FreeBSD DRM Is Causing A Load Of In-Fighting This Week

[kpedersen]

If you're against anti-freedom trolls then you must be anti-BSD as well. BSD trolls support closed source software and it (closed source software) has nothing common with freedom.

Pawlerson, please do your research. GPL isn't the only open-source license. MIT, BSD, Zlib. All perfect for freedom. I am quite certain you did not know that already.

"We call it the “FreeBSD license.” It is a lax, noncopyleft free license, compatible with the GNU GPL, much like the modified BSD license." - https://www.gnu.org/licenses/bsd.en.html

That said, if you like your licenses. Can you please put some effort towards getting Linux under the GPLv3 license? GPLv2 is quite easy for large closed-source companies to exploit (i.e Tivoisation). You are against closed-source right? If you personally cannot get Linux relicensed under the GPLv3, I think you must be in league with closed-source software vendors. Perhaps you work for Apple?

[aht0]

Lol, I think FreeBSD migrating to GPLv3 is infinitely more likely than Linux kernel, which though is representing True Freedom for Guest ... Talk about contradictions.

[STiAT]

That is interesting work by the BSD graphics team providing a compatibility layer. I can imagine that this could be easier to maintain than portinng drivers over, especially ob the fast pace linux graphics is moving at the moment. That said, they'll quite often need adoptions to that stack, because linux is moving at a fast pace.

Besides that, this needs to be a well considered step. Nobody likes freezing computers because of graphics drivers.

I think it it is the route to go, but probably needs a release more for testing and to iron out issues, november is a too short time span for that.

[starshipeleven]

Pawlerson, please do your research. GPL isn't the only open-source license. MIT, BSD, Zlib. All perfect for freedom.

The main difference is that the latter licenses allow companies to profit off your work without contributing back.

That's where your and Pawlerson (and my) opinion of "freedom" differs.

[starshipeleven]

My troll-senses are tingling with that guy. I think he might literally have said that to try and upset people. He probably feeds off that energy; gets a kick out of it.

He isn't right but he is not wrong either. FreeBSD isn't very hot beyond having best ZFS support, and is stuck in its niche. FreeBSD mailing lists do have a fair share of temperamental types.

[starshipeleven]

Lol, I think FreeBSD migrating to GPLv3 is infinitely more likely than Linux kernel, which though is representing True Freedom for Guest ... Talk about contradictions.

GPLv2 is still copyleft though, that's all that matters.

[cade]

If you're against anti-freedom trolls then you must be anti-BSD as well. BSD trolls support closed source software and it (closed source software) has nothing common with freedom.

Real freedom allows you to develop open source software, public domain software, etc. .. and even CLOSED SOURCE SOFTWARE.
The fruits of your labour are your own business, you decide if these fruits will be hidden or if these fruits will be shared; I'm talking from the point of view as a software consultant.

The software code author has the right to enforce a licence that satisfies their own ideology.
The author has the FREEDOM for this right.

Software licences have different ideologies and that is fine and expected. We can agree to disagree.
The author of "code" has final say on the code's licence and it is the responsibility of the user of the code to follow that licence.
There is no point in bashing another licence (e.g. GPLers being critical of BSDers, or vice-versa).
Just move on.
So what if someone, even Microsoft, is making profit on BSD code and even if Microsoft does not give back adequately.
It is the original author(s) of that BSD code that gave the right to Microsoft to behave in that manner.
These author's also have the FREEDOM to behave in that manner.
As people who, e.g., use and not develop that source code we do not have the right to criticise the author's of the software code for the licence they used for their code.
It is the author's business, not our business.


While Microsoft makes money from open source code, simultaneously smaller/garage outfits are also making money from open source code.
The issue is less about "evil" Micro$oft, but more about psychology ... the "sheeple effect" concerning the attitude that large portions of society have towards computing.
In terms of adoption rate, Linux as a desktop should have been blowing Microsoft/Mac out of the water, especially for software development environments.
My custom Debian/xfce system is so awesome for my software development thanks largely due to the power of the unix terminal and the customisation potential of a bloat-free unix-like system (for console and GUI modes). It's amazing that most people in society are missing out on the good computing experience offerred by an essentially bloat-free Linux/etc. open source operating system.

[cade]

The main difference is that the latter licenses allow companies to profit off your work without contributing back.

That's where your and Pawlerson (and my) opinion of "freedom" differs.

The software code author has the "freedom" to decide the rules of the license.
It is none of my/your business if foreign code (i.e. code not developed by me/you) is used by another entity to make profit even if that entity does not contribute back.
The reason is that the original software code author had the right to grant any entity to use their code according to the respective licence.

There is no point in applying our own ideologies onto foreign code scenarios since we do not have that right ... WE DID NOT PRODUCE THAT FOREIGN SOURCE CODE.
If it's such a problem then develop your own version of that source code from scratch and licence that code with the most ideologically-correct licence that suits your psychology and then release that code into the wild.

[AdrianBc]

It's a shame that people who clearly have useful skills are wasting them on such an ungrateful (and totally pointless) project like the BSDs.

While the BSDs are now inferior to Linux for many things, that was not always so.

Until 15 years ago, i.e. until multi-core and/or multi-threaded processors became widespread, the performances, stability and available features of Linux were completely pathetic compared to the BSDs.

The great advance of Linux over BSDs happened during the transition to multi-threaded/multi-core programs, which happened relatively quickly for Linux but which was very slow and painful for BSDs.

Nowadays, the BSDs have 2 disadvantages compared to Linux, they are typically slower than Linux and for most purposes they have less available programs from which to choose.

Nevertheless, the BSDs have kept a few of their former advantages and for certain purposes they are still preferable.

Since 2004, I have used only Linux on all of my desktop and laptop computers, but I continued to use FreeBSD on most of my servers. The only servers where I use Linux are computational-only nodes without storage, where maximum performance is desired and a stripped-down Linux kernel is used.

On the other servers, which have networking or storage functions, I use FreeBSD. FreeBSD is preferable because those servers are a little over-provisioned so it is not essential to extract a few more percents of performance from the given hardware, but the time that I must waste with their management is more important.

While Linux servers usually require about an order of magnitude less time for their administration than Windows servers, about the same difference exists between Linux servers and FreeBSD servers.

So for who knows to use the best tool for a given task, the BSDs still have their place and and their are still many cases when substituting them with LInux gives much worse results.

While benchmarks are useful to assess the usefulness of an operating system for certain purposes, there are a lot of cases when other criteria are much more important than benchmark results.


Another thing that I have not mentioned is that the BSDs are still useful to study for someone interested in operating system design. While many things are better in Linux, there are also many cases where some system calls or internal functions or data structures are better designed in BSDs.

Unfortunately the Not-Invented-Here syndrome also affects the open-source operating systems, so none of them was wise enough to study well the others and take from them all the superior solutions.

[starshipeleven]

The software code author has the "freedom" to decide the rules of the license.

And I have the freedom to state that I don't think letting everyone take your stuff and make money from it without contributing back is freedom for me.

There is no point in applying our own ideologies onto foreign code scenarios since we do not have that right

Sorry what? We can't say we disagree with ideology that motivates people to make of stuff we don't own? GFTO man.

If it's such a problem then develop your own version of that source code from scratch and licence that code with the most ideologically-correct licence that suits your psychology and then release that code into the wild.

I see no problem in using stuff granted me for free without contributing back if the author lets me do so. I just don't think it is a good ideology for a project.