*BSD News Article 14893


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From: pb@stroberg.uucp (Pete Bergstrom)
Subject: Re: GNUified Linux vs FREE 386BSD
In-Reply-To: kem@zoyd.NoSubdomain.NoDomain's message of 19 Apr 1993 18:49:18 GMT
Fcc: ~/Sent-news
References: <1993Apr15.225354.18654@samba.oit.unc.edu>
	<1993Apr17.161516.2794@serval.net.wsu.edu>
	<1993Apr17.175431.25015@coe.montana.edu>
	<1993Apr17.190517.4276@serval.net.wsu.edu>
	<1993Apr17.205715.11278@coe.montana.edu>
	<1qus7eINNcib@no-names.nerdc.ufl.edu>
Organization: Stroberg Hill
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 17:25:17 GMT
Message-ID: <C5sLq7.5LI@stroberg.uucp>
Lines: 22

This is a frequently-brought-up-stupid-topic, so let's just end it
quickly.

In article <1qus7eINNcib@no-names.nerdc.ufl.edu> kem@zoyd.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Kelly Murray) writes:

   Software that is ``really free'', that is, released without restrictions,
   provides benefits to EVERYBODY.  Everybody includes people who create
   GNUified software, as well as those who create commercial software.

   As an aside, because GNUified software releases source code, it is easy 
   to incorporate changes made to really-free programs back into the
   original code, as copyright does not cover cases where
   there is substantially no other way to do something, which 
   would cover most bugfix-type changes.

The problem is that not all people are willing to make their
improvements available unless they're forced to do so by the terms of
the original software. This may be true in the case of someone who
wants to convert something from your "really free" into proprietary
and sell it.

Pete