FreeBSD 9.0 RC2 Arrives Late, Pushes Back Final

[sub.mesa]

Nothing really prevents this as the code author has the right to dual-licence his code. So if someone uses BSD code and enhances it he can release those enhancement as both GPL and BSD licenced code. AFAIK this is often the case.

The question was about giving code changes back in another license. If a BSD project is being incoporated by a GPL project, which alters/improves the code, then they will release the new adaptations as GPL, not as BSD code. For the original BSD project to gain anything by these adaptations, they would need to change their own license from BSD to GPL. Otherwise, they can not incorporate any of the changes back to their own project. That's why it is a one-way street for GPL, while BSD itself is two-way street.

Why? Don't get me wrong, I see nothing bad with rewriting 'important software' as BSD licenced but I also fail to see why it 'should' be rewritten.

A good example might be the GCC compiler collection. They began to release as GPL v3 starting with some version (4.3 or so? I don't recall). This means FreeBSD can and should not use this version anymore, as it limits the deployment of FreeBSD and makes FreeBSD itself more restrictive, especially considering FreeBSD has a strong power base in larger companies and governments, who are not willing to be subject to the GPL v3 license. There may be more arguments against GPL v3 that I'm unfamiliar with.

A good compiler collection that is universal and ubiquitous is what I consider 'important software'. Such software should not be released under a very restrictive license (which I consider GPL v3) to be, because that means it cannot be widely used and at one point another project will have to redo all the work. The whole point of open source is that we can share eachothers work and not have to reinvent the wheel for every new project/idea/software.

I don't see a major objection in some software being GPL v3, but important infrastructure should never have such a restrictive license IMO. Remember the XFree86 project? They changed their license at one point, to be incompatible with GPL. This is pretty much the same issue, but now the other way around. The result was that their changes had to be rewritten and basically the whole project was replaced by the X.org project. Restrictive licenses for such important infrastructure projects are basically unacceptable and unproductive. I can't see anyone benefiting from this.

Sounds very nice and all, but in reality someone comes along and takes that source code, improves it and don't give those improvements back

That is indeed one consequence of being liberal: you do not force people to give back, though you encourage people to do so. By not forcing them, your liberal project is usable by anything and anyone, without ever needing to be rewritten due to license concerns. Due to the widespread usability, it is reasonable to expect the project would be more popular than with a very restrictive license. This causes more contributors. Perhaps in percentage less would give code back than GPL, but the opposite could be true as well.

As long as the 'one guy' is ok with doing all the work so that everyone can profit.

That is the whole point of open source software. One guy does the work, i.e. make Firefox, so that 'we' may all use it without having to write our own browsers/OS/software ourselves. Even GPL allows commercial use of the application. So in essence what you say applies to all open source software, copyfree or copyleft.

If you want to benefit from your work, then either write proprietary code and sell it, or try to gain other sources of revenue, like selling support, being available for custom functionality (companies, governments), selling merchandise, etc.

[XorEaxEax]

If you use code with a different license, say BSD, then it is nice to give any modification of that code back to their original license.

Nothing really prevents this as the code author has the right to dual-licence his code. So if someone uses BSD code and enhances it he can release those enhancement as both GPL and BSD licenced code. AFAIK this is often the case.

Important software licensed as GPL is not really free and should be rewritten at one point or another with a true liberal license.

Why? Don't get me wrong, I see nothing bad with rewriting 'important software' as BSD licenced but I also fail to see why it 'should' be rewritten. Unless there is a practical problem for BSD systems to use the GPL licenced software I personally find it to be a waste of resources. Granted I don't know exactly what you mean by 'important software' but I can think of tons of software I deem important which poses no practical barriers (as in licencing) for being used by BSD systems. Unless you mean that GPL software should be rewritten under BSD so they can be used in proprietary projects, which I personally would consider an even greater waste or resources.

The major argument in here is that the code can be used for as many purposes, without requiring to be rewritten and human work being done redundant.

Sounds very nice and all, but in reality someone comes along and takes that source code, improves it and don't give those improvements back, thus requiring those improvements 'having to be rewritten and human work being done redundant.'. There's no 'perfect licence' simply because this is not a perfect world.

One guy does the work, everyone can profit. That's the idea of sharing to make everyone better.

As long as the 'one guy' is ok with doing all the work so that everyone can profit. Sometimes the 'one guy' does the work and wants to benefit from any enhancements done to his work, there's nothing wrong with that and for him GPL is a good choice.

