FreeBSD at COMDEX 413
From: Brett Glass
Subject: FreeBSD at COMDEX
To: chat@FreeBSD.org
Just got back from COMDEX, where the response to FreeBSD was very, very different compared to previous years. Here are some random observations:
With few exceptions, all of the open source UNIX products and companies were relegated to a separate, "co-located" show: Linux Business Expo, in the Hilton. This had both good and bad effects. On the plus side, it gave open source a separate forum in which to strut its stuff (albeit with the Linux name hung on it). On the minus side, it segregated virtually all of the open source activity away from the mainstream. (Except for Linus, all of the keynote speakers for the Linux show were on a separate track and in smaller venues.) Companies which exhibited only in the Hilton didn't get as much attention as they would have on the main floor -- even if they had been crammed into one of the tiny "sheep stalls" which Microsoft uses to make ISVs seem small and insignificant. And those which had the financial wherewithal to exhibit in both places seemed unwilling to mention their open source activities on the main floor, where it was "Windows, Windows, Windows" all the way.
FreeBSD got a small, but not insignificant, amount of attention. Red Hat CEO Robert Young even mentioned it in his keynote -- a pleasant surprise.
Walnut Creek had a daemon "hostess" in the booth for the first time. ("You mean they haven't ALWAYS had one?" asked my wife, who was surprised that it hadn't been done before -- especially in Vegas. I suggested that a chorus line of female daemons -- remember the "Devil Girls" in Schmidt and Jones' classic musical "Celebration?" -- might be even more Vegas-like.)
Two fellows from the NetBSD project, including Charles Hannum, were at a booth elsewhere on the floor selling CDs. They didn't seem to be getting as much interest or recognition as they deserved, alas. The timing of the show was bad for the OpenBSD project, which is currently struggling like crazy to close a bunch of open issues so that it can ship Version 2.6. Perhaps this is why I saw no mention of OpenBSD on the show floor.
I noted that Digi was displaying some new serial hardware in the Red Hat booth, and asked them about BSD drivers. They said that they didn't have them, but "why don't you just port them from Linux?" (I tried to explain to them that the GPL, which is designed to monkey-wrench exactly such activities, precluded this; alas, they seemed not to understand the licensing issues. I plan to be in touch with them about getting "raw" technical specs, as I need a driver for a Digi 56K modem/channelized T1 board.)
The reps from Borland/Inprise -- whose booth was directly across from Walnut Creek's -- told me that they now had a Linux command-line compiler for Borland Pascal/Delphi. (This is a fantastic Pascal dialect which I'd love to use for UNIX projects. The GPLed "Free Pascal" simply can't compete in terms of code quality.) Unfortunately, despite the fact that recompiling and relinking a command-line compiler for BSD is nearly trivial, their PR people claimed that they weren't considering an implementation for FreeBSD. (This sounds like a company that's ripe for a bit of advocacy; there is NO reason why there should not be Delphi compilers for ALL of the BSDs.)
Hardware and software vendors on the main floors of COMDEX were, alas, focusing on Windows and NT. Few had driver support for any non-Microsoft operating system, and they seemed to be annoyed by the question -- as if they'd been asked quite a few times and didn't have a good answer. (Others denied ever having been asked for drivers for ANY other OS -- even Linux -- even though it's highly unlikely that this would be true.) I noted that the inkjet printer manufacturers were especially adamant about calling their printers "Windows printers," and claiming that it was impossible to run them from any other OS. Laptop vendors, when asked if their modems were "WinModems" (which I often call "lobotomodems" because they lack sufficient intelligence to work without MAJOR help from the host CPU), often couldn't provide an answer.
In general, the hardware vendors -- even more than the software vendors -- seemed to wish that all of this UNIX stuff would just disappear and leave them happily dependent upon Microsoft in a one-OS world.
The most extreme case of this of this phenomenon occurred when we wandered into the booth of a robotics vendor called Robix. We are working on a project for a client which will involve some robotics, and thought at first that this vendor's toolkit -- which contained a computer interface and enough servos and parts to build a complex manipulator -- might be just the thing. But when we inquired, we discovered that the included software, which ran the interface, was specific to -- you guessed it! -- Windows. Since "rolling your own" is the essence of robotics, we politely asked if we could obtain some sample code so we could adapt it to run under UNIX -- or, if not, the specifications for the interface so we could write something ourselves. We even offered to share the code we developed.
But instead of welcoming our interest, the owner of the company snapped in response: "We had enough trouble developing this for Windows, and we're not going to go through the sweat and tears to rewrite it for something else! Go away!" He scowled, turned his back and refused to talk to us further.
Our remark must have touched a nerve that had already been frayed by previous encounters at the show, and it was rather sad. We literally had our checkbook ready, but this one fellow was willing to throw away $500 of on-the-spot business (and that would just have been the initial order!) to avoid so much as thinking about supporting an alternative OS.
Another disturbing trend was that many of the embedded systems vendors seemed to be going with NT and failing to acknowledge its continued lack of fitness for mission critical applications. One vendor which had built a PBX around NT admitted, under duress, that to keep their system even semi-reliable they had to threaten to void the warranty if ANY other application was installed on the system. (I asked them whether they were concerned about the system blue-screening due to network activity, and told them so. The vendor seemed not to fathom the notion that NT could be crashed via a network. Duh.) Other companies had tape libraries and similar systems -- many of them likely to be mission-critical -- attached to NT boxes. Scary.
About the only exception I could find to this trend (at least on the main floor) was Maxtor. The company's MaxAttach dedicated file servers (a product line which they acquired when they bought Creative Design Solutions) have FreeBSD inside, and they're very proud of that. (They don't use Samba for SMB support; instead, they've written their own SMB server which seems fairly impressive. I didn't get all of the technical details, but their rep suggested that they may be doing some things in kernel space to increase performance.) Maxtor believes that FreeBSD will make their servers far more stable and reliable under load than Linux-based solutions such as the Cobalt RAQ.
All in all, it seems to me that FreeBSD, and BSD UNIX in general, need a LOT more promoting and a lot more vendor support -- on the main floor, not just in the Linux "ghetto." My personal approach, were I Walnut Creek, would have been to go for a booth on the main floor at the Sands and share a smaller booth with the NetBSD folks in the Linux pavilion. It's important that FreeBSD not preach only to the converted. It should not be seen as a "niche within a niche," but rather as moving toward the mainstream.
--Brett Glass
What ever happened to the Unix Pascal system? (Score:3)
I was just wondering whether anyone knows what happened to all those. BSD no longer seems to come with them by default. And at least on the open flavor of the same, I see no /usr/ports/lang/pascal directory.
The Good, The Bad, and Microsoft. (Score:2)
Preaching to the converted (Score:3)
Take, for example, a manager who, for some unknown reason, wants to convince the higher-ups to install only windows on their machines. This manager takes one of them to the main floor of comdex and says "Look - Only windows machines here. And all the hardware's for windows too". Even if the higher-ups know there's a bunch of unix gurus somewhere else, it's certainly going to make an impression on them that there's not a trace of open source on the main floor.
Depends who you talked too.. (Score:2)
But this year, I found many (Xerox, APC, WinTV,...) that were very helpful and were talking about doing more. WinTv for example told me last year, NO were are not doing anything with Linux. This year they had a display of there WinTV on Linux...
I have seen an overall improvement from last year. But yes you still have those Blind lost people who only know of windows or nt, because that took some cheap class (or expesive) for a week.
Sherm
A step backwards ?! (Score:1)
To be expected... (Score:3)
The masses didn't have knowledge of reading/writing, and because of this, many things were well beyond their understanding. Under this condition, they had no choice but to trust their authorities to tell them what was right and wrong, and out of this came a strongly dictatorial ruling. (beyond this, my knowledge of that period of history is limited... anyone have corrections? Suggestions for how the age of enlightenment could relate to us fixing misconceptions in manfacturer's heads?)
