (especially if you're producing some product like
"router on a floppy") just gets too complex.
Also, just for the record, we HAVE done kernels that had GPL'd code
in them. This is not a religious issue, despite frequent visits to
that side of the debating fence, this is an issue of trying to
keep the "cost" of doing commercial versions as low as possible.
Sometimes we've felt that the benefit of some bit of code offset
this cost enough that we put GPL stuff in the kernel for a time
(until another solution could be found), and we're hardly entirely
inflexible about it - we wouldn't even have compiler technology
if we were!
>compatible, it would probably result in a tendency towards
>everything becoming GPLed sooner or later, which might irritate
Nope. GPL == greater complexity, not less, and I'd much rather
see a migration in the direction of lesser complexity. Less
complex wins for me every time!
Also, we have no objection whatsoever to our code ending up
in a GPL'd product! We just don't chose to use that license
ourselves. That distinction IS important, my friend!
Jordan
From: ldaff...@convex.com (Larry Daffner)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/07
Message-ID: <4a7d9p$860@muirwood.convex.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 121367170
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <DJ3DM7.n0L@kroete2.freinet.de>
<4a1s2i$4l9@zuul.nmti.com> <DJ6y7H.MIE@kroete2.freinet.de>
<4a6fgo$6lg@agate.berkeley.edu>
organization: Engineering, Convex Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx USA
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In <4a6fgo$...@agate.berkeley.edu> j...@violet.berkeley.edu (Jordan K. Hubbard) writes:
>can do whatever the heck else you like. The GPL puts a whole
>raft of extra restrictions on how the software must be distributed
>or changed, and that is why we're less than willing to use it
>for our kernels - the question of distributing source for
>binaries (especially if you're producing some product like
>"router on a floppy") just gets too complex.
I'd like to pint out something here. The GPL is NOT very complicated
at all. There are 3 main points to the GPL.
1) If you distribute a binary for GPL-covered software, you must
ensure that the recipients have access to the source. It doesn't mean
that you can't do binary only distributions of say, emacs. But if you
do, and the recipient wants source, it's your responsibility to make
sure they can get it, and make any improvements they wish.
2) Any derivatives of GPL works are GPL'ed. IE, If you use GPL code in
a product, the product is placed under the GPL. That is, I can't take
your GPL code, use it to make my own app and distribute it in binary
only form. (Note that this is a lie in the case of GNU libraries, the
restrictions are different).
3) If you distribute GPL-ed software, you should make the recipients
aware of the above two rights.
How is this complicated? All it says is free software remains free.
And what's so tough about an anonymous FTP site with source code?
It may be a bit covered in legalese these days, but the GPL is not as
restrictive as everyone here seems to claim it is.
--
Larry Daffner - Software Engineer | email: ldaff...@convex.com |
Convex Computer Corporation | tel: (214)497-4274 / home: (214)380-4382 |
It is important to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall
out. --Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.
From: j...@violet.berkeley.edu (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/08
Message-ID: <4a86a2$3an@agate.berkeley.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 121152804
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <DJ6y7H.MIE@kroete2.freinet.de>
<4a6fgo$6lg@agate.berkeley.edu> <4a7d9p$860@muirwood.convex.com>
organization: University of California, Berkeley
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <4a7d9p$...@muirwood.convex.com>,
Larry Daffner <ldaff...@convex.com> wrote:
>I'd like to pint out something here. The GPL is NOT very complicated
>at all. There are 3 main points to the GPL.
Sorry, but not complicated for you != not complicated for industry.
Clearly, you've never worked for a corporate monolith. The complexity
of EVERYTHING becomes magnified. Want to order some staples? Fill
out a requisition and submit it to purchasing along with your cost center
number, your boss's authorization (since mere peons like yourself are not
allowed to generate purchasing requests) and a description of just what the
staples are intended for. Then wait until purchasing orders it from
an approved channel and you'll have your staples in, oh, maybe a month
or two.
As to "setting up an FTP server", ye gods! First off, you're not allowed
to do such insanely insecure stuff yourself - that has to be done by
the MIS department and they never return your phone calls anyway.
Since this is also now a LEGAL requirement, it also has to be approved
by the legal dept (more waits) and a PROCEDURE needs to be established,
documented in triplicate, to make sure that all the right steps are
followed from now until eternity.
Small wonder then that many departments simply tell their engineers to avoid
to GPL at all costs. What's simple and easy for you as Joe Programmer
is not at all relevant to this discussion.
Jordan
From: e...@kroete2.freinet.de (Erik Corry)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/08
Message-ID: <DJ8xE2.2K9@kroete2.freinet.de>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 121367188
sender: n...@kroete2.freinet.de (news)
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <DJ3DM7.n0L@kroete2.freinet.de>
<4a1s2i$4l9@zuul.nmti.com> <DJ6y7H.MIE@kroete2.freinet.de>
<4a6fgo$6lg@agate.berkeley.edu>
followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
gnu.misc.discuss
organization: Home
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc,gnu.misc.discuss
Jordan K. Hubbard (j...@violet.berkeley.edu) wrote:
: In article <DJ6y7H....@kroete2.freinet.de>,
: Erik Corry <e...@kroete2.freinet.de> wrote:
: >I'm basing this on a post I have unfortunately lost from Russel
: >Nelson (I think. Or was it Alan Cox? I may be getting them mixed
: >up because of the Welsh connection). He said he had consulted
: >a lawyer on the subject, who told him that the prohibition
: >against using certain names in advertising in the BSD license
: >counts as an additional restriction in the sense of the GPL,
: >and hence they conflict.
:
: That is utterly absurd. The BSD copyright claims that you can't
: use the name of UCB or the Regents in advertising. That is,
: you can't put "FooBSD - the official operating system of
: the University of California, Berkeley!" all over your CD cover.
: This is an "encumbrance?" I can't put "Official Operating System
: of the U.S. Olympic Team" on the cover either, but that hardly
: constitutes a hardship.
It's not a hardship. It's not because people are _upset_ about
this requirement that they don't mix BSD and GPL code. It's
simply because it conflicts with the GPL, which says:
> You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise
> of the rights granted herein.
This means the product cannot be released under both the BSD and
the GPL licenses, since the BSD license imposes a further
restriction on the recipient.
Actually, I have always been irritated by that clause in the BSD
license, anyway. There seems to be a sliding scale between using
the initials 'B, S and D' in your product title, through mentioning
in the brochure that the product was based on the 'Berkeley
Standard Distribution' to the quote you suggest above. I have to
mention the authors in the doc, but I am forbidden from doing
so in the advertising! What if I advertise by providing free,
documented demo versions?
Personally I would be pleased if the GPL and the BSD licenses
were compatible. I would send improvements to BSDed programs
to the authors under the GPL. If they refused to accept, I
could distribute the patches and binaries on sunsite, where
Linux users and others could benefit from them, while I could
use the license I prefer: GPL.
You can put "Official Operating System of the U.S. Olympic Team"
on the cover, you just have to clear it with the U.S. Olympic
Team. But you don't have to change the license, so this has
nothing to do with the software license.
: [with the GPL] the question of distributing source for
: binaries (especially if you're producing some product like
: "router on a floppy") just gets too complex.
Now that is what I really call a specious argument. With the
current cost of CDs tending towards the cost of a floppy, that
is just not relevant. In addition, you have two options in case
a CD is too expensive for you:
> b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
> years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
> cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
> machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
> distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
> customarily used for software interchange; or,
>
> c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
> to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
> allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
> received the program in object code or executable form with such
> an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
: Also, just for the record, we HAVE done kernels that had GPL'd code
: in them.
I don't think it was legal to distribute those kernels. Did you
consult a lawyer (just out of interest)?
--
I am not a lawyer.
--
Erik Corry ehco...@inet.uni-c.dk
From: r...@rmkhome.com (Rick Kelly)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/11
Message-ID: <4ag0pi$rqg@sundog.tiac.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 121461489
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49o2n2$t4e@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com> <49rm0g$o8o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<DJ2IBL.71t@nntpa.cb.att.com> <DJ3DM7.n0L@kroete2.freinet.de>
organization: The Man With Ten Cats
reply-to: r...@tencats.rmkhome.com
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
Erik Corry (e...@kroete2.freinet.de) wrote:
: Again, there is nothing stopping someone bringing in the FreeBSD model
: if they prefer, but personally I find the multiplicity of BSD versions
: (FreeBSD, NetBSD, BSDI, and now OpenBSD) a sign that your way of doing
: things isn't without its problems, either. This must represent a similar
: duplication of effort to the effort that goes into maintaining Linux
: patch files. At least the patch files and new architectures are merged
: into Linux eventually: is there an effort to reunify NetBSD and FreeBSD?