[sub.mesa]

I said that GPL advocates GIVE back, but under their preferred licence

If you use code with a different license, say BSD, then it is nice to give any modification of that code back to their original license. The GPL requires this, because you cannot borrow code from GPL, change it, and license the whole thing as BSD.

In reality that means that GPL is a one-way street. They take from others, but no one else can benefit from GPL. With BSD it is the other way around.

One valid argument, however, is that GPL guarantees that any development on the code will not be proprietary. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of opinion. But the reality is that GPL means a one-way street while BSD means a two-way street.

Important software licensed as GPL is not really free and should be rewritten at one point or another with a true liberal license. The only real restriction should be that you cannot claim you wrote it yourself; basically that is what the BSD license says. The major argument in here is that the code can be used for as many purposes, without requiring to be rewritten and human work being done redundant. One guy does the work, everyone can profit. That's the idea of sharing to make everyone better.

[XorEaxEax]

I said X. You said Y is absurd, therefore not Y. If you read what I said, you would see that nothing I said had anything to do with that.

You said 'GPL Advocates take what they want and never give anything back', I said that GPL advocates GIVE back, but under their preferred licence, just like BSD advocates give back under their preferred licence, just like CDDL advocates gives back under their preferred licence etc etc.

By having licensing in the first place, you are claiming ownership of numbers.

So you are against licences and code ownership alltogether. Why not just say so, and why even argue about licence A vs licence B then since you find the very idea of them absurd?

...contradiction that is the GPL, which claims to make things free, but then takes advantage of the legal mechanism used to restrict people from modifying software to do the same thing in its own special kind of way

Since 'free' in your opinion leaves out anything copyrighted then the only thing you would call free would be public domain. BSD code certainly is not 'free' since it's copyrighted (in your words 'ownership of numbers'). GPL doesn't restrict anyone from modifying code at all, it merely demands that if you distribute that modified code to a third party you have to provide them with the source code aswell. For your own purposes you can modify the code as much as you want and never publish the source code.

Now the 'freedom' in GPL refers to keeping the code 'free' as in 'kept open'. I don't agree with the choice of words myself, as in my opinion it's about 'end user rights' and should be called as such, but those are semantics, it's what it does in practice that is of importance. In practice GPL requires the source code being available to end users and as such is unsuitable for proprietary code, BSD does not require the source code to be available to end users and as such is suitable for inclusion into proprietary code. It's up to the code author to decide which approach he/she wants for his/her code should he/she want to licence it as open source. And if you want to use his/her code then you have to comply with the conditions he/she has set. You may find this absurd but copyright exists nonetheless.

By the way, as for proprietary code, I don't like it, but there isn't much I can do about it.

There's nothing you can do about code ownership resulting in licenced code either as it's based on the same premise as proprietary code, which is that anyone who writes code is the owner of that code and has copyright over that code unless he/she explicitly relinquishes that right. You are by your own definition against all code ownership on the grounds that it's all numbers at the end of the day, as such you are against all licences and obviously against proprietary code as it's all based upon copyright.

[Shining Arcanine]

No, they use code ACCORDING to the licence it's under, they give back according to their preferred licence. If you see yourself as a BSD advocate then why the hell would you argue against the use of BSD code in GPL projects? Saying it's fine if BSD code is used in proprietary projects while complaining about it being used in GPL projects makes no sense.

I said X. You said Y is absurd, therefore not Y. If you read what I said, you would see that nothing I said had anything to do with that.

Then you must be totally against proprietary code, not to mention commercial proprietary code. Hell, even the BSD licence DEMANDS that you keep the copyright appropriation, I mean how can they claim ownership of numbers?... absurd was it?

All files on your computer are numbers. By having licensing in the first place, you are claiming ownership of numbers. It is absurd, but what is more absurd is the contradiction that is the GPL, which claims to make things free, but then takes advantage of the legal mechanism used to restrict people from modifying software to do the same thing in its own special kind of way. That is what I tried to explain above. If you cannot understand that, then please find something else to do with yourself.

By the way, as for proprietary code, I don't like it, but there isn't much I can do about it.

[golfer]

If you believe FreeBSD is inferior software, why post here at all? It's not like we're excited to read your troll posts, DaemonFC. You obviously do not value the advanced features server admins can appreciate in FreeBSD and other server operating systems. I suggest you restrict yourself to desktop/graphics/Linux forums instead, and allow others to post in the BSD forums without these silly flamewars of an appalling low level.

