Re: L4-hurd discuss

[Daniel Martin]

Hi everyone.

On Sun, 2005-06-26 at 01:00 +0800, Neil Santos wrote:
> On 19:32 25/06/05, Benno wrote:
> 
> > Right, the specific comment seemed to imply a problem with BSD licensed
> > software, not BSD kernel. Or to put it another way to above comment
> > doesn't mention a problem with a GNU/*BSD system due to technical
> > problems with the *BSD kernels, but simply due to the fact that they are
> > licensed under the BSD license. If I mistunderstood the point then I
> > apologise.
> 
> Okay, this is going to mess things up a bit more, but...
> 
> I *do* have a problem with BSD-licensed software; or, rather, I have a
> problem with the BSD-style licenses (and all other
> free-but-not-copyleft licenses).  That is, I have a problem with using
> a free-but-not-copyleft license for anything I create, but I *don't*
> have a problem with using other's softwares.
> 
> I'll even help with it, if I'm able.  Or steal from it, and make the
> derivative copylefted, if possible.  If you think this is not much
> better (if at all) than what some proprietary developers have done
> (and are doing), I won't argue. That's just the way I do things.

The BSD license is both free and GPL compatible, so surely that makes
the BSD kernels a better choice for monolithic kernels that the
OpenSolaris one?

I see no problem with relicensing BSD works to the GNU GPL. Surely if
the BSD authors are prepared to allow their work to be molested in to
non-free software then they can't complain when their work is reborn
copyleft. The choice was made when they chose the BSD license I don't
see anything wrong as long as the terms of the license are upheld. Just
as I don't see anything wrong when BSD software is made non-free. The
authors choose to allow this.

The GNU/kFreeBSD project is the GNU operating system running on top of
FreeBSD's kernel, which is licensed under the BSD license. I can't
imagine them going off and supporting a non-free fork of the kernel. If
the FreeBSD project suddenly decided to make it non-free then I expect
they would fork the kernel rather than support the new non-free kernel.

Of course I expect `GNU' (that operating system Alfred releases from
time to time!) will be far nicer when it reaches maturity. (GNU
incorporates the official kernel replacement of course, µ-kernel + the
Hurd.)

> Like (I think) I've previously said, I'll only share if you'd share,
> but I won't let anyone else share.

You lost me! :-)

Best wishes,



Daniel.