Likewise, the mainstream OS manufacturer has managed to beat the party line into _OUR_ hardware manufacturers. They seem to believe that Windows is the only system worth programming for. At the same time, start-up programmers may assume that "*nix CAN'T be easier to program for then Windows! and (quote)We had enough trouble developing this for Windows, and we're not going to go through the sweat and tears to rewrite it for something else! Go away!"(/quote)
Now, through brute force, Linux is breaking into the mainstream... but it's still not addressing the root problem. The manufacturers, for one reason or another, do not understand how easy it is to support other platforms, especially platforms with a long history of standardization. Short of us (open-source/open-hardware advocates) starting to build our own hardware, we're going to have to start seriously putting it to the manufacturers... "open specs! open source drivers! rational thought!"
This is a VERY good sign, IMHO (Score:2)
It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that businesses are mindless maintain-the-status-quo, do-whatever-everyone-is-doing creatures. But if you believe nothing else, believe that businesses love money, and they are now seeing, first-hand and repeatedly, that by not supporting alternative OSen, they are losing money. If their techs are not able to convince them that "M$ for everything" is folly, then at least their accountants will.
I'm glad to hear they sound frustrated and angry. It leads to the mentality that "I won't let this happen to me again next year!" I picture them saying "Dammit, next year we support this UNIX thing!" I'm hoping the year after that, people will pester them for Be ports. (And because Be is pretty much POSIX complient, the port will take less time.)
Re: (Score:2)
Secret Interfaces (Score:3)
As in the cases mentioned in the parent article, companies make proprietary hardware with a proprietary interface that only runs with their proprietary binary which only runs on Microsoft systems. The proprietor feels that its his property, and he's done what he wants with it to recoup is investment. I understand that. But the network effect strikes again, and we're screwed.
If no vendor could create hardware with complete closed specs and Microsoft-only code, this would help a lot. But I can't see that the current MS-DOJ case could require that, since it's not a penalty to be imposed on the Evil Empire. It's all the myriad little companies nursing off their teat that are doing this to us. I don't know what kind of mechanism to fix this there could be that wouldn't be too overreaching.
Re:Depends who you talked too.. (Score:1)
Sherm
Re:A step backwards ?! (Score:3)
Re:This is a VERY good sign, IMHO (Score:2)
Re:lets focus on one os at a time.. (Score:1)
They could at least release enough to have the drivers written by whoever wanted to write them..
Sherm
Well, Linux still has a ways to go. (Score:2)
I think people are realizing that Linux still has a ways to go before it becomes extremely popular. The limitations can be defined in the following parts:
1. Lack of widespread hardware support. Most computer hardware out there have full Windows 98/NT/2000 support via software drivers, while Linux support is still limited to the most common hardware configurations. I mean, does Linux support all the functions of a motherboard with the Intel i810e chipset that has built-in video, sound, etc.?
2. Lack of a programming interface along the lines of Microsoft's Common Object Model (COM). This is where Linux really needs major improvements--and a number of commentators in the industry have noted this.
3. Lack of support for future technologies (with the current Linux 2.2.x kernel) such as Universal Serial Bus and IEEE-1394 "FireWire" hot-docked peripheral connections. This is going to be _critically_ important because Intel has already stated they plan to do away with serial ports, the parallel port, and even the PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors (!) on future motherboard chipset designs. I wonder does Linux support Fibre Channel "out of the box" or do you have to literally write from scratch your own Fibre Channel driver.
Once Linux overcomes these limitations (and Mr. Torvalds has admitted that they will be addressed in the upcoming Linux 2.4.x and 3.0.x kernels), THEN we can consider Linux a serious competitor--and possible successor--to Windows.
You Linux folks can flame me all you want, but think about it--many of you Linux users come from Computer Science college degree backgrounds, where learning to use UNIX is a must, since UNIX is the operating system of choice for most college campuses. Unfortunately, most home and corporate computer users out there don't have that type of experience, and frankly, they may get a bit overwhelmed at the enormous flexibility and unfriendly command-line structure of Linux (which is very closely related to UNIX).
Linux is getting better, but much work needs to be done in make it "user friendly" to the average computer user.
Re:This is a VERY good sign, IMHO (Score:1)
What's your point? How does POSIX compliance really help us, if at all?
Re:This is a VERY good sign, IMHO (Score:1)
and the answer was POSIX.
No WONDER so many NT heads think it's so great and slam unix.. they think it *IS* unix..
Re:BSD (Score:2)
Re:This is a VERY good sign, IMHO (Score:1)
I'm not claiming that porting will be trivially easy, I'm just saying that given a particular piece of software, the port from MacOS 8 to Windows95 will be more difficult than a port between Linux and BSD (licensing issues aside) largely due to the POSIX standard.
So in short, yes, I do think that, say, Apache, will be easier to port to MacOS X than it would be to MacOS 8. If I'm wrong, please correct me.
Re:It's too bad about Brett. (Score:3)
Whining (Score:2)
Furthermore, the whining about the isolation of the Linux Business Expo is also invalid. We were there selling our Linux-based product [wirex.com] and promoting our free security portal [immunix.org] and it was our choice to place our booth in the Linux Business Expo. Anyone who wanted to be in mainland could have chosen to do so.
Crispin
Re:This is a VERY good sign, IMHO (Score:3)
Sure D00D (Score:1)
Re:Secret Interfaces (Score:1)
Re:This is a VERY good sign, IMHO (Score:1)
Look, folks, all I said was that a port of Linux software to Be would take less time than a port of Windows software to Linux. POSIX compliance helps us by having at least SOME common system calls in place so that you don't have to replace every instance of fork() with CreateNewProcess32A() or whatever it is in Win32land. It just reduces the amount of time necessary to make a port because less stuff has to be changed.
And NT's POSIX subsystem is a joke. If it wasn't, we wouldn't need cygwin.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:*BSD is hurting Open Source/Linux, time to stop (Score:2)
You've made your assertions. Now back them up.
Linux has BSD beat on reliability, scalability, security and popularity, you claim. That's provably either false or misleading or both. For example, consider popularity. Windows has Linux beat on popularity. So what? Next, security. Oh come now. Shall we please track the number of exploits for various Linuxes, and compare them with those for, say, OpenBSD? 'Nuff said. Now this scalability thing. Yawn. BSD ran on minicomputers and minisupers years before Linux was even a figment of your imagination. And those were big iron by today's standards, with separate I/O processors and hundreds of concurrent interactive users. BSD runs on little tiny machines, too. BSD scalability [daemonnews.org] is hardly an issue. Let's see, what was the other thing? Oh yes, reliability. Shall we compare mean-time-between-failure data? What are you talking about? I haven't seen either sort of machine go down on its own for the last couple years, and when it did, it was a Linux box, not a BSD box.
Your statement that BSD has done nothing innovative or positive for the OSI/Unix community is a blatant, flamethrowing, slanderous lie. I could list a hundred things. I challenge you to read the last 20 years worth of Usenix proceedings if you need details.
But I'm sure you don't need details. They would interfere with yours lies. Damn it, repeating a lie doesn't make it true. What the hell is wrong with some people?
Try getting a non-Windows Printer... (Score:1)
After finding very few postscript printers out there I went to the Linux Printing HowTo List:
http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/pht/printer_lis
I finally went with a HP Laserjet 2100TN which does a yeoman job for all the various boxes in the house. I have had good luck with the HP printers at work and like most of their product lines except the Laserjet 5 series...
I hate the fact that standards like postscript have been dropped in favor of Win-Drivers. It took 10 times as long to load the drivers on the Windows machines than it took to tell the Mac's and the various favors of unix boxes about the new printer...
Did I miss something? (Score:1)
"Digi was displaying some new serial hardware in the Red Hat booth, and [I] asked them about BSD drivers. They said that they didn't have them, but "why don't you just port them from Linux?" (I tried to explain to them that the GPL, which is designed to monkey-wrench exactly such activities, precluded this"
OK, slam Digi for not knowing that GPL said you can't just port stuff... but he also said:
"Unfortunately, despite the fact that recompiling and relinking a command-line compiler for BSD is nearly trivial" as a way to slam Borland, for not doing *exactly* what he said was illegal to do for Digi?!?