Is there an effort to unify the different versions of Linux out there?
The *BSD groups all have their own agendas.
FreeBSD - optimized BSD for Intel hardware.
NetBSD - many architectures with a unified source tree.
BSDI - commercial BSD.
OpenBSD - BSD from a disgruntled developer.
Why unify them?
Why not unify Linux?
: ego-clashes. In the Linux community, we have so much respect for Linus
: that such a clash has never been able to split the kernel.
This has already happened.
: You say the FreeBSD kernel is 'unencumbered with the GPL'. The GPL
: may be an encumberance to you, but to Linux/GNU developers, the
: BSD license is also an encumberance: which means you can't use
: BSD code in the Linux kernel or in a GPL'ed application.
: The other major encumberance of the GPL is that noone can 'do a BSDI'
: with Linux, i.e. copy the code and create a private version. That's not
: perceived as a disadvantage by most Linux developers, in fact for many
: it is a prerequisite. For example, Alan Cox has stated that he does
: GPL development for free, but wants to be paid for development under
: other licenses.
Linus has the primary copyright on the Linux kernel. He can do with it
what he wants, including removing it from the GPL...
--
Rick Kelly r...@tencats.rmkhome.com r...@rmkhome.com
http://tencats.rmkhome.com
From: a...@freya.yggdrasil.com (Adam J. Richter)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/11
Message-ID: <4ag8oq$399@freya.yggdrasil.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 121461519
organization: Yggdrasil Computing, Inc.
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
originator: a...@freya.yggdrasil.com
In article <4ag0pi$...@sundog.tiac.net>,
Rick Kelly <r...@tencats.rmkhome.com> wrote:
>Linus has the primary copyright on the Linux kernel. He can do with it
>what he wants, including removing it from the GPL...
Curious question: is "primary copyright" a legal term? It's
not in the abridged sixth edition of Black's Law Dictionary.
Anyhow, let me clarify Rick's statement. Linus owns the
copyright to a lot of code in the Linux kernel, but there are other
copyright holders, and Linus could not unilaterally change their
copyrights. In addition, Linus could not enforce further restriction
on the code that has already been released, since, by releasing the
code under the GNU General Public License, he has already granted
permission to do the things allowed by the GPL. However, Linus could
put the portions of the Linux kernel that he wrote under a license
less restrictive than the GPL in every case, which I think was what
Rick meant.
I, for one, would prefer that Linux remain under the GPL,
because I think that if that were not the case, competitive pressures
would make the Linux vendors make their distributions proprietary and
not return their changes to the free software community. Ultimately,
this would make Linux no more interesting than the various proprietary
unix-like systems.
--
Adam J. Richter Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated
(408) 261-6630 "Free Software For The Rest of Us."
--
Adam J. Richter Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated
(408) 261-6630 "Free Software For The Rest of Us."
From: torva...@cc.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/11
Message-ID: <4ah39c$mt3@klaava.helsinki.fi>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 121571963
sender: torva...@cc.helsinki.fi
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com>
<49rm0g$o8o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu> <DJ2IBL.71t@nntpa.cb.att.com>
content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
organization: University of Helsinki
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <DJ2IBL....@nntpa.cb.att.com>,
John S. Dyson <dy...@inuxs.inh.att.com> wrote:
>
>So then finally, someone who uses Linux is admitting that the Linux
>kernel development at least is not open and free. Sounds like a monarchy
>to me. (FreeBSD is somewhere between monarchy and anarchy :-)), and
>the FreeBSD kernel is unencumbered with GPL.
I might as well say the Linux kernel is unencumbered by the BSD
copyright. It cuts either way, and I happen to think that the GPL is
better suited to linux (especially judging by BSD development history).
John, you've seemed a reasonable person before, why this endless tirade
now?
I'll be the first to admit that I'm a dictator when it comes to linux: I
_don't_ like the core-team approach, and no, nobody else ever gets to
change _my_ kernel without my approval first. I go through every little
patch before it taints my personal kernel sources.
So if you want to bandy political terms, this makes linux an
"enlightened dictatorship" when it comes to the kernel, as opposed to
the FreeBSD monarchy and/or anarchy. I happen to think that this is the
best system for linux.
(Political science people will know that this has been considered the
optimal political system by some people too, the "only" problem being
the actual choice of dictator ;-)
But being a "dictatorship" doesn't make it less open, or less free. I
don't take any rights _away_ from you: I only give you the _choice_ of
using my kernel development. And I do make kernels availables at
reasonably regular intervals and the fact that I don't use "sup" is just
a technical thing, not an issue of "openness" or "freeness".
The fact that I don't give other people permission to modify my kernel
sources is just due to the fact that I'm a paranoid bastard, and I
wouldn't trust anybody with my kernel that I use on my personal
machines. I _want_ to know what goes into the kernel, and I don't trust
people to do the right thing all the time.
The "official" linux kernel is just something that I personally am
working on, and no, I don't use cvs or anything like that because I
happen to think that I can do it better myself. But you're free to
disagree, and do a Linux distribution of your own, if you want to. I
won't fight you (but I might as well unmodestly warn you that you'll
have to more-or-less devote your whole life to it if you intend to do a
better job than I do).
Where linux is really open is not perhaps the kernel as much as the
whole _system_: Linux (not the kernel, the whole thing) development is
really a matter of a lot of different people working more-or-less
independently of each other - and they may all use completely different
development stategies depending on what they feel is appropriate.
THAT is what I call open and free (*).
Linus
(*) Other people will call it confusing, but that's _their_ problem, not
mine. Freedom doesn't imply that things are neat and clean, often quite
the reverse.
From: n...@trout.sri.MT.net (Nate Williams)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/11
Message-ID: <4ahtib$ckq@helena.MT.net>
X-Deja-AN: 121571972
distribution: comp
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4a2kme$32d@josie.abo.fi>
<DJ6IJE.78D@nntpa.cb.att.com> <4a54u5$jj5@josie.abo.fi>
organization: SRI Intl. - Montana Operations
reply-to: "Nate Williams" <n...@sneezy.sri.com>
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
In article <4a54u5$...@josie.abo.fi>, Mats Andtbacka <mandt...@abo.fi> wrote:
>>>No part of the GPL grants you any right to claim others' work as your
>>>own. No part of the GPL forbids you from crediting your own work to
>>>yourself.
>
>>But the BSD copyright guarantees it.
>
>Rrright. So if I anonymously release something under a BSD copyright,
>I'm guaranteed to get credit for this work I've never put my name on.
If you're name isn't on the copyright, you don't own it. And, if you
don't put your name and/or a copyright on it then it's *NOT* freely
re-distributable according to the Berne convention. (Or one of those
other stupid international laws we're supposed to follow.)
>>It is short and sweet -- probably 20 or so lines.
>
>The reason I've never read it is that I've never had the occasion -
>my Linux box runs no BSD-copyrighted software (to the best of my
>knowledge).
Look around. I'll bet you'll find *LOTS* of BSD software on any Linux
distribution. (Which means something more than the kernel)
>>>Doesn't this somewhat contradict what you said above about crediting
>>>people for their work? Or does BSDI list you as co-developer of their
>>>private, proprietary OS? I really don't know.
>
>>It is guaranteed -- they can use my code without disclosing it.
>
>If they use your code and don't disclose that they've done so, you're
>guaranteed not to be credited for it. Did I misread you somewhere,
>surely you didn't mean to say _that_?
That was a typo on his part. It should have read:
"It is guaranteed -- they can't use my code without disclosing it."
Again, this assumes that the companies using your code are following the
law and not simply removing the copyrights from the files and then claiming
they wrote the code. (Unfortunately, this sort of stuff happens all too
often with both BSD and GPL code).
>> There is very little that they can do to it that I can't either.
>>In essence, they can make proprietary mods that they feel can give
>>them an edge -- and that is okay with me. I can do the same mods if
>>I want. There is very little "magic" in any kernel that I know of.
>
>Well, surprise - you can do just the same with GPL'ed software. Only
>hitch is, the product you then release pretty much has to be GPL'ed as
>well - if you can put up with that, you can do nearly anything you
>please with GPL'ed source.
This isn't the same thing. One can be kept confidential, the other not.
>>How can one guarantee the availablity of the site????
>
>By uploading it to ftp.cdrom.com, which runs BSD and hence will never
>go down. ;-)
This one's been answered, but the GPL requires that if *YOU* distribute
binaries of GPL software *YOU* are required to distribute the source code
for up to 3 years. Simply supplying an ftp site is not adequate for two
reasons.