I agree with sub.mesa's sentiment.

The rest is addressed at Daemon.

Yes, Daemon...the arguments against *nix continue to this day. Having said that, it was far worse 10+ years ago. Far more people have embraced *nix...and a lot of the hogwash spewed by zealots has clearly been curtailed. Enter the Linux zealots. And here we go all over again.

Now...as for your half-truths and other such malarky. FreeBSD can certainly run a 'modern' desktop just fine (it's actually quite easy). You, because of some ideological beliefs, refuse to do so. That certainly is your prerogative and I don't have any problem at all with your stance. But to sit here and continue your misguided tirade against BSD is really just flat out silly. Why don't you pressure ATI to produce a driver? I dunno...worked for Nvidia (those greedy buggers!). Nvidia cards work perfectly fine with BSD desktops. Sorry your choice of hardware precludes you.

There is no 'best' in computing (especially OS's). Clearly, you seem to think there is...and that's where you are going astray imho.

[XorEaxEax]

If you believe FreeBSD is inferior software, why post here at all? It's not like we're excited to read your troll posts, DaemonFC. You obviously do not value the advanced features server admins can appreciate in FreeBSD and other server operating systems. I suggest you restrict yourself to desktop/graphics/Linux forums instead, and allow others to post in the BSD forums without these silly flamewars of an appalling low level.

Yes I can't understand why some people have a need to fuel animosity between Linux/BSD users, why? This seemingly everpresent 'in-figthing' between Linux and BSD extremists is utterly pointless as it won't lead to anything even remotely productive. Yet, in both camps there are those who seem hellbent on severing any ties between these two unix descendants and their respective users. Again, why? It's f***ing tiresome to watch.

[sub.mesa]

If you believe FreeBSD is inferior software, why post here at all? It's not like we're excited to read your troll posts, DaemonFC. You obviously do not value the advanced features server admins can appreciate in FreeBSD and other server operating systems. I suggest you restrict yourself to desktop/graphics/Linux forums instead, and allow others to post in the BSD forums without these silly flamewars of an appalling low level.

[DaemonFC]

There's the difference between you and some of us: you let your ideology dictate your decision making when it involves technical issues.

I have listened to the arguments about BSD and Linux for an awful long time. It's not that I don't listen...I have already heard what you are preaching and quite frankly I simply disagree with your stance. This isn't based on emotional or ideological stuff...it's based on my experiences with both licenses and OS's.

As for hating Nvidia for some consipiracy theory/political stuff...well...that's certainly your prerogative. Doesn't really add any weight to your technical and legal arguments though.

Anyway, you see...we are fortunate to have all these choices. Just because you don't agree with BSD license etc. etc. doesn't mean you have to get on a soapbox saying how 'bad' it is and how the GPL is the end all be all to 'open source'. Again...sounds eerily familiar to the <insert other OS zealot here> using arguments against your beloved GPL'ed Linux. Remember those days?

Remember them? They're still going! Even though BSD can't run a modern desktop system and they are trying to escape the GPL even when it means using inferior software.

[golfer]

I think I've said everything I want to say about the BSDs, if my point hasn't come across by this point I'm either doing something wrong or preaching to people who don't want to listen. I'd guess the second part.

Nvidia as a company disgusts me, their driver might be decent, but it is proprietary and they actively oppose any attempts to make it work at all with freely licensed open source software. The political activities of their senior management is another prong in my two-pronged "I don't buy Nvidia because..." argument. Their board is like a bunch of stodgy old cigar smoking villains from a James Bond movie who do things like take company money to hand out to the theocrats in California to help pass Proposition 8.

There's the difference between you and some of us: you let your ideology dictate your decision making when it involves technical issues.

I have listened to the arguments about BSD and Linux for an awful long time. It's not that I don't listen...I have already heard what you are preaching and quite frankly I simply disagree with your stance. This isn't based on emotional or ideological stuff...it's based on my experiences with both licenses and OS's.

As for hating Nvidia for some consipiracy theory/political stuff...well...that's certainly your prerogative. Doesn't really add any weight to your technical and legal arguments though.

Anyway, you see...we are fortunate to have all these choices. Just because you don't agree with BSD license etc. etc. doesn't mean you have to get on a soapbox saying how 'bad' it is and how the GPL is the end all be all to 'open source'. Again...sounds eerily familiar to the <insert other OS zealot here> using arguments against your beloved GPL'ed Linux. Remember those days?