Huh? Did I miss something here? It sure seems to me that he's talking out of both sides of his mouth here. Why is it OK if Borland drags a version of Pascal over, but NOT ok for Digi dragging drivers over? Is it just because he'd have to do the work of dragging the Digi drivers, but not the Borland port?
I see progressively less and less reason for me to even read about BSD, if their crowd are all like this.
Jeannette
Re: (Score:1)
This is kinda a shame. (Score:1)
--codemonky
Whatever happened to udi? (Score:1)
Internecine Bellicosity (Score:2)
We're all on the same team, guys, except for the raving loonies. Try to keep that in mind.
Please.
Re:Well, Linux still has a ways to go. (Score:2)
Apparently not a single vendor of digital cameras has seen the wisdom of your pronouncement, as they foolishly plod ahead and use nothing but FW interfaces...
(gad, i hate using IE... all my emacs-like editing controls are gone)
Re:A step backwards ?! (Score:1)
Not so.
Free UNIX booths used to be in an obscure place in the Sands Expo. They were never in the main floor in the convention center. This year was a big step up, because at least you didn't have to take a bus to get to the Linux stuff (the LV Hilton is right next to the convention center, there is even a skywalk between them).
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Re:Whatever happened to udi? (Score:2)
Re:Secret Interfaces (Score:2)
And you really wouldn't want to have MS level their guns at the GPL -- they'd crack it like an eggshell. You'd want to come up with a specific directive or licence not linked to anything else.
Re: (Score:1)
there was some improvement... (Score:1)
-last year the Linux "pavillion" was in the basement of the Sands Expo Center. The Sands to me was where the Comdex people put all of those who either didn't matter, or weren't important to the show. It was a bunch of vendors with mediocore products.
-last year Linux was hardly a blip on the COMDEX radar (thus the wonderful location in the basement of the sands)
-most of the booths looked like 6th grade science fair projects. They were small, had very few people there to answer questions and they were unimpressive.
-Compare that to this year where Linux/BSD/OpenSource had its own section in the COMDEX handout, it had its own sponsors, it had a very nice convention space (albeit off the main floor)
I walked through the Linux Business Expo and felt a sense of pride. I felt that the community was being recognized. We weren't on the main floor, but we were in a convention center that was very close to the main convention center (as opposed to the Sands which was a long walk). In fact I parked at the LV Convention Center and walked (didn't feel like paying $20 to park at the Hilton vs $5 at the LVCC).
The thing to keep in mind is that we are a growing community, we cannot expect to be recognized immediately. While I feel the frustrations of not having vendor support, we are still making a name for ourselves. Microsoft has assimilated the minds of many of the people that we would like to have on our side of the revolution. The key is to free those minds and to show them that we have a product that is as good, and actually better than what they are currently working on.
I think that a round of polite and poignant (sp?) letters to some of these vendors might get them to at least look at Linux/BSD/OpenSource as a viable alternative. Don't give up yet fellas
Eric
-------------------------------------------
Re:This is a VERY good sign, IMHO (Score:1)
Actually, people are into Windows NT because it's Windows-compatible, not because it's (a little) UNIX-compatible. In the MS propaganda dimension, UNIX = difficult and expensive = legacy = not a good thing.
The exam question beside (which is trying to verify a shallow understanding of the standard NT architecture diagram), I don't think there's any widespread misconception among "NT Heads" that NT is UNIX-compatible. Almost zero thought is put into the POSIX subsystem by NT admins, except to disable it in security sensitive situations, or maybe run vi as a parlor trick.
--
You missed something. (Score:2)
The Borland compilers, on the other hand, don't link against anything but system libraries, are under a proprietary license, and Borland is free to compile them on any OS they want to, and redistribute them however they want to.
Re:Well, Linux still has a ways to go. (Score:1)
Exactly! This sounds just like my standard response to many of my Windows-advocating friends who like to point out the deficiencies of Linux. "But Linux is getting better -- fast. When was the last time you said that about anything coming from Microsoft?"
[You can replace the word "Linux" in the previous paragraph with the name of almost any Open Source project and it's still true.]
I, for one, am glad that I've been around Open Source stuff long enough to witness the dramatic improvements. When my friends express excitement about Windows 2000/2001, I just chuckle quietly to myself. They have no idea what "better" means.
Re:What ever happened to the Unix Pascal system? (Score:2)
marc@oranje$ gpc -v Reading specs from /usr/ports/lang/gpc/inst2/lib/gcc-lib/i386-unknown -freebsd4.0/2.8.1/specs
gpc version 19991030, based on gcc-2.8.1
marc@oranje$
If you need it badly, send me a mail. Otherwise have a bit of patience until I submit it to the ports people.
Re:To be expected... (Score:1)
Re:Secret Interfaces (Score:1)
I don't understand that. And I think I might be the only one that doesn't understand it. Maybe I'm insane.
Most peripheral hardware manufacturers sell the hardware, and bundle with it the software necessary to use it. When they advertise, they talk about the hardware, and not about the drivers or tiny application necesssary to use it. They frequently even give away the software on the net.
I can't see how those companies could think even for an instant about the issue and want to keep secret the protocol their hardware uses to talk to the software. If they released the information, they would sell more hardware. (I'm sure many of the people reading this have had to choose hardware based on what free software is available to support it). They would not sell less software, because they are not selling any software. They're giving it away to make the hardware work. They're not destroying their future chance to sell additional software - rarely does any hardware vendor start selling additional software beyond what they bundle with the hardware. (there would be no point). Giving out the information only increases the value of the hardware, at virtually no cost to the company.
Even companies who sell insanely trivial hardware think they need to keep secret the information needed to write software for it. For example, Hanna Instruments [hannainst.com] sells a $70 pH meter [hannainst.com] with a serial interface and Windows-only software. I asked them if they could give information on the protocol it uses, or source for the software, because I am not using Windows. They (of course) told me that it's proprietary, and they can't give me the information. I thought that if any company would have enough of a clue, surely one selling scientific supplies would. Sigh.
Re:What ever happened to the Unix Pascal system? (Score:2)
Re:Did I miss something? - Yes! (Score:2)
Unfortunatly, the Delphi compiler is not Open-Sourced, and is to be released under a commercial licence - neither BSD or (L)GPL or any other Open Source licence,
Borland (Inprise) can release their product under any licence they like (provided it is under legal terms) and for any platform - provided they don't violate the terms of anything on that platform.
The BSD/GPL non-compatitbility only come into play whe the non-original authors want to change the licence, anyway. If Diga wanted to release their drivers under the BSD licence they could, because they own the code - but if anyone else tried it they would be in breach of the GPL.
--Donate food by clicking: www.thehungersite.com [thehungersite.com]
Yup. You missed something... (Score:2)
Borland, as the copyright holder for their compiler, can compile it and sell it on anything, for anything they want. Legality doesn't come into play.
The Digi drivers are GPL and distributing them with BSD would 'infect' BSD. In other words, if Apple (or anybody who used BSD as the basis for their OS) shipped the Digi drivers as part of their OS, they would be compelled by the GPL to release the source to the entire OS (including proprietary modifications).
I'm a GPL biggot myself, so I would be fine with this, but the BSD folks are proud of their license and would refuse to encumber their OS in this way.
Note that if the Digi drivers are written and maintained entirely by Digi, they could change the license to BSD and (I believe) the code would be useable in either operating system. Of course this would leave the door open for other companies to appropriate the Digi drivers without contributing changes back to the community - that's why some people prefer the GPL.
Re:Brett Glass?!? (Score:2)
But you know, Coward, if you keep posting this crap, you'll get enough -1's against your IP that you won't trouble us anymore. At least, that can be our hope.
Re:Hypocracy (Score:2)
And you have failed your Hippocratic Oath, too.
What the devil is wrong with these people?
