*BSD News Article 43159


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From: Tony Sanders <sanders@earth.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: Linux vs. BSD?!
Date: 5 Mar 1995 08:06:57 GMT
Organization: Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
Lines: 47
Message-ID: <3jbrf1$vl@delos.BSDI.COM>
References: <3ira54$7vq@quandong.itd.adelaide.edu.au> <3ivt1u$ip@fido.asd.sgi.com> <3j04a0$sfu@deep.rsoft.bc.ca> <3j0fch$j72@fido.asd.sgi.com> <3j0qv0$ai3@deep.rsoft.bc.ca> <1995Mar1.111604.25864@wavehh.hanse.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: austin.bsdi.com

I'm not posting officially for BSDI, just giving you some
perspective on the bigger picture.

cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer) wrote:
> 2) They couldn't make a different price for binary and source
>    distribution as they do now. Just make it one price.
It doesn't quite work that way.  Customers *demand* that you
give them a discount for things they don't want.  They say,
"I don't want source and I don't want to pay for it".  BSDI
pretty much didn't have a choice in the matter.  Go figure.

> 3) They have to gve away *all* the sources for the software they sell
>    (a few pieces are left out now)
Currently the only binary things are Xaccel (and you can just
use XF86 if you want a server with source available), the
Maxpeed driver, the Digiboard driver, and the Xircom drivers.
All because of non-disclosure restrictions, without which there
would be no game.  Again, BSDI really had no choice, the customers
had spoken.

> Point 3 is not that bad. For example, they couldn't use devices where
> they have to sign a non-disclosure statement. But other free OSes show
> they good sniffers can implement such drivers without the help of the
> vendor and therefore procude source without signing anything.
I seriously doubt a GPL'ed kernel would latch onto custom drivers,
people would *really* not be happy with that situation me thinks.
Look at all the problems they had with the library stuff.

The drivers that BSDI did which are under non-disclosure are
*very* big deals for the customers, priority 1 requirments even.
We didn't enter into such arrangments lightly I can assure you.

> Point 4 is not an issue since the free BSDs are not behind BSDI
> anyway. Would even save work, since BSDI could pick up drivers from
> free OSes, too.
We do, in fact, sometimes share work with the free world, including
feeding our fixes back to the public.

The "saving work" theory doesn't hold water either for political
reasons (the existence of no less than 4 "free" versions is ample
proof of that: Linux 386/BSD FreeBSD NetBSD).  When there is a
dispute, one group runs off and starts their own strain because they
can.  Which doesn't help your "GPL Unix to fight off Microsoft"
argument much either.  And do you really want the average DOS
user running Unix anyway?  I really don't know the answer to that.
Maybe all they really need is a good WWW browser and a high-speed
SLIP/PPP connection...