1) Not everyone has access to the ftp site.
2) The ftp site will most likely remove the particular piece of source that
was used to create your binary within 3 years, and a newer version of the
software is *NOT* adequate to meet the terms of the contract
3) The ftp site may no longer exist within the 3 year period that you must
distribute the software.
>That part of the GPL (offering source access from FTP sites) strictly
>only applies to binaries distributed via the same FTP sites (last
>paragraph of section 3 of the GPL (v.2)), so if the site goes down,
>you can't get either binary or source, and nothing is distributed.
Ahh, but the user has the option of getting the sources *after* he/she
got the binaries, even though this person didn't download the sources at
that particular point in time.
>> That sounds like
>>a significant encumberence to me. My little special program that has
>>a very small special interest following might not be available on such
>>an FTP site for long. I'd rather not deal with that encumberance.
>
>So distribute full source, or an explicit notice to the effect that
>you (contact information provided) will supply such source to anyone
>who wants it at no extra cost, for the following three years. Little
>special programs with very small special interest followings oughtn't
>overflow your mailbox, right?
I don't know about you, but my company is not in the business of
supplying source code to people that is basically irrelevant to our
product. Given the size of our product, it would take alot of time and
money to setup for a minimal distribution policy for giving out the
source to any person who asked for it.
Let's say for example we're in the business of providing a LAN anaylyzer
product. We want to provide a 'complete' solution to the end users, so
we sell an entire system pre-configured with our software.
(The business we're in is such that we can not stay competive *AND*
completely give away the source code to our software, so that's simply
not an option.)
To save on costs, we can either choose to use 'Linux' of 'FreeBSD' for
the OS, since we need *nix functionality. If we use FreeBSD, we simply
irradicate all of the GNU binaries from the system and install our new
stripped down version of FreeBSD on our dedicated hardware. Then, we
install our value added LAN software on the box and we're all set. At
this point in time, we are required to support our product, which exists
of FreeBSD + our software, and mention that we're using FreeBSD to
satisfy the BSD copyright.
Hopefully we don't have to support the OS (if we've done adequate
testing), so the only job left we have to do is support. We don't have
to worry about providing a special FreeBSD distribution, and we don't have
to do any OS support (hopefully).
Now, if we use Linux we must provide the source code to the OS along
with the rest of our product. This increases the size of the
distribution (we need a bigger disk), and we must also provide the user
a way of accessing the software, so our software must be modified to get
at the OS through some hook on our software.
Or we can choose to tell them about it and provide a distribution
mechanism in our company, which is alot of work and it puts us in the
position of indirectly 'supporting' Linux as a product, since we look
like bad guys otherwise. Note that we must provide a type of
distribution that the customer has access to, which means that it may
mean floppies, CD, or whatever.
With LinUx I'm in the position of 'directly' supporting the OS, and with
FreeBSD I can 'indirectly' support the OS, which is much more easily done.
Now, I agree that there are some holes in this example, but it only shows
the types of problems that 'could' occur if someone uses GPL software vs.
non-GPL software.
[ Someone adds a new whiz-bang feature to FreeBSD's VM system in a
proprietary proudct , so
John figures it out and adds it back to FreeBSD ]
>If you really can, then I salute you; but if that sort of coding is
>really doable for most developers, how come anybody still bothers to
>reverse-engineer anything?
Legal problems. It's safer to reverse engineer something, and most of the
time the folks reverse engineering the product didn't write the original
version. :)
Nate
--
n...@sneezy.sri.com | Research Engineer, SRI Intl. - Montana Operations
n...@trout.sri.MT.net | Loving life in God's country, the great state of
work #: (406) 449-7662 | Montana.
home #: (406) 443-7063 | A fly pole and a 4x4 Chevy truck = Heaven on Earth
From: j...@violet.berkeley.edu (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Subject: Linux vs FreeBSD - enough, finito, PAX please!
Date: 1995/12/11
Message-ID: <4ahdmk$ebr@agate.berkeley.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 121572005
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49rm0g$o8o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<DJ2IBL.71t@nntpa.cb.att.com> <4ah39c$mt3@klaava.helsinki.fi>
organization: University of California, Berkeley
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <4ah39c$...@klaava.helsinki.fi>,
Linus Torvalds <torva...@cc.Helsinki.FI> wrote:
> [comments about why he choses the development model he does]
Big Sigh. You know, this may sound strange, but I was actually hoping
that Linus wouldn't get dragged into this silly thread - it seems a
monumental waste of anyone's time to debate highly religious issues like
this ("catholic!" "no! no! protestant!" [they kill eachother]), but it's
all the worse when someone who really doesn't have the time to spare
is forced to defend the development methodology he and others use to create
freely available code.
Perhaps that's the essential lesson to be learned here. Whether the
GPL or the BSD copyright is used, we have to keep in mind the INTENTIONS
of the people involved. A little friendly rivalry is all well and
good, but consider the analogy of two rival football coaches: They
may occasionally play on opposite sides of the field, but both are
there for the SAME reason - they love football and wouldn't do anything
else. If they're reasonably mature individuals they'll even get together
after the game for a beer, regardless of the outcome, and discuss some
of the great games of their careers.
Where John and I got dragged into this was when someone started making
statements about the openness of BSD, and we felt compelled to correct
what we felt were unfair generalizations. In retrospect, I personally
somewhat regret doing so, though I do have to admit that some good came out
of this whole sorry affair - it induced me to fight for and win the right
to open general read access to our CVS repository (in addition to sup, it's
also now up for ftp on ftp.freebsd.org).
I'd also like to state for the record that anyone wishing to debate
the merits of the GPL vs BSD will do so at their own peril (see "catholic"
vs "protestant" above) and it's almost certain not to end positively.
To make a case in point, I remember a conversation that Michael K Johnson
and I once had about the idea of doing an article in the Linux Journal
concerning the relative merits of the two copyrights. Both Michael
and I are pretty reasonable individuals, and we didn't even intend to
debate the topic personally - we were just talking about *arranging*
a debate. Well, I'm embarassed to say that, somehow, one small comment
led to another and in a surprisingly short amount of time we were both
*shouting* at one another! Fortunately, I managed to come to my senses
about halfway through and sent him a "jeeze, just how the heck did we
manage to come to THIS?" message which cooled things down, and we both
sheepishly agreed that maybe such a debate *wasn't* such a good idea.
Like politics, religion and the choice of pizza toppings, this topic seems
to simply *invite* gratitous bloodshed.
So I'd like to call for a stand-down on this whole topic. I will not
follow-up to any further debate myself, doing my part for global peace
and world understanding. It's not a debate that can be "won", nor is there
even such a thing as "right and wrong" that either side can claim. There
is only *preference*. We prefer the BSD copyright, you prefer the GPL.
I prefer pepperoni, you prefer sausage. Why can't we all just get along? :-)
Furthermore, since I know that Linus and I will both be at USENIX this year,
I will extend the offer of one pizza (with everything on it, of course -
I'm not a total idiot :) to Linus. We can discuss anything but operating
systems and license agreements. How 'bout it, Linus?
:-)
Jordan
From: r...@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/12
Message-ID: <4ajdbq$gn@dyson.iquest.net>
X-Deja-AN: 121735818
sender: n...@iquest.net (News Admin)
x-nntp-posting-host: dyson.iquest.net
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49rm0g$o8o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
<DJ2IBL.71t@nntpa.cb.att.com> <4ah39c$mt3@klaava.helsinki.fi>
organization: John S. Dyson's home machine
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,
comp.unix.misc
In article <4ah39c$...@klaava.helsinki.fi>,
Linus Torvalds <torva...@cc.Helsinki.FI> wrote:
>
>I might as well say the Linux kernel is unencumbered by the BSD
>copyright. It cuts either way, and I happen to think that the GPL is
>better suited to linux (especially judging by BSD development history).
>
>John, you've seemed a reasonable person before, why this endless tirade
>now?
>
I am reasonable but I am tired of the silly arguments that the FreeBSD
development and/or sources being closed. If Linux
is open -- so is FreeBSD. It is not that Linux is somehow BAD -- but
there are zealots out there that have some sort of agenda. There was
so darn much "spin" in the past about the Linux "open" development
and the "closed" BSD development that it had to stop. My counter
arguments have shown that the BSD development is not closed and is
as open (plus or minus) as Linux.
>
>I'll be the first to admit that I'm a dictator when it comes to linux: I
>_don't_ like the core-team approach, and no, nobody else ever gets to
>change _my_ kernel without my approval first. I go through every little
>patch before it taints my personal kernel sources.