Re:Hypocracy (Score:2)
Just remember that BSD predated the GNU copycat stuff by aeons. For a real education, go take a good look around on any of the Linuxes and notice how much BSD code is actually there. Don't take my word on it. See for yourselves. This selective blindness discredits you even further.
Would a bevy of moderators please track down all these cowards who are trying to create a bsd bashing festival and zap them into negativity?
Ever notice how you don't see raving loonies bashing Linux the way you see them bashing BSD? That should tell you something.
Re:*BSD is hurting Open Source/Linux, time to stop (Score:2)
... (Score:2)
Vendors don't "get it", and I don't mean open source - technical specs should be open, if for no other reason than to allow a) peer review which b) promotes your product, if worthy, to be the "best" on the market, which leads to c) lots of money. Right now they're a) not publishing which b) pisses off alot of computer enthusiasts who c) either ignore the hw all together, or d) even go a step further and publically denounce the product. Geee..... Anybody from Sales heard about this? You know - meeting quota would be alot easier if you took the development heads out for a "friendly" game of paintball.... *hint, hint*
--
License FUD (Score:2)
But then Mr. Glass goes on to state the following:
I noted that Digi was displaying some new serial hardware in the Red Hat booth, and asked them about BSD drivers. They said that they didn't have them, but "why don't you just port them from Linux?" (I tried to explain to them that the GPL, which is designed to monkey-wrench exactly such activities, precluded this...
That is FUD in the finest Microsoft tradition, and I'm surprised and ashamed that someone from the BSD camp is emitting it. I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt, and assume it was a slip of the tongue (er, finger), but I also want to set the record straight.
The GPL is designed to ensure that the source code for a piece of software remains available to everyone at all times. That is all. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Thus, the GPL prevents Microsoft or some other Evil Empire taking the code, "embracing it and extending it", and releasing proprietary, incompatible versions.
It also prevents a single company (for example, Red Hat) from taking control of the Linux world. No matter how many developers and maintainers Red Hat buys, the GPL ensures that Linux remains free.
A lot of people, developers and users both, consider this a Good Thing. In any event, it is the developer's choice. The BSD people choose their license, Microsoft chooses their own, and so on. All fine by me, personally. Some people seem to think there is only One True License, but that goes against the ideas of freedom and choice that most of the Linux and BSD movements are all about.
The problem the author sees is that the BSD license allows you to do pretty much whatever you like with their software, except claim that you wrote it. Thus, you cannot take GPL code and integrate it into a potentially proprietary BSD package. Right so far.
However, the author drops it at that. Perhaps he should look beyond his personal dislike of the GPL. There are several options open. One would be to create a GPL'ed BSD fork. That is pretty radical, though, and I doubt it would be what most people want.
Another possibility is to port the driver to the appropriate BSD kernels, but keep the driver seperate from the main distribution. All your GPL drivers would have to be distributed separately under their own license, but that is not that big a deal. As long as you keep your interfaces clean (always a good idea), the GPL can co-exist with BSD just fine.
A third possibility would be to contact the driver authors and see if the would be willing to relicense the driver to the BSD folks. A good many driver authors will be quite happy with doing this.
My point is, the author seems to think the GPL is some virus that infects all code it goes near and prevents anybody from touching it. That is a common misconception, and far from the truth.
End of tirade.
Expect it (Score:2)
The people you run into on trade show floors are usually just out of college and putting their CS degree to good use in sales. They have no clue what's going on and they're certainly not going to know what UNIX is. If they ever start questioning the Microsoft way of life, it'll be long after they've been promoted out of sales. Next year you'll have completely new people on the floor and get the same reaction from whoever just converted over from Windows.
Re:*BSD is hurting Open Source/Linux, time to stop (Score:2)
I figure that your refutation deserves a refutation of its own, of sorts. First off, I agree with you for ninety percent of what you said. That said, let's go.
Shall we please track the number of exploits for various Linuxes, and compare them with those for, say, OpenBSD?
I think you're giving the original poster more credit than is deserved and, in some way, you're making the same mistake. The mistake of the original poster is in believing that a difference means either a superiority or an inferiority. This is, IMO, absolutely not the case. Godzilla may be able to beat King Kong up, or vice versa, but either one of them can stomp Tokyo flat if they feel like it. When it comes to urban demolition, there is no substantial, quantifiable superiority between the two.
Same with Linux and the BSDs. For ninety percent of all uses, Linux and the BSDs can interoperate without a problem. I prefer Linux machines as desktops and OpenBSD machines as servers. Big deal. With some work, I can make Linux into a reasonably secure and perfectly good server, and turn OpenBSD into a good desktop.
The original poster thinks that since Linux is different and s/he uses Linux, Linux must be superior. It's not. It's different. That's all.
Original poster -- for the love of God, man, get a clue. BSD is not the enemy. The enemy is internal divisions, fractiousness and backbiting. If you want to help the free UNIX community, and help Linux, then stop flaming our BSD brothers.
Re:Brett Glass?!? (Score:2)
The point was that he's just managed to present himself as another cowardly GPL flag waver and general rabble rouser, who, like so many others of his ilk, apparently doesn't have the integrity and conviction to post under his real name.
Brett obviously had thought these things through. To assert that Brett should be censored because he prefers free and open software over encumbered software is a revolting idea, and you should be ashamed of yourselves, one and all.
Re:What ever happened to the Unix Pascal system? (Score:2)
I too, remember using the Berkeley Pascal system on VAX 730 and 780's (and later on an 8250) under 4.2 and 4.3 BSD. I absolutely detest VMS (which is what the undergrad work was done on back in those days where I went to college), but I worked for a place that ran BSD. Not only that, but the Comp Center's machines were grossly overloaded with users, while I virtually had the VAXes at work to myself at night.
Actually, I hate Pascal too, so what I would do was write the assignments in C under BSD, then hand convert the C source code to Pascal once it was finished, and compile and test it under BSD using pi. I really liked the quick syntax check in pi (it would even fix small errors like missing semicolons and begin/end keywords). Once the Pascal version of the code was working under BSD, I would upload it to VMS, compile, test and turn it in. It took a little explanation to the instructor of one class as to why my source code was always version 1 or 2, and why I used very little 'funny money' on my VMS account.
I suspect that the old pi/pc/pix isn't included in current *BSD's because of two things. One, I suspect that the originals are highly VAX-centric, especially pc. I also suspect that the code may be AT&T encumbered because I remeber seeing mention in a recent interview with Bill Joy that BSD did the work on that code as a summer project that was funded by AT&T.
At any rate, it seems that in general, Pascal has mostly fallen out of favor in the world with the exception of Borland's Delphi which seems like it is still kind of struggling.
Re:License FUD (Score:2)
NT, POSIX, and what they mean (Score:2)
No. NT includes an optional POSIX subsystem. By all accounts, it is unstable, incomplete, and fails to implement much of what is required for decent POSIX compliance. It also has huge security problems; Microsoft recommends you disable it completely, or NT will not be considered secure.
In short, Microsoft did what was needed to pass the POSIX compatibility, tests. Running actual POSIX software was not one of their goals.
What's your point? How does POSIX compliance really help us, if at all?
POSIX is essentially the UNIX operating system turned into an OS API standard.
If you write a program that is POSIX compliant, and the underlying OS provides a good POSIX implementation, then your program will port to other OSes with little to no modification.
Re:Well, Linux still has a ways to go. (Score:2)
What about Sony? (hey, didn't that use to be one of their ad slogans?)
The whole Mavica line uses a good ol' 1.4M 3.5" floppy disk as its interface.
Yes, I am a happy Mavica owner.
Re:Internecine Bellicosity (Score:2)
Pascal / Porting between the BSDs (Score:2)
Please make sure the openbsd people get it, too. Any idea how much difficulty it is to cross-port between the two? My guess is that it's trivial. Yes if that were true, you'd think we'd see more ports than we do.
