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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!xlink.net!news.ppp.de!news.Hanse.DE!wavehh.hanse.de!cracauer From: cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer) Subject: Re: Linux vs. BSD?! Message-ID: <1995Mar1.111604.25864@wavehh.hanse.de> Organization: The Internet 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$ai3@deep.rsoft.bc.ca> Date: Wed, 1 Mar 95 11:16:04 GMT Lines: 143 a09878@giant.rsoft.bc.ca (Curt Sampson) writes: >In article <3j0fch$j72@fido.asd.sgi.com>, >Larry McVoy <lm@slovax.engr.sgi.com> wrote: >>I'm running the Linux kernel that is a few weeks old. I regularly load >>binaries off of CDs and run them. The binaries are 1-2 years old. >This is hardly proof that the Linux community will continue to >maintain backward compatability, much less develop the system in the >way you wish. While the Linux development community is going your >direction, you get a free ride. As soon as you or they decide to >change direction slightly, you're back to paying someone to go the >direction you want. The difference between free software and commercial software is that you can change the direction of free software more easily. If the direction is not of your taste, you take the source, hack something in that is sufficient to show what exactly you want, make it availiable so people can try it out and then you have a good chance people will follow you. With commercial software you - don't have a chance to talk to the whole user community. With free software, you can usually easily reach all the implementators. With commercial software you have to reach the users. - you cannot implement a demo version of your ideas since you don't have source. - manangers do not always follow their customer's wishes. Free software implementors usually use their own software and it is more likely that they agrree with your idea of how it should look like. To change the way a free software package goes, you have to talk to the implementators. With commercial software, you have to talk to ordinary users and some managers. Take your choice. >Yes, DEC, Sun, SGI, etc. don't always put the things I want in their >software. On the other hand, I find that paying them less than I would >pay my own team of developers in trade for not getting everything I >want is a worthwhile trade-off. If I decide it's not anymore, I can >stop being their client. They're not going to do anything that people >really can't stand, because those people will stop buying the OS. Two problems: - for almost all non-PCs you have to change the hardware if you want another OS. - the people who decide what is bought in your campany may not care for elegance and other irrelevant OS concepts. With free software you can load the machine your boss bought for you with whatever supports you application. >I thus still maintain that if you want full control over your >software, you have to be prepared to pay for it. If you're lucky you >may not have to pay right now. But chances are you will have to pay in >the future or surivive without some things that you would ideally >want. Noone can pay for a whole OS that is under his control. It is as likely that a commecrial OS becomes something you don't like as it is with free software. But with free software you have a much better chance to turn it. >I've just read through the GPL (I've not done that in a few years) and >looking at it now I'm not terribly impressed; I find it unduly >restrictive. It offers no incentive for commercial enhancement of the >software since anybody silly enough to enhance it is going to have to >give all their enhancements away for free, anyway. BSDi has done a lot Not exactly. You can keep your changes for yourself. Nobody can force you to give them away. But if you give them away to somebody, you cannot forbit him/her to share copies. And you cannot give it away without offering sources. >to promote BSD over SysV-type OSs, for example, and I think what >they've done is a good thing. (As a matter of fact, were it not for >BSDI I might not be running Netscape on my NetBSD machine right now.) >This would never have happened under the GPL. But BSDi certainly >hasn't stopped development on FreeBSD or NetBSD, has it? If you don't >ever want to see companies like BSDi, follow the GPL and keep them out >of business. So you say BSDI wwouldn't have been possible if the original BSD was under the GPL? What exactly would have been different? 1) Anybody could share copies of their software with others 2) They couldn't make a different price for binary and source distribution as they do now. Just make it one price. 3) They have to gve away *all* the sources for the software they sell (a few pieces are left out now) 4) Anybody could take pieces of source and integrate it into some other product. 5) They couldn't integrate copyrighted software from other companies (maybe a windows emulator). Point 1 is probably is biggest issue. But it works for Cygnus support, obviously. And many people share software anyway, allowed or not. 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. 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. Point 5 could be solved by selling seperate binaries of such software. If kernel support for such a software is needed, you can GPL only the kernel part, which shouldn't be the biggest part of such software. So, I think BSDI could be the Cygnus of operating systems and could live well with that. I don't know if Sun had chosen BSD as a base for their original Workstation if it was be GPLed. They sell hardware and need a good OS to make their machines attractive. A GPLed OS could be taken up from other workstation vendors, so Sun would do some homework for their competitors. But as we all know, the real competitor is Microsoft and maybe UNIX's situation now would be stronger if all the workstations had a GPLed OS from start. All the effort now beeing invested in Linux, free BSDs and GNU tools could have been used to improve a common UNIX base and maybe we would have a GUI interface with something like OLE2 build in (or whatever is attractive in Windows). Of course, managers would never choose a GPLed BSD for a new workstation when a commercial System V is availiable. BSD was better than SysV when Sun workstation were beeing constructed and it is hard to say how much better it had to be to be chosen even if it was GPLed. I think Larry McVoy's point is just right. Martin -- %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Private email Martin.Cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de Fax +4940 522 8536. No NeXTMail! No guarantee for anything. Anyway, this posting is probably produced by one of my cats stepping on the keys. No, I don't have an infinite number of cats.