>
That is the point that I have been making above. People have been saying
that, for example, the FreeBSD CVS tree is not available and there were no
reasons other than some "guild" or "dictator" trying to keep control. FreeBSD
is now in the process of opening up the CVS tree for all the world to see. We
have been pushed into that position because of all of the silly "spin". I
doubt that CVS access is going to help anyone all that much anyway... and
the logistics associated with that are not trivial.
>
>So if you want to bandy political terms, this makes linux an
>"enlightened dictatorship" when it comes to the kernel, as opposed to
>the FreeBSD monarchy and/or anarchy. I happen to think that this is the
>best system for linux.
>
The FreeBSD kernel development "team" is NOT a free-for-all, but a consortium
of very competent developers who have direct read/write access to the CVS tree.
(BTW, there are individuals who work on the FreeBSD kernel directly who are
NOT on the core team.)
>
>But being a "dictatorship" doesn't make it less open, or less free. I
>don't take any rights _away_ from you: I only give you the _choice_ of
>using my kernel development. And I do make kernels availables at
>reasonably regular intervals and the fact that I don't use "sup" is just
>a technical thing, not an issue of "openness" or "freeness".
>
But we allow a group of people who have proven competency and larger
numbers of people to "learn" about kernel development RESPONSIBILITY.
>
>Where linux is really open is not perhaps the kernel as much as the
>whole _system_: Linux (not the kernel, the whole thing) development is
>really a matter of a lot of different people working more-or-less
>independently of each other - and they may all use completely different
>development stategies depending on what they feel is appropriate.
>
FreeBSD is pretty much the same... There is a much much larger group
that contribute to FreeBSD either directly or indirectly than who just
do the kernel. The FreeBSD developers do work independently -- for example
the ports work is totally independent of my work -- except when header files
change for system utilites like "top"...
This whole thing got started with an unfavorable and incorrect conclusion that
the FreeBSD development is somehow closed -- and obviously it isn't. Some
people greatly admire Linux -- in a way very similar to the Windows/DEC-VMS/etc
zealots. They have been blinded such that they can't apparently see the truth.
Recognize, that I did not say (or imply) that Linux is "junk", but significant
parts of the development are LESS open than FreeBSD, and you have made my
point by describing how you do the Linux kernel. It definitely is not that
bad that you do it that way, but the "guild" or "secret society" comments had to
STOP!!! They were simply not true...
If you took my statements as putting Linux down -- well, perhaps I went a bit
too far -- but the bottom line is that some of the silly things that are said
on the net become "the truth", and now at least there are some real counter
arguments.
John
dy...@freebsd.org
From: torva...@cc.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: GPL (was Re: Linux vs FreeBSD)
Date: 1995/12/13
Message-ID: <4alpl5$a39@klaava.helsinki.fi>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 121572068
distribution: comp
sender: torva...@cc.helsinki.fi
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <DJ6IJE.78D@nntpa.cb.att.com>
<4a54u5$jj5@josie.abo.fi> <4ahtib$ckq@helena.mt.net>
content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
organization: University of Helsinki
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
[ sorry for those people reading this in bsd.misc, but this is
crossposted to linux.advocacy too.. ]
In article <4ahtib$...@helena.mt.net>,
Nate Williams <n...@sneezy.sri.com> wrote:
>
>This one's been answered, but the GPL requires that if *YOU* distribute
>binaries of GPL software *YOU* are required to distribute the source code
>for up to 3 years.
Incorrect. Either you can't read, or you just enjoy spreading fud and
misinformation (the latter is perfectly ok, as this _is_ an advocacy
group, but for the same reason I'm also allowed to flame you royally for
being such a jerk).
If you distribute binaries of GPL'd code, you have no such obligation at
all, _assuming_ you also distribute the source with the binaries. There
is no 3-year rule in that case at all, so the _only_ overhead of
distributing GPL'd binaries is that you have to distribute the source in
the same package.
Now, nobody in his right mind uses floppies for software distribution
any more, so I don't really see the reason for whining about the size of
sources. You can easily fit sources on a CD (or two - CD costs can't be
high if people actually make money off selling 4-CD distributions for
$25 USD). And that releases you of all future obligations..
Essentially, your argument above is totally bogus, and I hereby declare
it null and void.
[ Now, the argument that some people don't want to distribute sources in
the _first_place_ is another matter, but that's even easier to handle:
don't use a GPL'd base. If you don't want to distribute sources, why
do you think you have any right to use the work of other people? Write
your own code from scratch, and _then_ do a binary-only distribution ]
Hitler, Hitler, HITLER. End of thread.
Linus
From: Russ Allbery <r...@cs.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/15
Message-ID: <qum3fam91d9.fsf@cyclone.Stanford.EDU>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 121954571
sender: ea...@cyclone.Stanford.EDU
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4a6fgo$6lg@agate.berkeley.edu>
organization: The Eyrie
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Ingemar Hulthage <hulth...@hollywood.cinenet.net> writes:
> My original point remains valid, namely that the terms of GPL is an
> obstacle to using GPL code commercially. GPL stipulates that any
> derivative work must ONLY be released under GPL. Therefore it's not
> likely that it's a good investment to develop code based on GPL,
> because the 'exclusive right to make copies' of such code (which I
> previously carelessly called copyright 8-^) can not be retained.
Ah. No, the owner of the copyright does still maintain ownership of the
program, and they can make a derivative work and not release the derivative
work under the GPL. In other words, it's perfectly legitimate to release
the trial version under GPL and the commerical version under some other
license agreement.
The GPL license cannot restrict the actions of the holder of the copyright.
But once code is released under GPL, *that particular package of code*
cannot be effectively taken back.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@cs.stanford.edu) http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~rra/
From: hulth...@hollywood.cinenet.net (Ingemar Hulthage)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/16
Message-ID: <HULTHAGE.95Dec16141816@hollywood.cinenet.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 122048573
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4a6fgo$6lg@agate.berkeley.edu>
organization: Cinenet Communications,Internet Access,Los Angeles;310-301-4500
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Russ Allbery <r...@cs.stanford.edu> writes:
> Ah. No, the owner of the copyright does still maintain ownership of
> the program, and they can make a derivative work and not release the
> derivative work under the GPL. In other words, it's perfectly
> legitimate to release the trial version under GPL and the commerical
> version under some other license agreement.
> The GPL license cannot restrict the actions of the holder of the
> copyright. But once code is released under GPL, *that particular
> package of code* cannot be effectively taken back.
That's only correct if you yourself is the copyright holder of all the
GPL code involved. That is not the case I'm concerned with. I'm
concerned with the fact that the GPL prohibits the use of other
people's GPL, unless the resulting derivative work is released under
GPL (or not released at all).
Ingemar Hulthage
From: t...@coho.halcyon.com (Tim Smith)
Subject: Re: Commercial software and the GPL (was Linux vs FreeBSD)
Date: 1995/12/16
Message-ID: <4av4cn$k4j@news1.halcyon.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 122048572
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu>
<HULTHAGE.95Dec14153203@hollywood.cinenet.net> <DJMr9o.AE4@world.std.com>
<HULTHAGE.95Dec16062621@hollywood.cinenet.net>
organization: Northwest Nexus, Inc. - Professional Internet Services
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Ingemar Hulthage <hulth...@hollywood.cinenet.net> wrote:
>In particular, most people will agree that GPL is an obstacle to
>commercial use. Is it really the case that most authors of free
>software opposes commercial use of their software ? I don't think so.
What many people seem to be trying to avoid is having some commercial
entity take an entire program, fix some bugs and add a few enhancements,
and release it without source code. That's reasonable, because such
activity could seriously harm the non-commercial version of the program.
A lot of people using "free" software don't actually need the source
code, and would probably be willing to buy a reasonably priced binary-only
distribution. If enough people do that, the developers of the free version
could easily lose interest--not many people will put in a lot of work for
something that isn't going to be used by many people.
The GPL does a great job of stopping the above.
However, it also stops the commercial user who just wants to take a
few functions from some "free" software, and use them in a large project
that is otherwise unconnected with the "free" software. I don't think
that most "free" software authors object to such use.
If I ever release anything big (I've only done small things as "free"
software so far, and I simply release them to the public domain), I'm
going to try a different approach. I will make each individual function
public domain. However, I will claim a compilation copyright on the
collection of functions that comprise the complete program. This means
that someone trying to make something that is essentially just a modified
or enhanced version of my complete program will have to contend with
whatever license I decide to use, but the programmer who just says "hey,
Tim's got a neat memory allocator in there...I think I'll use it in the
buffer manager I'm writing for my word processor" can simply take my code
and use it however he or she wants.