Sure, it will be much more easier than porting from Linux. I just installed openssh on my box - the first FreeBSD port I ever saw, that fetches not some tarball somewhere but does an anonymous CVS checkout from OpenBSD.org's tree. Wow.
Indeed I feel great sympathy and admiration for the other BSD projects and would love to make it cross BSD. My problem is tracking the differences and testing.
Example:
In theory, I already put in OpenBSD and NetBSD support for another project I work on, the CD Index [cdindex.org] client. This was attempted by studying the man pages from these systems, that are available on the German FreeBSD web server [freebsd.org]. But I never tested it out so far, because I simply have no machine running OpenBSD or NetBSD or access to one.
Even if I had a second box running OpenBSD for example, I doubt somewhat, that I would follow development here as closely, as I would for FreeBSD. It is just a matter of personal preference and limited time resources.
So I believe the various projects should hold test accounts ready for volunteers from the other projects who are willing to test and adapt their stuff, but who are not willing or able to keep up a test system themselves. I would be very happy to get such a opportunity, as ported software seems better to me in the sense that it forces one to better program organization. Maybe one of the reasons why usually UNIX software is of good quality.
Re:*BSD is hurting Open Source/Linux, time to stop (Score:2)
However, if you mean ease of use for Unix programmers, then I lament to report that there, the burden of remedying the currently deficient usability concerns points quite strongly in the opposite direction.
Re:Brett Glass?!? (Score:2)
Re:TOM CHRISTIANSEN YOU MISSED THIS ONE (Score:2)
Re:Internecine Bellicosity (Score:2)
/me looks for the Slashdot twitlist feature.
Re:What ever happened to the Unix Pascal system? (Score:2)
You are right, it is a new development that uses gcc as backend. In fact you need a gcc source tree, add the gpc source tree, use a fitting diff from p/diff to integrate or better say patch gpc into gcc and do the usual configure/make incantations. In between you perform some FreeBSD specific patches (I am very happy that it is possible to put all this knowledge into a nice handy FreeBSD port)
The gpc is still alpha and has bugs, but personally it was already useful for me, as I use it to develop the homework for a computer science course on imperative programming, where Pascal is required as language.
The gpc folks work on covering standard Pascal as well as the glorious Turbo Pascal dialect of the past.
Actually, I hate Pascal too, so what I would do was write the assignments in C under BSD
I personally first learned Basic on an Apple ][ then 6502 Assembler with Big Mac/Merlin and then Pascal with UCSD Pascal and later Kyan Pascal. Then came Forth, then Turbo Pascal for CP/M and the for the IBM PC which was good enough for several years until I hit C++ in 1990 and then Java in 1996. With C++ still my favourite language. (Perl is not bad either)
This learning history also represents an increasing order of difficulty. Pascal is certainly easier to grasp and less mighty than C or C++. And therefore suited for teaching programming.
Pascal also suffered from the facts that it has never evolved as nicely as has C into C++ (and Java to some degree). Not to forget the admirable effort by Bjarne Stroustup to forge the ISO C++ Standard. That was certainly sucking work, but he did it.
When Pascal creator Nikolaus Wirth once came from ETH Zurich to give a talk on his Oberon language at the RWTH Aachen, I annoyed him with my opinion, that Pascal had no worthy successor. :-)
The purpose of the GPL (Score:2)
The GPL is for people who want to make sure nobody can usurp their code. If I code, and make that code available to the community at large, I don't want somebody to take my code, use it in their own way, and sell it back to the community from which they stole the code in the first place unless they also release their code.
This is all very equitable-- you benefit from my code, and I benefit from yours in return. Everybody wins.
The GPL does this by putting restrictions on the code, that's true; but those restrictions are designed to keep others from hijacking the code. Name one instance where the code might be used legitimately where the GPL is a hinderance. (Conflict with the BSD license does not count; if everything released under the BSD license were instead released under the GPL, there would be no conflict.)
The BSD license assumes a perfect community, one which will not use your own code against you. (For instance, if Linux were released under the GPL, and Microsoft felt Linux were a serious threat, it could use the Linux code to create a new operating system that looked like Linux, but worked only with Microsoft software.) The GPL protects the interest of the programmers and the community at large.
BSD's interests are not with coders or the community; they are with the world. The BSD license is very liberal-- and that is not necessarily a bad thing. For those who trust other people to use their code wisely, the BSD or Artistic License is a better license than the GPL, as it provides more freedom.
But for those of us who are just cynical enough to distrust the intentions of the rest of the world, the GPL is a better choice.
Re:The purpose of the GPL (Score:2)
Re:What ever happened to the Unix Pascal system? (Score:2)
Those of use who know this, or those who know Emacs know that Java byte code is an old trick. (Possibly there are even older virtual machine systems)
By the way. Behind Apple's UCSD Pascal was Bill Atkinson, a guy who later worked on the QuickDraw stuff on the Mac (that was a Pascal machine in it's early days) and who might have worked on that MacDraw application. What has become of him? I am not sure if I saw him mentioned as someone having a share in Silicon Graphics, lately. Anyone knows more?
Anyway, the UCSD p-system was licensed by a company called Pecan, and my lab at one time (1987?) had a copy to run on our 286. But Borland TurboPascal came out with their IDE around that time and it blew the p-system away in terms of performance, so we never returned to those idyllic days. I don't know what happened to Pecan or the p-system for micros after that. Arguably the first victims of the octopus from Redmond...
Sure, Turbo Pascal impressed with it's speed, when it came out. But for my friends and me, there was another reason why we (hey we were in high school, having not much money) bought it:
Turbo Pascal was very cheap (around $100) in relation to its features and came with a nice doumentation. It would have been a disgrace to pirate such an offer.
In fact we stopped buying it, when it become more and more Windows focussed, and reaching a $500 limit. I personally changed to the emx port of gcc for OS/2 and later on university, stuck to the Unix versions.
So you could say, in a sense, that Borland also became a victim of Redmond, when it had to concentrate on Windows, but never had the same chance to offer adequate support for it.
They are just trolling (Score:2)
bashing festival and zap them into negativity?
Don't reply to Anon Cowards like these people, Tom. They're just trying to troll you. And by all rights, they are succeeding.
Ever notice how you don't see raving loonies bashing Linux the way you see them bashing BSD.
They come out for pro-Linux articles too, trust me. It's worse, then, because we have Microsoft astroturfers then, too, as Linux is officially on Microsoft's hit list now.
Re:It's called Java (Score:2)
Re:It's too bad about Brett. (Score:2)
Before we get too wrapped up in how much "good, honest open source work" the GPL has prevented, let's not get forget about that the different licenses serve very different purposes, and serve them well.
BSD is about getting code reused, not reinventing the wheel, and and maximum flexibility for all uses commercial or otherwise.
GPL is about keeping software free and encouraging contribution back to the community.
By the same token as you might not like that the GPL hinders companies (prevents them from closing source or making other restrictions), an author might not like the fact the BSD allows that. And in the final analysis, the coder is the one who has the right to make that call, not you, me, or anyone else.
I'm not sure I agree that the GPL has any "freeness problems" that need fixing, so much as a very different idea about what's important, and which freedoms they want to protect. Not everybody's freedoms can be protected all of the time, and a choice has to be made.
Don't get me wrong, I see a lot of good in both licenses. In fact, it pains me that there isn't more work being done to reconcile the different priorities embodied in the licenses to reach a consensus.
Most importantly, I think that we should all remember that both licenses are designed to do good things, preserve freedom, and make the world a better place. Isn't that what this is all about?
--
-Esme
Re:Internecine Bellicosity (Score:2)
by Anonymous Coward on 02:59 PM November 21st, 1999 PST (#158)
If the person is logged in, the name is a link to their user info.
Re:Hypocracy (Score:2)
Re:Pascal / Porting between the BSDs (Score:3)
When I noticed it first, it was aesthetically very pleasing to see that you have managed to dynamically link those two BSD source trees.
I am not sure about the implications of this approach, yet. Made me wonder if that is the way a future united BSD source tree will look like. Not one single organization, but a tree distributed over 3 or more focal sites, that specialize in some aspect of the grand system.
