Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.os.linux:35054 comp.os.386bsd.questions:1765 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu!cc.usu.edu!slhpv From: slhpv@cc.usu.edu Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: Summary of Linux vs. 386BSD vs. Commercial Unixes Message-ID: <1993Apr19.211953.66479@cc.usu.edu> Date: 19 Apr 93 21:19:53 MDT References: <1993Apr17.205715.11278@coe.montana.edu> <1993Apr17.231000.103368@zeus.calpoly.edu> <9304181046.aa28257@gate.demon.co.uk> <C5qy6E.6HC@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> Organization: Utah State University Lines: 39 In article <C5qy6E.6HC@cbnewsj.cb.att.com>, dwex@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (david.e.wexelb> In article <9304181046.aa28257@gate.demon.co.uk> damian@centrix.demon.co.uk (damian) writes: > > I don't understand this. If someone decides to do some work and give the > work away, and they put no restrictions on it, why should you care what > people do with it? Using as an example the rather large FreeWare project > that I am involved in (XFree86), we knew from the day we started it that > people would likely commercialize some or all of it. It takes a lot of > chutzpah to be in business. We didn't have the guts/desire/whatever to > take the work commercial. We also didn't believe in putting restrictions > that were completely unenforcable (from an economic, if not a legal, > standpoint). We tell people "You can do whatever you want with this, > except claim you wrote it. And we'd appreciate it if you gave us credit > for the work we did." Why hang some rediculous requirements like the GPL > on it, when we have no intention/desire/resources to enforce it? > This is exactly the problem I have with the GPL, it doesn't help the computer science industry in general. GNU is currently in a position to contribute greatly to the computer industry. GCC/glibc/bison/flex/etc. are powerful tools for software development. They also run on about every platform. If commercial enterprises could develop their code using these "STANDARD" tools, it would run on all architectures "UNMODIFIED". This could be the best thing for everyone... developers sell more software, users can buy software at a lower cost. Currently every package must be ported to every machine it should run on. I think that GNU/LPF/FSF need to examine the GPL and see if they can make their tools usable by EVERYONE! Why are we wasting countless hours having DEC/HP/Novell/Sun/etc write their own architecture specific compilers, lib's, and windowing wigits. I'm sure many companies would use GCC, etc. if the GPL wasn't so viral. I personally am looking forward to the day that I can write a piece of code and have it run on every machine I have an account on... with no changes. Is GNU interested in this kind of thing also? Dave