--Tim Smith
From: o...@pell.chi.il.us (Orc)
Subject: Re: GPL (was Re: Linux vs FreeBSD)
Date: 1995/12/21
Message-ID: <4bdde6$ht@pell.pell.chi.il.us>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 122576327
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4b2q7v$aht@kadath.zeitgeist.net>
<4b67mo$19l@dyson.iquest.net> <4bbs2d$bet@snowdon.elsevier.co.uk>
organization: The International Queer Conspiracy
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
In article <4bbs2d$...@snowdon.elsevier.co.uk>, Paul Richards <dpr> wrote:
>I doubt very much that Sun would have picked a GPL'd src
>base as their OS because it would have been commercially unacceptable to
>give away their R&D budget to their competitors.
I dunno if it would have made much difference. It would have
been difficult to explain to the backers that, yes, Sun is really
just a hardware company and giving away the kernel sources would
not matter one whit when the value-added stuff still came only from
Sun, but I suspect that the people who founded Sun had enough of a
reputation so that they could have gotten away from it. It's all
moot, anyway, since they (and BSD) were restricted by the AT&T code
that BSD had in it.
>In my experience, and why I use a BSD license, you gain virtually nothing
>from imposing the restrictions on re-use that the GPL does. I've not
>suffered in any way from the fact that anyone can use my code to do whatever
>they want with.
I don't particularly like the GPL, but I wonder; there's a lot
of code out there that's fettered with that license, as well as a
fairly large cottage industry that's sprung up around one of the
more successful examples of GPLed code. The arguments about the
creeping socialism of the FSF, as well as the scope creep of the
GPL, will probably go on until hell freezes over, but it does seem
like the GPL works.
>Sit down and think about it
>rationally, if you're a software house and you release source code then how can
>you possibly stay in business when all your competitors have to do is pick up
>your sources and re-package them.
It depends on what your market is; the xBSD developers release
the sources to a lot of the stuff they do, and you certainly don't
see a thousand and one shops springing up to sell {x:a word in the
dictionary}BSD distributions and support. I know that when I buy
something, I don't (unless it's a game) buy it to get That Piece Of
Code -- I spend the money to buy support and to ensure that more
code comes from the place where the first code came from.
Personally, I think the reason why some houses refuse to
release source is because they don't want anyone else seeing the
gross hackery inside the applications they are trying to sell. I
certainly know that's why I'm never letting the sources to my vi
clone out to the world (it started out as a pascal application,
migrated to a pascal variant, then was translated to C. It's, um,
special.)
>I'm curious why the Linux advocates are so strongly against the BSD license,
Some of the Linux advocates are strongly against the BSD
license. Some aren't, and (well, I don't know if I'm so much a
Linux advocate as a free Unix advocate) prefer to release sources
under the clearer and saner BSD style of copyright. I don't think
it makes any difference to me if I am compelled to release the
sources of an application that includes code from the FSF. (that
stuff is, after all, their code and if I find the copyright
restrictions unacceptable, I simply don't use their property in
the product.)
____
david parsons \bi/ And it makes for amusing religious wars.
\/
From: torva...@cc.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: GPL (was Re: Linux vs FreeBSD)
Date: 1995/12/22
Message-ID: <4bdq00$18r@klaava.helsinki.fi>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 122576256
sender: torva...@cc.helsinki.fi
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4b67mo$19l@dyson.iquest.net>
<4bbs2d$bet@snowdon.elsevier.co.uk> <4bdde6$ht@pell.pell.chi.il.us>
content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
organization: University of Helsinki
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
In article <4bdde6...@pell.pell.chi.il.us>, Orc <o...@pell.chi.il.us> wrote:
>In article <4bbs2d$...@snowdon.elsevier.co.uk>, Paul Richards <dpr> wrote:
>
>>I'm curious why the Linux advocates are so strongly against the BSD license,
Actually, I don't think any linux advocates are against the BSD license:
I certainly am not. What I _am_ against, is the stupid and continuing
war against the GPL that a lot of people wage.
I _like_ the BSD license: it makes sense. It's simple, it's clear, and
it does what lots of people want. I'd be ready to use that license for
my code, any day.
However, I'm also idealistic. Not the rabid, frothing at the mouth,
bomb-throwing crazy type idealist, but instead the type that thinks that
the software world is better off with easy and free access to sources.
Because that's what _I_ wanted to have when I started, and I couldn't
have it.
So having the choice between the BSD license and the GPL, I actually
think that the BSD license is a lot clearer and in some respects better,
and in a perfect world I'd use that instead. BUT! I also think that the
GPL is more conductive to making the world more like the place I would
prefer.
But that isn't really the point. What I then react _very_ badly to (I
don't like flaming, but I do it on a few issues, this being one), is
TOTAL JERKS who have the gall to question MY (conscious) choice of
copyright.
Sadly, in most cases, these total jerks then go on to extoll the virtues
of the BSD license, and when I flame them, people think I'm flaming the
BSD license. Not so.
In short, I happen to think that the GPL is the better license for _me_
under the circumstances. It provably is a very working license (nobody
can claim that linux or gcc aren't flourishing under it), and it does
what I want it to do.
Similarly, the BSD license is fine, and it provably works too (M$ people
_can_ claim that UNIX isn't flourishing, but we'll just try to prove
them wrong ;). And it does what lots of people want it to do.
("I love barney, and barney loves me", or how does it go? Our culture is
lacking here in Finland ;-)
Linus
PS, just because this is an advocacy group, here is a small non-barney
message to all those GPL whiners: SHUT THE F*CK UP. You are low-life
with no right to whine. It's very simple: don't USE it if you don't
like it. Nobody forces you to use GPL'd software as a coding base.
From: pierc...@sabi.demon.co.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/30
Message-ID: <yf37mze2tdj.fsf@sabi.demon.co.uk>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 123243148
x-nntp-posting-host: sabi.demon.co.uk
sender: pierc...@sabi.demon.co.uk
x-disclaimer: Contents reflect my personal views only
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4a6fgo$6lg@agate.berkeley.edu>
precedence: first-class
organization: Home's where my rucksack's
reply-to: pierc...@sabi.demon.co.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
>>> On 16 Dec 1995 22:18:16 GMT, hulth...@hollywood.cinenet.net (Ingemar
>>> Hulthage) said:
hulthage> I'm concerned with the fact that the GPL prohibits the use of
hulthage> other people's GPL,
Not really: the GPL never in any way restricts the _use_ of GPL code. In
fact it never restricts redistribution fo third parties either: in fact
it encourages it. In no case is anybody prevented from using GPL code
(unconditionally so) and in no case is either anybody prevented from
redistributing it to third parties (if a simple condition is satisified,
that the copyright conditions of the derivative work be the GPL itself).
hulthage> unless the resulting derivative work is released under GPL (or
hulthage> not released at all).
Well, that derivative works still must carry the original copyright
(too) is a central tenet of copyright law: in this the GPL states no
more and no less than what the law is, while permitting unrestrictted
use and redistribution, under the law.
From: r...@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1995/12/30
Message-ID: <4c4jbb$11p@dyson.iquest.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 123243158
sender: n...@iquest.net (News Admin)
x-nntp-posting-host: dyson.iquest.net
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <qum3fam91d9.fsf@cyclone.Stanford.EDU>
<HULTHAGE.95Dec16141816@hollywood.cinenet.net> <yf37mze2tdj.fsf@sabi.demon.co.uk>
organization: John S. Dyson's home machine
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
In article <yf37mze2tdj....@sabi.demon.co.uk>,
Piercarlo Grandi <pierc...@sabi.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>> On 16 Dec 1995 22:18:16 GMT, hulth...@hollywood.cinenet.net (Ingemar
>>>> Hulthage) said:
>
>hulthage> I'm concerned with the fact that the GPL prohibits the use of
>hulthage> other people's GPL,
>
>Not really: the GPL never in any way restricts the _use_ of GPL code. In
>fact it never restricts redistribution fo third parties either: in fact
>it encourages it. In no case is anybody prevented from using GPL code
>(unconditionally so) and in no case is either anybody prevented from
>redistributing it to third parties (if a simple condition is satisified,
>that the copyright conditions of the derivative work be the GPL itself).
>
That simple condition clobbers the use of GPLed software in many situations.
It is indeed saying one thing that GPL does not in any way restrict GPLed
codes use -- and quite another to say that derivative work be under GPL...
These are VERY INCONSISTANT statements... (Given the reality of business.)
There are some cases where GPL does not hurt, but all it takes is one
counterexample to invalidate your assertion. I have posted several examples
in some related threads in gnu.misc.discuss..