Re:Hypocracy (Score:2)
Choosing a slightly more modern example, if you run BSD on a Sparc, you can run executables that were compiled on SunOS or Solaris. You certainly don't think that those had to have been compiled using gcc, do you?
The coward had a stupid nonpoint, and I didn't feel like explaining the facts of life to him. It's hardly FUD.
Daemon Hostess (Score:2)
Pictures! Pictures! Pictures! :)
My thoughts exactly! (Score:2)
The techies are back in the office, fixing bugs, and generally prepared to fight fires if something goes wrong with a demo. These are the people who will probably push their product management toward Linux support.
Yes, Mr. "Buisness"man (Score:2)
Microsoft's POSIX Myth (Score:3)
If you truly believe that this alleged POSIX compliance is in the least bit useable, then please compile up trn or perl or nvi on that system. It's part of a sick and twisted joke, and the joke is on the American taxpayer, too. Read Heinz's article.
GNU, Homeopathy, and the Courts (Score:2)
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Melissa, Your FreeBSD Hostess (Score:2)
Re:What ever happened to the Unix Pascal system? (Score:2)
Small world it is... I also started out with BASIC on an Apple ][ (back in about 1980) and then switched to 6502 assembler, although I used a couple of different assemblers including the Apple DOS toolkit, Lisa 2.5 and the one from ByteWorks. I did use Big Mac/Merlin some, but not as much as the others. I also played with both the Apple UCSD Pascal system and used Kyan Pascal some. I even did a little forth (GraForth and a couple others on the Apple ][). Around that time I started doing C on VAXes under BSD. I also used Manx's Aztec C on the Apple ][ quite a bit.
then Turbo Pascal for CP/M and the for the IBM PC which was good enough for several years
I pretty much skipped doing much programming on CP/M and MS-DOS in those years as much as I could. I did do some C on MS-DOS, painful as it was because the compilers in those days (Lattice C mainly) really stank. I did some Pascal (Lightspeed) and C on the Mac (Lightspeed/Symantec).
until I hit C++ in 1990
Around 1990 I did a couple of years of Informix 4GL and C on System V (Motorola 88k) and AIX (RT and RS/6000).
and then Java in 1996.
I started playing with Java around the same time, although it has only been in the last year and a half that I've really started using it seriously.
With C++ still my favourite language. (Perl is not bad either)
I still use C and C++ quite a bit on my own, although not so much at work anymore. I do quite a bit of Perl as well, although mainly for quick and dirty stuff.
This learning history also represents an increasing order of difficulty. Pascal is certainly easier to grasp and less mighty than C or C++. And therefore suited for teaching programming.
Here I'd tend to disagree. Pascal is just plain outmoded, and not suited for teaching anymore. There are other things that are better suited. Personally I don't really believe that C/C++ are that much more difficult than Pascal if approached correctly. Given that Pascal is essentially a dead language, and C based languages (including C++, Java and to a lesser extent Perl) pretty much rule the software development world. Given that reality, I think it makes more sense to spend time learning something practical like Java. Pascal also suffered from the facts that it has never evolved as nicely as has C into C++ (and Java to some degree).
A lot of that is because Wirth abandoned work on improving Pascal in favor of developing the Modula and Oberon series. Unfortunately neither of those families of languages has managed to take off.
Not to forget the admirable effort by Bjarne Stroustup to forge the ISO C++ Standard. That was certainly sucking work, but he did it.
True enough. Stroustrup certainly was more activist in standardizing C++ than Kernighan and Ritchie were in the ANSIfication of C.
Yea, I imagine that wouldn't sit too well. I'm afraid that he probably liked that better than what I would have had to say, although in all reality I probably wouldn't have said anything at all. As much as I dislike Pascal, I don't feel a need to vent to Wirth about it, especially since it seems kinda like kicking someone when they are down.
Re:Whining (Score:2)
Your above posting is unfair to me and is also incorrect on several points. Our queries to vendors were all polite and tactful. No, we did not use the term "lobotomodem" (a term which they probably would not have understood) when speaking to them, though in house we do prefer the term to "WinModem." Instead, we carefully asked if the products were known to work with any version of UNIX or any UNIX-like operating system. If they did not know, we asked if they could identify the controller chip used to perform the given function. The answer to the second question -- at least in the case of modems -- often revealed the answer to the first.
As for the isolation of open source companies in the Linux Business Expo: According to the staff of one very prominent open source publisher, they were told by the COMDEX staff that they could not have space on the main floor. If they were selling anything related to Linux or open source, it was the "Linux Business Expo" or nothing. So, your assertion that "Anyone who wanted to be in mainland could have chosen to do so" is not correct. Sad, but true.
--Brett Glass
Incomplete definition of "Commercial Software" (Score:2)
I use a GPL'd OS (Linux) and GPL'd tools (GCC, GDB, et alia) to build completely proprietary, closed-source NastyWare©. I have no doubt that there are some vitriolic bastids out there who're now hunting down a picture of me so they can mark a big, red X over my face for having admitted as such.
I am not now, nor do I ever plan, nor does my contractor ever plan, to sell the software I've written for them... However, they will USE that software (built on the back of GNU tools) to make a buttload of cash. Well, hopefully, because then they'll hire me to make more stuff for them.
As it turns out, one of the elements of the software I've written is actually conceptually based around an open source, GPL'd tool... my version is (in my humble opinion) more robust in its implementation. It's about as clean-room an implementation as one will find in the OSS environment, and as it makes use of no actual GPL'd code I'm under no geas to GPL it and re-release. However, I do feel a moral obligation to the people who helped make these tools available for me to return the favor, and thus I will be taking steps to release it (or a somewhat scaled down version of it which doesn't implement some of the proprietary elements which would be useless outside of that environment) to the community at large.
When I release it, I'll release it under GPL... partially because the original package was GPLed, partially because I don't like the idea of Immoral Megacorp© taking my code, slapping thier own label on it, and selling my efforts for thier profit. Of course, they might do their own clean re-implementation, in which case their code is theirs and there's no flies on them, so to speak.
In a case like this, everyone wins. I program and get paid (I win). The company I wrote the software for uses it and produces a service for which they obtain a revenue stream (They win). The OSS community will get software more advanced than what they had made freely available to them (We win)... and I get the good vibes (and yes, the ego strokes) for giving good code to those who can appreciate it (I win... again! Sweet!). About the only losers I can think of are corporate types looking to pad their bottom line with what amounts to no-cost labour. I can't say I'm all that sorrowful for them.
On a more personal note:
I personally try to use whatever OS seems best for the job. Given my specialization in Linux issues, I probably see Linux as the best answer to the problems I personally face (either as an individual or as a subcontractor) more often than a person in a BSD environment might. I expect anyone who doesn't have exactly equivalent experience in ALL OSes will have a proportionally difficult time suggesting a given OS from a purely objective standpoint.
The offshoot of this, of course, is the whole nasty Us vs. Them ideological idiocy... A byproduct of community bonding, a fear of the unknown, and a fear of having training and specialization being rendered slowly moot. I understand that it's a powerful motivation to slam others based on thier OS choice, or assume the snooty, superior air of someone who feels (s)he knows the One True Way®... It's been my misfortune to encounter an over-abundance of BSD advocates who suffer the ill of being insufferable, and who have (inadvertently?) disposed me AGAINST using or contributing to the BSD project, in spite of my desire to remain objective (Hey, even though I know it's impossible, I'll still dare to try).
Please, Tom, try to avoid this more in the future. One catches more flies with honey than vinegar, and your posts are well on the path from the aesthetic to the ascorbic. Of course, Brett's prior flame-bouyant posts have gone well beyond ascorbic, and are hovering somewhere between sulfuric and that stuff that comes squirting out of H.R.Geiger aliens, but that's just MHO.
