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From: Terry Lambert <terry@cs.weber.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: The FreeBSD Project, Inc. (For Profit or Not?)
Date: 13 May 1995 23:03:04 GMT
Organization: Utah Valley State College, Orem, Utah
Lines: 124
Message-ID: <3p3dr8$o3i@park.uvsc.edu>
References: <9504240621341239@infoplus.uu.holonet.net> <3nqvvh$62q@bonnie.tcd-dresden.de> <3nuc1h$o80@columbia.acc.brad.ac.uk> <3o8or2$fqj@helena.mt.net> <3ob04j$lsc@agate.berkeley.edu> <3p1300$35b@news.randomc.com> <3p2k7h$j4r@escape.widomaker.com>
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First, I find it peculiar that this discussion is taking place on
basically a dead news group instead on comp.unix.freebsd.misc or
some other more apropriate group.
shendrix@escape.widomaker.com (Shannon Hendrix) wrote:
] masinter@randomc.com@mail.randomc.com writes:
] >Please get over the idea that if you are "for profit" this makes you a
] >money grubbing, quality assurance-less, purveyor of vaporware. This
] >"for profit" nature is what will encourage you, and enable you, to
] >continue your work. No one with a little business education could
] >condemn you for deciding to incorporate as an S-Corp. This, I truly
] >believe, is the best chance for FreeBSD to become a preferred platform
] >in the sea of systems we swim everyday.
]
] It is worth noting that one should make sure the company and it's
] operators do not have exclusive copyright of the operating system. The
] sources, binaries, etc of Coherent are no longer available to the public
] because the owners of the now defuct Mark Williams Company still hold
] the copyrights and now the users are stranded.
This is, perhaps, *the* salient point in this whole thing.
] It would be bad if a company marketed FreeBSD and then folded, keeping
] the rights to the enhancements done since the company started. Caldera
] is releasing their improvements to Linux so this won't happen. Only the
] Novell network support, desktop interface, and some other add-ons are
] proprietary to Caldera.
Caldera is keeping proprietary every thing it can; don't mistake
this. I don't know how they did the IXI desktop or the NetWare
client support; that kind of pulling a rabbit out of Novell's
Univel cum Linuvel cum Corsair cum Calders was, IMO, unlikely in
the extreme.
The reason Caldera is releasing improvements to Linux is because
of the GPL in some cases, and because there are radical Stahlmanites
close to the steering wheel in others (Hi Jim!).
I think a CSRG style not-for-profit company (like, oh, say, the
MIT X consortium, NetBSD, XFree86, etc.) is a step in the right
direction; heck, even Bank Of America is using X systems in their
offices: the non-profit nature of the X Consortium hasn't hurt
the viability of X.
On thing about defacto standards: they generally grow out of
publically available research results. You can look at TCP/IP,
SLIP, PPP, X, and large portions (more than 50% according to some)
of SVR4 to see that.
It is only when you attempt to control (restrict) that you start
to lose out: look to NeWS, NeXT's hardware division, and Apples'
shrinking market share for your evidence. It's one of the reasons
I get fired up about standardization in CDE, which is made of of
largely proprietary technology for which there are not publically
consumable equivalents.
] Now to play devil's advocate, or something like that. Linux was doing
] just fine before Caldera joined the scene and I don't believe Linux was
] in danger of going away or slowing down without them. What they have
] added is a more acceptable image and a focus for development. Oh, and
] they are providing commercial applications to make Linux a real
] alternative to crud like Windows, etc.
What they've added is licensing and porting themselves, which is a
far cry from enticing commercial vendors to port to their system;
why do you think there is the big push for IBCS2, WABI, and BSDI
ABI compartability in the Linux community? Because they must go
to the commercial apps, the apps won't come to them (with few
exceptions, all of which are "demo", "shareware", "unsupported",
or Linux Journal advertisers). Look at Netscape.
] You can say the same for FreeBSD. It's chugging along pretty well and
] I'm not sure a company is absolutely necessary for it's survival. It
] could help a lot but it seems like this would need to be done carefully.
A company is probably not necessary for its survival -- but it
could, indeed be helpful. The main issue a company will resolve
is tax deductable donations of equipment, man hours, and money
(which can be used, for instance, to buy the NIST POSIX certification
suite, a necessary precursor to POSIX certification; everyone
in the free UNIX work-alike community claims "POSIX compliant",
but no one has the paper to prove it).
It will also yield a legal entity capable of making press releases
that ar printable, rather than having to go the "informed sources",
"freelance writer", "letter to the editor", or "random mention"
routes to get the word out.
A correctly implemented non-profit could also make Jordan's time
and other donations to the project by Walnut Creek and others
tax deductible (Is an FTP site deductaible?).
A legal entity can obtain membership in organizations, like ISO,
ANSI, IEEE, the X Consortium, etc. I think we can all agree
that the world at large would be a better place if the SVR4
package management didn't make it through the standardization
process, or if the 1003.8 printing stuff was required to be
layered on a generic queueing subsystem instead of being a
forever seperate piece.
A legal entity can enter into non-disclosure agreements with the
vendors who won't disclose what is essentially "boot code", and
can make available binary drivers as loadable modules based on
those agreements (like 128 port serial board drivers).
It can also provide a contact point for hardware vendors who are
primarily SVR4 and DOS shops, who don't want to have to invest
the resources to come up to speed on BSD internals in order to
provide drivers for their boards, but who might be willing to
contract with programmers who already have the internals knowledge
to have it done.
I think a non-profit organization is the next logical step for
FreeBSD, for BSD in general, and probably, if the truth be told,
for Linux as well.
Terry Lambert
terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.