John Dyson
From: lbmo...@ARIANA.TCHDEN.ORG (Louis B. Moore)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1996/01/01
Message-ID: <1996Jan1.175522.2125@buckie.uhcolorado.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 133616638
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <qum3fam91d9.fsf@cyclone.Stanford.EDU>
organization: The Children's Hospital of Denver
reply-to: lbmo...@ARIANA.TCHDEN.ORG
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
>>
>>Not really: the GPL never in any way restricts the _use_ of GPL code. In
>>fact it never restricts redistribution fo third parties either: in fact
>>it encourages it. In no case is anybody prevented from using GPL code
>>(unconditionally so) and in no case is either anybody prevented from
>>redistributing it to third parties (if a simple condition is satisified,
>>that the copyright conditions of the derivative work be the GPL itself).
>>
>That simple condition clobbers the use of GPLed software in many situations.
>It is indeed saying one thing that GPL does not in any way restrict GPLed
>codes use -- and quite another to say that derivative work be under GPL...
>These are VERY INCONSISTANT statements... (Given the reality of business.)
>
>There are some cases where GPL does not hurt, but all it takes is one
>counterexample to invalidate your assertion. I have posted several examples
>in some related threads in gnu.misc.discuss..
>
>John Dyson
>
Do I understand you correctly?
You would like to take a piece of software, developed and expanded
on by others, released for public use with the source freely available,
and then modify this code and sell it? And to take it a step further,
would you then propose that this modified version of the software would
become proprietary?
This is what I have taken to be what you would like to do, and are
restricted from so doing by the GPL... forming the basis of your
complaint therewith. Have I accurately captured the essence of
your complaint?
Moore.Lo...@tchden.org
From: r...@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Commercial software and the GPL (was Linux vs FreeBSD)
Date: 1996/01/02
Message-ID: <4canb0$560@dyson.iquest.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 133736012
sender: n...@iquest.net (News Admin)
x-nntp-posting-host: dyson.iquest.net
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <qumbuou2pvc.fsf@cyclone.Stanford.EDU>
<4bsmk2$2fv@dyson.iquest.net> <DKJswI.4xA@kithrup.com>
organization: John S. Dyson's home machine
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
In article <DKJswI....@kithrup.com>, Mike Stump <m...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>In article <4bsmk2$...@dyson.iquest.net>,
>John S. Dyson <r...@dyson.iquest.net> wrote:
>
>>So, software writing is being forced to be hourly or on a piecework
>>basis
>
>Yes, this may wind up being generally true. Though not always true.
>Because GPL doesn't allow great risk on the part of the seller, and
>because it mandates more reasonable profits than traditional companies
>are allowed to have, you wind up being held down to a tighter budget,
>this has the consequence of tending to force hourly work, or piecemeal
>work.
>
>Does this forcing scare you? Why?
>
Yep, in a free market, it seems that when the horizons are limited, so are
the incomes. Software writers are already not compensated as well as other
professions -- IRS doesn't even consider it being a profession. Let's
depress salaries further!!! GPL is *worse* for creative software writers
than it is for users. And it isn't all that good for users compared to
other licensing terms... Let's remove most of the hope of being more than just
a support person!!! Remember, most code that is distributed using GPL is
eventually rendered useless in proprietary software because of other peoples'
encumberences. Most of the money in industry is made writing proprietary
software... And most real programmers need to make money...
John Dyson
From: r...@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1996/01/02
Message-ID: <4cbkpc$6g5@dyson.iquest.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 133736053
sender: n...@iquest.net (News Admin)
x-nntp-posting-host: dyson.iquest.net
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <yf37mze2tdj.fsf@sabi.demon.co.uk>
<4c4jbb$11p@dyson.iquest.net> <1996Jan1.175522.2125@buckie.uhcolorado.edu>
organization: John S. Dyson's home machine
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
In article <1996Jan1.175522.2...@buckie.uhcolorado.edu>,
Louis B. Moore <lbmo...@ARIANA.TCHDEN.ORG> wrote:
>
>Do I understand you correctly?
>
>You would like to take a piece of software, developed and expanded
>on by others, released for public use with the source freely available,
>and then modify this code and sell it? And to take it a step further,
>would you then propose that this modified version of the software would
>become proprietary?
>
>This is what I have taken to be what you would like to do, and are
>restricted from so doing by the GPL... forming the basis of your
>complaint therewith. Have I accurately captured the essence of
>your complaint?
>
Yep, that is my complaint. Usually the original author has developed
most of the software and the platform is expanded upon by the net. If
another net person makes a *neat* enhancement, while using the piece of
software -- why shouldn't the original author be able to use it -- unless
the secondary contributor doesn't want him to? GPL says that the original
contributor doesn't want the original author to be able to fold the work
back into a commercial version without SPECIAL permission -- that doesn't
sound like the original author is getting anything out of the GPL. That
is the reason that the GPL is an encumberance as much as guaranteeing
software being out in the open (I don't call that freedom.) Here is my
new toy -- but YOU can't use it :-).
Under GPL the original author looses control so that he cannot easily use
it in his commercial work. I would much rather gamble on the loss of control
or use as opposed to almost being guaranteed of it under GPL.
Under BSD, the original author gives the net at large the right to use his
work, and he allows the net to use it in any way that they want. If other
people on the net are generous enough (and there are many examples of this),
they will add their code with no usage restrictions. The BSD license
by default allows this -- and in special circumstances it is possible to
ammend the license... For example delete the credits clause... It is a much
more free software effort from the standpoint of personal freedom (control on
the part of the owner) of intellectual property. Software freedom (cost) is
much less important to me than personal (and property rights) freedom.
GPL licensing is just not applicable to the vast majority of commercial work,
and I hope that it stays that way.
John Dyson
From: psm...@baynetworks.COM (Paul D. Smith)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1996/01/02
Message-ID: <9601030126.AA23066@lemming.engeast>
X-Deja-AN: 133736064
distribution: gnu
sender: dae...@cis.ohio-state.edu
references: <4cbkpc$6g5@dyson.iquest.net>
organization: GNUs Not Usenet
reply-to: psm...@baynetworks.com
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
%% Regarding Re: Linux vs FreeBSD;
%% r...@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson) writes:
jsd> In article <1996Jan1.175522.2...@buckie.uhcolorado.edu>,
jsd> Louis B. Moore <lbmo...@ARIANA.TCHDEN.ORG> wrote:
>> You would like to take a piece of software, developed and expanded
>> on by others, released for public use with the source freely available,
>> and then modify this code and sell it? And to take it a step further,
>> would you then propose that this modified version of the software would
>> become proprietary?
>>
>> This is what I have taken to be what you would like to do, and are
>> restricted from so doing by the GPL...
jsd> Yep, that is my complaint. Usually the original author has
jsd> developed most of the software and the platform is expanded
jsd> upon by the net. If another net person makes a *neat*
jsd> enhancement, while using the piece of software -- why shouldn't
jsd> the original author be able to use it -- unless the secondary
jsd> contributor doesn't want him to?
Why not indeed? The whole point of the GPL is to _allow_ original
author to be able to use the neat enhancement...
Argh! John, at this point in the thread I feel sure you understand very
well the substance of the GPL. And yet you seem to _consistently_
misrepresent the consequences of using the GPL, to an extent that either
you just enjoy tweaking the noses of the usual denizens of this group
and are using your posts as trolls, or you are really not attempting to
logically examine those consequences.
A third possibility, of course, is that you are just using inaccurate
terminology, either accidently or on purpose. When discussing things
like the GPL, copyright, etc. it is of _paramount_ importance that the
terms used be agreed upon by everyone, and everyone use them the same
way and to mean the same thing. If we don't do that, then how can even
begin to intelligently discuss issues?
First, can we agree that we aren't discussing "users" of software at
all? People who _use_ GPL'd software, for their own personal use, are
not restricted in any way by the GPL (indeed, "users" are the ones the
GPL is ultimately designed to protect). What you are talking about is
the distribution of software to others, so lets call these people
"distributors".
Furthermore, we aren't talking about "owners" of software either. An
"owner", or "author", is someone who holds the copyright to a work, and
as such can do anything they like with it, regardless of the terms of
the GPL.
You are talking about one special case only: where a distributor who is
not the owner of some software wants to change the terms under which the
people he/she distributes to can use or further distribute that
software.
You can think up all kinds of special cases, such as the distributor is
the author of some previous version which has been enhanced and
copyrighted by someone else, or whatever, but it all comes down to the
above.
BSD allows that, and GPL doesn't. You can argue that BSD is more "free"
because it allows it, but I argue that GPL is more "free", from the
standpoint of the distributees, because it ensures _their_ freedoms are
maintained.