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
Re:Not to start a flamewar with YOU of all people. (Score:2)
I think that what Maxtor did is great. (Score:2)
It'd be nice if they gave away their SMB implementation, but it certainly would be unreasonable to insist that they do so. After all, they wrote it and deserve to make a living from their efforts. It'd be destructive and spiteful to insist, as Richard Stallman would, that they give up the ability to profit from their hard work.
As for being "left wondering what kernel enhancements were made that provided for faster SMB serving:" why lose sleep over that? All of the most likely approaches are pretty obvious; after all, similar ones were implemented for NFS.
--Brett Glass
Re:Someone didn't get enough sleep last night! (Score:2)
A one sentence truthfull statement from Tom hardly deserves an essay wandering off into irrelevant corners.
Microsoft has some the highest paid lawyers in the world. And they specialize in software licenses. When it comes time, and the time will come, to test the GPL in a court of law, we DON'T WANT the opposition to be Microsoft. We need some precedence first on some elements of the GPL before we face Microsoft's hitmen.
Re:I think that what Maxtor did is great. (Score:2)
The aims of the GPL are unethical, and ethical programmers should not endorse or further them.
--Brett Glass
Re:Go away, troll (Score:2)
A Heretic (Score:2)
Uggh?! Pascal a dead language? When perhaps pure procedural Pascal. But Borland's best selling product by a large margin for quite a while has been Delphi, which is based on Object Pascal - sort of like C++ is to C. I have to say, that of the object oriented languages I've seen, Object Pascal has to be one of the nicest. Java approaches pure-OO which can admittedly be annoying. C++ is simply a bastard (well, it's a hybrid), so, like a mut, is ugly but can do the job. Pascal, whose adoption, or lack thereof, could be considered both a deficit and a boon, has matured at a much slower measured pace. I'd have to say Object Pascal is a lovely language which is suited for many purposes. It tends to avoid pointers without pulling a hood over your eyes like Java, which I find nice...as long as you're not doing something explicitly involving pointers (which can still be done, but with more keystrokes). Since its following have been few and probably loyal, it hasn't been bastardized six was from sunday (the first time I ever used that phrase I swear) when any group wanted to add some feature.
One of the nice, and unique (well, maybe something I don't know has it), features of Object Pascal, is properties. Properties are member fields which are implicitly assigned accessors according to access rights keywords. This allows one to handle member fields transparently without having to explicitly call all sorts of accessors:
Object Pascal:
{ calls setter implicitly }
aclass.memberfield = foo
{ calls getter implicitly }
dosomething(aclass.memberfield)
C++:
aclass->setSomeMemberFIeld(foo)
dosomething(aclass.getSomeMemberField())
This also allows things like read-only or write-only fields.
Outsider (Score:3)
Both parties want code to be "free" (liberated), and both believe their license does that. Both believe the other license is more restrictive than theirs because it fails to be "free" in a way theirs does.
The GPL seems to advocate End User/Consumer "freedom". The goal: Get the source code to the people. GPL cannot discriminate corporations, and like anybody else they must give access to any modifications they distribute.
The BSD
However, the GPL sees that BSD does not strive for its goal because corporations may then choose to NOT redistribute that source, and that the end users may never get access to the customized corporation code. BSD sees that GPL, by not allowing corporations to incorporate and withold GPLed source, is
There are two stratas of consumers then: the end user, and the corporation. Each license tries to get their stuff to the most people, but the distribution accross these stratas are just different.
Well, that's my blurry impression of it anyway. If I'm innaccurate in some way it's not because I'm a troll...It seems to me that both licenses want to do "good", however there are differing approaches to the end result of "good".
Re:A Heretic (Score:2)
I still think that Pascal is essentially a dead language. Delphi appears to be the last gasp for Pascal derived languages. It seems that both Borland and Microsoft have trouble getting away from their roots (Pascal and BASIC respectively). Now that Borland is putting out more Delphi-like products with C++ and Java (C++ Builder and J Builder) as the core languages instead of Object Pascal, I expect that eventually they will eclipse Delphi just as Turbo C and Turbo C++ did with Turbo Pascal.
Java approaches pure-OO which can admittedly be annoying. C++ is simply a bastard (well, it's a hybrid), so, like a mut, is ugly but can do the job. Pascal, whose adoption, or lack thereof, could be considered both a deficit and a boon, has matured at a much slower measured pace.
I just don't see it as likely that even a matured Pascal derivative will rewrite history and suddenly vanquish the C derived languages.
I'd have to say Object Pascal is a lovely language which is suited for many purposes.
Unfortunately, I really just don't like the Pascal syntax, so I doubt that Object Pascal would ever appeal to me.
On the Oxymoronity of Mandated Moralities (Score:3)
The words which you deemed an insult were in fact reflective of sentiments that were anything but.
You then continued to write:
What's happening is that we're not talking about the same thing. Yes, you're right that the BSDL and the AL permit binary distributions. The AL goes further than the BSDL in what it says about making the source for that binary distribution available.That really wasn't the thrust behind my comment. What I was trying to express was that if you put any of these OSI-style licences on a bit of code, then that code will always have that licence. You can't just take a bit of AL'd code (or whichever licence) and throw away the old licence and re-license it as you feel like. The originally licensed code stands, and it stands forever--or at least until the owner himself releases it under an alternate licence. That means that the original code is not going to "go away" or be "taken over". You can't do that with the original code. It's got a free licence on it, and that's that. The difference is that free licences other than the GPL allow you to license your own software that uses the original stuff in any way that you care to. Even if you do so, the original remains inviolate. Nothing can happen to it.
That's what I meant when I said that the other free licences make sure that the code "stays free". Surely you must see that they do this. But you're talking about something else: code that wasn't in the original. Yes, you're right, the other licences make no claims upon that code the way the GPL does. But this hardly changes the original code.
(Yes, some of that was redundant.)
Microsoft's old strategy of "embrace and extend"--which in fact is often "embrace, extend, and extinguish"--is going to be with us no matter what we do. Look at the whole MS-HTML [perl.com] fiasco. This was an open standard. That didn't stop Microsoft from using it to screw the world into reliance upon them through Microsoft-only extensions. Do you really think getting a copy of their exact code to handle this crud would make any difference? I don't think it would. I don't see that licensing could make any difference here. Even if you define in the standard that extensions would make the result no longer be standard [whatever], as for example, I have heard said about XML, I can't see this stopping the Microsoft juggernaut from attempting to give you a "better" version. They'd say, well sure, MS-ML isn't XML (or whatever), it's better, and it's fully compatible with simple XML (or whatever). Think about POSIX, again.
So I think your fears about "embrace and extend" are well-founded, but your apparent conclusion that the GPL would adequately address this issue, and do so in a way that other free licenses would not, seems incorrect.
My colorful use of "viral fingers" is simply that. I grow weary of the times that I see the term "FUD" used to brand an opinion with which the antagonist disagrees. That's what I think you're doing, and I don't think it's fair. I've been completely up-front about why I consider the FSF to be dangerously dishonest in the whole GPL issue. I have repeatedly requested that they stop spinning stories and twisting common definitions. Their doing so has without a doubt tricked at least some people into misunderstanding how the GPL works, why it's there, and what its ramifications entail. I believe that this is an intentional deception, a cheap word game they will never admit to, but from which they clearly benefit. It would not take more than a few small fixes in the surrounding literature to clarify matters for honesty's sake. No licence changes. Just spin changes so as not to misrepresent what's happening.They don't do that. Therefore, they don't mind that it tricks people. Hard to see how using "sneaky" is inappropriate there.
As for "viral", this, too, has a long tale behind it, and it was hardly I who first made the observation and coined the term. I don't care that the term should discomfit the FSF. There are clearly ways in which the term is descriptive of the action. Yes, it has a negative connotation. Yes, I intended to use a term with a negative connotation. I did so, quite simply, because to my mind the term fits. I did not do so to cause people to fear something they did not understand, nor to be uncertain about the reality of the matter, nor to doubt for some nebulous and amorphous reason the intentions of the parties involved.
