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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news99.sunet.se!news.funet.fi!news.helsinki.fi!not-for-mail From: torvalds@cc.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD Date: 11 Dec 1995 13:05:16 +0200 Organization: University of Helsinki Lines: 62 Sender: torvalds@cc.helsinki.fi Message-ID: <4ah39c$mt3@klaava.helsinki.fi> References: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com> <49rm0g$o8o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu> <DJ2IBL.71t@nntpa.cb.att.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: klaava.helsinki.fi Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:29799 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:10091 comp.unix.advocacy:11950 comp.unix.misc:19954 In article <DJ2IBL.71t@nntpa.cb.att.com>, John S. Dyson <dyson@inuxs.inh.att.com> wrote: > >So then finally, someone who uses Linux is admitting that the Linux >kernel development at least is not open and free. Sounds like a monarchy >to me. (FreeBSD is somewhere between monarchy and anarchy :-)), and >the FreeBSD kernel is unencumbered with GPL. I might as well say the Linux kernel is unencumbered by the BSD copyright. It cuts either way, and I happen to think that the GPL is better suited to linux (especially judging by BSD development history). John, you've seemed a reasonable person before, why this endless tirade now? I'll be the first to admit that I'm a dictator when it comes to linux: I _don't_ like the core-team approach, and no, nobody else ever gets to change _my_ kernel without my approval first. I go through every little patch before it taints my personal kernel sources. So if you want to bandy political terms, this makes linux an "enlightened dictatorship" when it comes to the kernel, as opposed to the FreeBSD monarchy and/or anarchy. I happen to think that this is the best system for linux. (Political science people will know that this has been considered the optimal political system by some people too, the "only" problem being the actual choice of dictator ;-) But being a "dictatorship" doesn't make it less open, or less free. I don't take any rights _away_ from you: I only give you the _choice_ of using my kernel development. And I do make kernels availables at reasonably regular intervals and the fact that I don't use "sup" is just a technical thing, not an issue of "openness" or "freeness". The fact that I don't give other people permission to modify my kernel sources is just due to the fact that I'm a paranoid bastard, and I wouldn't trust anybody with my kernel that I use on my personal machines. I _want_ to know what goes into the kernel, and I don't trust people to do the right thing all the time. The "official" linux kernel is just something that I personally am working on, and no, I don't use cvs or anything like that because I happen to think that I can do it better myself. But you're free to disagree, and do a Linux distribution of your own, if you want to. I won't fight you (but I might as well unmodestly warn you that you'll have to more-or-less devote your whole life to it if you intend to do a better job than I do). Where linux is really open is not perhaps the kernel as much as the whole _system_: Linux (not the kernel, the whole thing) development is really a matter of a lot of different people working more-or-less independently of each other - and they may all use completely different development stategies depending on what they feel is appropriate. THAT is what I call open and free (*). Linus (*) Other people will call it confusing, but that's _their_ problem, not mine. Freedom doesn't imply that things are neat and clean, often quite the reverse.