There is nothing dishonest or hypocritical about the GPL's definition of
"free".
jsd> that doesn't sound like the original author is getting anything
jsd> out of the GPL.
Aha! Now maybe we get to the crux of the matter.
This depends on what you mean by "getting anything out of the GPL".
jsd> That is the reason that the GPL is an encumberance as much as
jsd> guaranteeing software being out in the open (I don't call that
jsd> freedom.) Here is my new toy -- but YOU can't use it :-).
Again, you are misusing the terminology. Anyone can _use_ it. What you
can't do is take someone else's toy and commercialize it.
jsd> Under GPL the original author looses control so that he cannot
jsd> easily use it in his commercial work.
Again, this is totally untrue. The author _always_ has complete
control over _his_ work. If he chooses to incorporate others' work into
his own (and again, it's his choice: he has complete control over this)
he must obey their licensing requirements, whatever they are. Maybe the
enhancements are given to him under the BSD license, then he can add
them to his commercial product easily. Maybe not: then he has to cut a
deal with the author, or reimplement it for his commercial product.
Likewise, even if you release your code under BSD, someone might release
and enhancement under the GPL (or something even more restrictive)--then
where are you?
jsd> I would much rather gamble on the loss of control or use as
jsd> opposed to almost being guaranteed of it under GPL.
You are overstating things for effect, but this is just not true.
Please refrain from hyperbole like "almost being gauranteed of it".
Emacs is a huge project and has had hundreds of developers working on
it, and yet it is solely owned by the FSF, every part of it. Ditto
GCC, etc. There are many examples.
jsd> Under BSD, [...] It is a much more free software effort from
jsd> the standpoint of personal freedom (control on the part of the
jsd> owner) of intellectual property.
Not true. The owner has just as much control in the GPL. Again, you
are misusing terms.
What you want to say is that BSD allows more rights for distributors.
That is certainly true.
jsd> Software freedom (cost) is much less important to me than
jsd> personal (and property rights) freedom.
That's good, because the GPL is not really about cost at all: it's about
freedom.
jsd> GPL licensing is just not applicable to the vast majority of
jsd> commercial work, and I hope that it stays that way.
A non-sequitur if I've ever seen one: of _course_ "commercial" software
(as you define it: that is, where the user is not free to share it and
doesn't get the source) is not amenable to use with the GPL, that is the
_entire_ point of the GPL!
I guess I'm at a loss as to the point of this thread: originally it was
that people were nervous using the GPL because they didn't understand
it. That seems to have been laid to rest, and it now seems to be
morphing into a discussion of whether the goals of the GPL are correct
or not, but is currently a strange mix of the two!
Can we please agree that the GPL admirably and accurately reflects and
enables the kind of software sharing that RMS and the FSF desire, and
that it isn't "sneaky" or "dishonest" about how it does it, and that if
you agree with those goals you can contribute to the cause by putting
your own software under the GPL, and if you don't you shouldn't?
If we can agree on that, can we then definitively change the thrust (and
subject) of this thread away from the GPL and onto the subject of the
goals of RMS and the FSF?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul D. Smith <psm...@baynetworks.com> Network Management Development
Senior Software Engineer Bay Networks, Inc.
-----------------------------------------------==<http://www.baynetworks.com/>-
"Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These are my opinions--Bay Networks takes no responsibility for them.
From: t...@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1996/01/02
Message-ID: <199601022142.VAA07580@dyson.iquest.net>
X-Deja-AN: 133736062
distribution: gnu
sender: dae...@cis.ohio-state.edu
references: <9601030126.AA23066@lemming.engeast>
organization: GNUs Not Usenet
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
>
> Why not indeed? The whole point of the GPL is to _allow_ original
> author to be able to use the neat enhancement...
>
Only where he has agreement with the other authors. He cannot use the
neat enhancement unless he discloses any additional enhancements that he
makes. See, the neat enhancement "encumbers" the code. That is not
misrepresentation. If the original author/owner of the code reverts
back to his submission, it is no problem -- except if he wants to use
the neat enhancements, he needs to clean-room it... That can be more
costly than writing it from scratch.
>
> First, can we agree that we aren't discussing "users" of software at
> all? People who _use_ GPL'd software, for their own personal use, are
> not restricted in any way by the GPL (indeed, "users" are the ones the
> GPL is ultimately designed to protect). What you are talking about is
> the distribution of software to others, so lets call these people
> "distributors".
>
Okay, there are two classes of users -- by your terminology "users" and
"distributors". I do "use" GPLed code (again by your terminology), but
I will NOT spend significant time modifying or improving others GPLed code or
creating my own, because of the encumberence issues. There are other licenses
whereby I can use code of mine that has been modified by the net without
such encumberence.
>
> You are talking about one special case only: where a distributor who is
> not the owner of some software wants to change the terms under which the
> people he/she distributes to can use or further distribute that
> software.
>
I don't expect that the "distributor" should be able to change the terms
of redistribution of the "original" software. But if the "distributor"
creates value-added, he should have the right to his portion of the
intellectual property, but by using GPLed code he doesn't. This keeps
commercial companies from using GPLed code in their products, where it is
deemed that the "value-added" is a trade secret or proprietary. That is
what breaks GPL for me. I think that DG did not feel that the compiler
technology was part of the family jewels, or did not have enough money to
contract out the compiler work, so decided to use GCC. GCC V2.X.X was
pretty promising, but just does not do enough to make the X86 run very well,
for example. I would like to see much better register allocation... Perhaps,
saving registers around basic blocks or loops... You know, like what
Microsoft has been doing for 4-5yrs???
>
> jsd> Under BSD, [...] It is a much more free software effort from
> jsd> the standpoint of personal freedom (control on the part of the
> jsd> owner) of intellectual property.
>
> Not true. The owner has just as much control in the GPL. Again, you
> are misusing terms.
>
> What you want to say is that BSD allows more rights for distributors.
> That is certainly true.
>
But the distributors rights to their value-added have been "signed-away"
by GPL... Again that is what breaks GPL for me. In this case they have
lost their freedom to their intellectual property (to keep it secret.)
I guess if the distributor somehow obscured their value added C-code somehow
and called it "source", it would be okay -- but VERY UNETHICAL. I am not
unethical, so it is not a choice for me.
>
> Can we please agree that the GPL admirably and accurately reflects and
> enables the kind of software sharing that RMS and the FSF desire, and
> that it isn't "sneaky" or "dishonest" about how it does it, and that if
> you agree with those goals you can contribute to the cause by putting
> your own software under the GPL, and if you don't you shouldn't?
>
I don't think that the kind of sharing that they desire is admirable, and
in fact would lead to mediocracy. (But is again, another subject.)
I am actually tired of this, because I keep getting drilled by people who
just appear to not want to understand the situation or consequences. The
situation is real, and the consequences can result in being fired. GPL is
obviously good because a few people have used it successfully... Hmmm...
John Dyson
From: abra...@dina.kvl.dk (Per Abrahamsen)
Subject: Re: Commercial software and the GPL (was Linux vs FreeBSD)
Date: 1996/01/03
Message-ID: <rjka39nh0f.fsf@ssv4.dina.kvl.dk>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 133862890
sender: abra...@ssv4.dina.kvl.dk
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu>
content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
organization: The Church of Emacs
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
>>>>> "JSD" == John S Dyson <r...@dyson.iquest.net> writes:
JSD> Remember, most code that is distributed using GPL is eventually
JSD> rendered useless in proprietary software because of other
JSD> peoples' encumberences.
Do you think that if you keep repeating this lie it will eventually
become true?
I think you could be excused for being ignorant the first couple of
times you said that, but now enough people have debunked it enough
times for you to know better.
From: abra...@dina.kvl.dk (Per Abrahamsen)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1996/01/04
Message-ID: <rjraxgm37h.fsf@ssv4.dina.kvl.dk>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 133957257
sender: abra...@ssv4.dina.kvl.dk
references: <9601030126.AA23066@lemming.engeast>
content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
organization: The Church of Emacs
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
>>>>> "JSD" == John S Dyson <t...@dyson.iquest.net> writes:
JSD> I am actually tired of this, because I keep getting drilled by people who
JSD> just appear to not want to understand the situation or consequences.
Everybody in this thread understand the situation. The discussion
only continues because you insist on misrepresenting it.
The GPL exists to discourage distribution of proprietary versions,
while keeping as many other freedoms as possible. If you agree with
this goal, the GPL is for you. If not, it isn't a fault with you or
with the GPL.