I think, perhaps, we are not understanding the word "infect" to mean the same thing, because I cannot see how a reasonable man could say what you have just said if his understanding of the words and the effects involved were the same as I myself hold. I note with some amusement that many GPL advocates disagree with your statement. Their standard retort is that it doesn't stop you from doing that; it merely imposes conditions upon your use of the resulting work. This is deceptive sophistry on their part. I agree with you here, and commend you for not falling into their webs of deceit.Nevertheless, this prevention that hardly seems sporting, not does it? I can barely think of a potent disincentive to code reuse. And code reuse frees programmers from needlessly reinventing the wheel.
I think either we are actually in profound but subtle agreement, or else we have severely disparate notions of what constitutes "complete and total ownership of your code". If I have complete and total ownership of my code, then I as owner may do whatsoever I please with that code. Alas, the FSF would have you believe otherwise.One can of course avoid this through linking. The FSF really hates this idea, and they routinely cluck enough about its legal viability that fair-minded people everywhere are uncertain about the true effects. But in the client-server days of RPC, CGI, DLLs, CORBA, OLE, COM, mobile agents, and other segmented forms of computation, it becomes increasingly obvious that the GPL cannot possibly be as infective/effective at reaching across those boundaries as the FSF wishes it were. That's how I made removed the virus from all GPL'd libraries and made them LGPL'd. Even Bruce Perens has confessed here in this forum that such separations are going to happen in the computing models we see today, and that the GPL does not address them. My recollection is that he called them "loopholes".
I agree with you that my code code is not affected. The FSF, however, most vociferously disagrees with both of us. They claim that the GPL means that I cannot distribute my own code under my own terms. If I can't do as I will with my own code, then it is hardly unaffected, nor am I its complete and total owner. That's there position. Mine is that I am complete and total owner, and am consequently free to do whatever I please with that which is mine. It is, well, peculiar at best, that copyright law should extend its notion of a derived work in this way. The FSF recognizes no notion of proportion in their figmentational notions of what constitutes a derived work, staying completely boolean in their thinking. The courts have never been so binary.In any event, that's not what the issue is. The issue is that the FSF feels that their code affects my code, that their licence on their code spreads to everything their code touches, meaning my code, and that this process continues in perpetuity, without regard to dilution or proportionality. It is this very complete silliness that they espouse which has engendered the notion of the GPL being an infectious virus. If you prefer another way of thinking about how silly it is, consider it as an application of digital homeopathy.
Surely you don't really believe that, do you? Free licences will do that, but not the GPL. The GPL affects other code in a way that a free licence does not. This is my entire point. Yes, it forces. But it forces something else. It forces what happens to something other than the original code. It allows the author of one work to restrict what happens to the work of an entirely different author.Can you imagine how silly it would be if a book were published whose copyright included a restriction that the book could not be used by black people, or in a public library, or placed on the same shelf as a book by a different author? Imagine if a song were published under a restriction that it could not be played a station that also played a song by a competing musician, and that any other songs played by that station fell under the same restriction as the first song? Really, it's completely silly.
I've always found "use" restrictions very strange. See my previous paragraph. And I find it nothing short of mendacious that the FSF should claim their restrictions are anything but that. Yours is a very common sentiment, and I can certainly respect your feelings on this matter. A lot of people feel this way. That's why you so many licensing terms that in effect grant unlimited non-commercial use, but that for commercial use, you must contact the author to make other arrangements. I can hardly fault them too strongly for this, because I do hear what they're feeling. They've done their work for free, and they don't want people to get some benefit out their work which they themselves are not getting.According to the FSF, this is not free source, open software, or anything else you care to call it, because it's got anti-commercial restrictions. And then they tell you that their restrictions which bar anyone from using their software in what any businessman would be call a commercial sense (traditional fee-for-licence schemes) is not anti-commercial. Who but George Orwell could be so proud of the boldness of this spin job?
It would be more honest of the FSF to get out of the business of word games and related spin. But they are, fundamentally, a politico-economic foundation, not a technical one. They wish that all software were GPL'd, because they could thereby impose their morality upon others by the--what word do you want me to say here other than the completely honest "infective nature" or "viral nature"--perhaps "collateral damages", then--of the GPL.
I must confess that I have on a few occasions in the past, and doubtless several in the future, contemplated places where I would dearly delight in seeing the GPL installed and enforced. Oh, you do not know how sorely tempted I have been! One example is with Microsoft's operating systems products, because if they were court-ordered to slap the GPL on their OSes, that would be a likely end to their strategy of putatively "integrating" into the OS any application area that they care to monopolize.
But you know what? This is a personal weakness of mine, and I must overcome the urge. Tempting though it may sound, I must reject the temptation. I must. That's because it is fundamentally immoral to coerce others to behave in accord with your own sense of morality. It doesn't matter whether your morality happens to be the best around, or even the best there can ever be. Coercion is by its very nature by definition immoral. As with the paradox of having your cake and eating it too, morally you simply cannot enforce your own morality on others without sacrificing that very moral high ground which you would claim to occupy. Without free will, there can be no morality at all.
Re:Hypocracy (Score:2)
Re:Hold on. What right have you... (Score:2)
Earlier in the thread was an interesting argument:
Oh, you wish to own their code. Thanks for your gift, it makes it so meaningful now.
Right. I want to own their code -just as much as they own mine-. Under the GPL, my code is mine, their code is theirs. I just get to use theirs as they used mine. Under BSD, they get to close my source, and I -don't- get to use their source as they used mine.
Re:Paying for GPLed code (Score:2)
First, value can not always be measured in dollars. See any recent "MasterCard" ad for demonstrations.
Second, the GPL places restrictions on what you can do with the code. Removing those restrictions may be very valuable. Changling the license on intellectual property essentially makes it a different product. Neat, eh?
If a developer pays a nonzero amount to license the code, he is digging himself into a hole, as that cost can never be recovered.
What if he makes money selling the product which is based on the also GPLed code?
Many authors of GPLed code share Stallman's anti-business ideology and will not do so;
And many more authors refuse to release their code at all, under any license, GPL, BSD, AL, or whatever. Blaiming a license for the actions of an author doesn't make much sense to me.
Because the code has zero market value, licensing it is a dead loss.
If the code were truely worthless, nobody would want to license it. If someone wants to license it, it must have value to them. No?
I often look at the redistribution restrictions of the GPL as a form of payment. Rather then paying money for code, you are given limitations: If you wish to incorporate GPL code into your own code, you must release your own code under the GPL. Rather then paying the developer, you pay the community. Of course, you are free to not use the GPL code at any time, removing all such restrictions.
Re:Not so. (Score:2)
I'm not arguing that BSD should go away. In fact, my original comment was actually flame bait for Tom Christansen (Probably misspelt his last name). I'm just arguing that under the GPL I get to see what others did to my code, while under BSD I don't always get to. BSD is more free depending on which angle you're arguing from, and if you don't mind seeing your work used by others in commercial projects (meaning closed source projects I guess. Not necessarially commercial, as commercial and closed aren't always one of the same). The GPL prevents changing of licenses, closing of the source, etc.. And I prefer that over BSD, and it's just a personal preference. If I were to write a program specifically for *BSD* (wildcards on both sides to also allow for BSDi, a perfect example of what I'm talking about), I'll probably release it under BSD.
But, right now that's theoretical. Right now, I have a license of GPL on my (currently really, really bad) "eCommerce" type package in PHP3. I'll eventually release it (I'd prefer it didn't suck first), and it'll be GPLed unless some license along the way prevents it.
The code for my package can't be closed though (PHP3's code is in the HTML files), so I'm not worried about that right now. But if I release a compile-able program, it will be an issue. I'm also not worried about a company taking my work and using it commercially, because I doubt my programming skills are anywhere near good enough.
Actually, I should do what I basically say to people who start flaming over silly little things, and shut up and code
And this very instant would be a great time to do so, considering how long this post has become.
Did this make any sense to you? If it did, would you please reply and explain it to me?