Choosing the GPL over a BSD like license will make it more likely that
you can use derivative versions created by other as free software, and
less likely that you can include others enhancements in a proprietary
version. If this suits you, fine, if not, that isn't a problem with
either you or the GPL.
Everybody understand this. Now please stop your fud campaign.
From: dy...@inuxs.inh.att.com (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1996/01/04
Message-ID: <4cgukf$e5i@nntpb.cb.att.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 133957253
references: <9601030126.AA23066@lemming.engeast>
<199601022142.VAA07580@dyson.iquest.net> <rjraxgm37h.fsf@ssv4.dina.kvl.dk>
organization: AT&T
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
In article <rjraxgm37h....@ssv4.dina.kvl.dk>,
Per Abrahamsen <abra...@dina.kvl.dk> wrote:
>>>>>> "JSD" == John S Dyson <t...@dyson.iquest.net> writes:
>
>JSD> I am actually tired of this, because I keep getting drilled by people who
>JSD> just appear to not want to understand the situation or consequences.
>
>Everybody in this thread understand the situation. The discussion
>only continues because you insist on misrepresenting it.
>
Well, people like you have not acknowleged that there are situations
(and they are in the majority) where GPLed code cannot be used... It
is not always the developers' choice.
>
>Choosing the GPL over a BSD like license will make it more likely that
>you can use derivative versions created by other as free software, and
>less likely that you can include others enhancements in a proprietary
>version. If this suits you, fine, if not, that isn't a problem with
>either you or the GPL.
>
>Everybody understand this. Now please stop your fud campaign.
>
I have seen it as such a campaign by GPLers... I find GPL makes it
less likely that I can use or redistribute or "whatever" the software...
Sorry...
John Dyson
From: Terry Lambert <te...@lambert.org>
Subject: Re: Commercial software and the GPL (was Linux vs FreeBSD)
Date: 1996/01/06
Message-ID: <4ckq8d$gqe@park.uvsc.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 134205326
references: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <rjka39nh0f.fsf@ssv4.dina.kvl.dk>
organization: Utah Valley State College, Orem, Utah
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
This goes over my quota for posting to this group, but what the
hell; I'm catching up from vacation and will give myself some
lattitude.
abra...@dina.kvl.dk (Per Abrahamsen) wrote:
] >>>>> "JSD" == John S Dyson <r...@dyson.iquest.net> writes:
]
] JSD> Remember, most code that is distributed using GPL is eventually
] JSD> rendered useless in proprietary software because of other
] JSD> peoples' encumberences.
]
] Do you think that if you keep repeating this lie it will eventually
] become true?
]
] I think you could be excused for being ignorant the first couple of
] times you said that, but now enough people have debunked it enough
] times for you to know better.
I have not seen that debunked. I offer you a scenario:
John writes some cool client software.
John releases the cool client software under GPL.
Per makes improvements to the cool client software.
Now it is very cool client software (John isn't very good at
finish work, but is a demon under the hood. Too bad the
people who paint things get more recognition than the people
who build them. Life is unfair.).
Per distributes these changes.
In accordance with John's GPL release, these changes are GPL'ed.
Company sees very cool client software.
Company approaches John.
Company says:
"A slightly changed version of the very cool client software
would allow us to serve our customers better, and give us a
competitive advantage.
But we will need to put the software on the customer's
machine for this to work.
If it is under GPL on the clients machine, we will have
to give the client source, in accordance with GPL.
Then we can't prevent the client from giving the source
to our competitor, in accordance with GPL, destroying the
competitive advantage we seek.
Can you release the very cool client software under a
different license, so that it will be to our advantage to
pay you to make the changes?"
John calls Per.
John asks Per to allow him to make the changes.
Per is a fanatic.
But Per is not stupid.
Per names a high price.
Higher than the amount Company is willing to pay minus that
which John needs to make to allow John to do the work.
John eventually starves to death.
Poor John.
If only he had chosen a different license, then he would be
free to offer Comany a competitive advantage in excange for
money without obtaining permission from the subsequent
authors producing derivative works from the fruit of Johns
imagination that John so unselfishly shared.
But he didn't.
And now he is dead.
Because John couldn't write very cool client software.
John could only write cool client software.
And the world has more people in it than it needs to produce
everything that it consumes.
Farewell, oh John, victim of premature selflessness and
margin economics.
If only you had called little old ladies from Florida to
steal their retirement checks, you would still be alive.
Cleary, this is what society would prefer you do, since as
you found out, society values pretty cars with unknown
engines over ugly cars with good engines.
The End.
Terry Lambert
te...@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
From: torva...@cc.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1996/01/06
Message-ID: <4clskk$gih@klaava.helsinki.fi>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 134205328
sender: torva...@cc.helsinki.fi
references: <9601030126.AA23066@lemming.engeast>
<199601022142.VAA07580@dyson.iquest.net> <rjraxgm37h.fsf@ssv4.dina.kvl.dk>
<4cgukf$e5i@nntpb.cb.att.com>
content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
organization: University of Helsinki
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
In article <4cgukf$...@nntpb.cb.att.com>,
John S. Dyson <dy...@inuxs.inh.att.com> wrote:
>
>I have seen it as such a campaign by GPLers... I find GPL makes it
>less likely that I can use or redistribute or "whatever" the software...
>Sorry...
Your main gripe with the GPL seems to be that you can't use it for what
you want to do in some case.
That's not a problem with GPL, that's the whole _idea_ with GPL. If you
think your work does not allow re-distributing sources, then you can't
reasonably use GPL. End of discussion. I can't see how people have
been going over this issue for several weeks.
The GPL tries to make sources available, and if you aren't ready for
that, then just don't use it. I don't see the idea with this discussion
at all: to me it just sounds like people whining about not getting a
free lunch. "Daddy, the evil programmer won't let me get rich off HIS
work."
Oops. I used the "free" word. I must do penance.
As an american you probably have the concept of "Freedom" (with a
capital F). But even in real life, freedom is not a question of being
allowed to do whatever you want. That's called anarchy, not freedom,
and is a totally different matter than the "land of the free".
Freedom is NOT being able to do whatever you want to, it's about not
having anybody else being able to _tell_ you what you must do. Freedom
is the _choice_ of using either the GPL or the BSD copyright, or making
your software commercial. Nobody should be able to control your
actions.
Similarly, the idea of "Free software" is not that you can do whatever
you want with it, it's about nobody else being able to control that
software. You'll always have the sources, so you can make the software
do what _you_ want, not what somebody else wanted.
Continuing the analogy, public domain software (and BSD software) is
"Anarchistic software", and the people you should be talking to is the
ASF, not the FSF.
(Which is not to say that anarchy isn't "free" too - it is in some
respects the ultimate freedom. But I don't think you'd like to live in
a totally anarchistic state, though. I certainly wouldn't, and I don't
see why this discussion goes on and on)
Linus
From: r...@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 1996/01/06
Message-ID: <4cmsm1$92q@dyson.iquest.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 134325105
sender: n...@iquest.net (News Admin)
x-nntp-posting-host: dyson.iquest.net
references: <9601030126.AA23066@lemming.engeast> <rjraxgm37h.fsf@ssv4.dina.kvl.dk>
<4cgukf$e5i@nntpb.cb.att.com> <4clskk$gih@klaava.helsinki.fi>
organization: John S. Dyson's home machine
newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
In article <4clskk$...@klaava.helsinki.fi>,
Linus Torvalds <torva...@cc.Helsinki.FI> wrote:
>
>Freedom is NOT being able to do whatever you want to, it's about not
>having anybody else being able to _tell_ you what you must do. Freedom
>is the _choice_ of using either the GPL or the BSD copyright, or making
>your software commercial. Nobody should be able to control your
>actions.
>
>Similarly, the idea of "Free software" is not that you can do whatever
>you want with it, it's about nobody else being able to control that
>software. You'll always have the sources, so you can make the software
>do what _you_ want, not what somebody else wanted.
>
>Continuing the analogy, public domain software (and BSD software) is
>"Anarchistic software", and the people you should be talking to is the
>ASF, not the FSF.
>
I have been brought up with the ideal that the less interference with
personal freedom (and with that goes property rights) the better. I would
not call the BSD license causing anarchy (a prejudicial term) -- but since
there is little central control it does promote freedom (and included in that
are intellectual property rights of people using, enhancing and redistributing
the software.)
Of course, there is some minimum amount of order necessary to make sure
that people are not hurt, and to maximize the freedom -- but property
rights are key... If THEY can control your property rights -- THEY pretty
much have control of you in every way (property rights IMO also include
intellectual property.) The "THEY" can be anyone including your employer,
your bank, or your gov't, or others who you might enter into a contract
with...
John Dyson