BSD (really about Intellectual Property)

[Kurt Cockrum]

>From an item forwarded by Steve:
>Mr. Hubbard says the ranks of FreeBSD users continue to swell. One
>reason is that all BSDs are distributed under a license that lets
>users do almost anything with them -- including put the software into
>traditional commercial products. The Linux license, by contrast,
>requires users to make any use of the software -- such as a piece of
>specialized computer networking gear -- freely available to everyone
>else. That restriction that keeps many companies from using Linux in
>key products.

Well, if all they care about is user headcount, whoop-te-doo.  They have
among their ranks members who are less than desirable, from the standpoint
of one who wants to preserve the right to distribute free software.

The reason the GPL prevents people from restricting redistribution is
that in the wonderful wacky legal world, if some commercial entity
*does* attempt to restrict the redistribution of free software, as sort
of a "first-time" act that sets a precedent, *some* judge in the world
will interpret *that* as a fundamental act of colonization that
*establishes* the legal foundation for *full* *ownership* of the software
as a piece of property (the needs of business and the acquisition of
wealth taking precedence over people's individual freedom, a common
belief in among judges, all other things being equal).  Once done, that
will unleash a rush to colonize the remaining free software in the world,
and we will all be in commercial chains, so to speak.  so it's well worth
*premptively* encoding restriction prevention into the Gnu Public Licenses.

Fence-building and the acquisition of "property" and its conversion to
"wealth" is a preoccupation of the business and legal system, fully backed
by the state and its super-entities such as the WTO.  There is wisdom
in the "madness" of GPL :), and kudos to the idealistic techno-nerds
of the Free Software Foundations for inventing it.  But it has to be
vigorously defended to be useful at all.

I think the BSDites ignore that at their peril.  Perhaps their circles
are dominated by people who don't believe in the philosophy of free or
"Open Source" software.  If so they should wake up and smell the coffee.

Look at what happened with software patents.  The naive and idealistic
computing profession was totally blindsided by an especially hungry and
predatory segment of the legal profession, a real trump job, aided by
numerous professional turncoats busy patenting their own inventions.
Wouldn't surprise me if the whole thing were planned by general consensus
of the intellectual property professionals, but it's bad enough if it's
only an accident.  Astonishing and horrifying that such a thing is
possible at all!

Don't assume that rationality will prevail over the power of groups having
strong interests in restricting software.  Look at the war on drugs.
It's dominated by powerful interests (law enforcement, commercial prisons,
commercial drug companies, tobacco, politicians, etc., etc.) who have
the hearts and minds of the legal profession, who also benefits greatly.
There are lots of rational arguments for the benefits of the herb and
the rediversion of scarce resources toward more pressing problems than
marijuana use, yet the logic of profits is a more powerful rationality,
it seems.  I sure wish a solvent for that could be found.   And I'd
hate to see it spread to other domains.  And mucho bad luck to those who
advocate that.

I would not like to see the War on Drugs recapitulated by a form of
"free software prohibition".

>It might well make sense for the BSDs to put aside their differences
>and unite under a common set of specs. But peace may be too much to
>expect in the free software world. Two of the BSDs tried to merge a
>few years ago, recalls Charles M. Hannum, a programmer with the NetBSD
>project. But at a meeting between the two camps, "while everyone
>agreed it was a good idea," he says, "no one wanted to give anything
>up, and it just fell apart." 

It's too bad that they are swimming with the sharks and squabbling
among themselves.

"common set of specs"...
Hmmm, I thot it was POSIX, which is a pretty basic set of services for
portability and interoperability.  Linux conforms to that.  I can't
imagine why any OS that wants to "share" wouldn't want to interoperate
at that level (as well as yet higher levels, such as CORBA and the like).
IMO it's fair to consider an OS that *doesn't* have that level of
commonality as *hopelessly* *braindamaged*, a loser of the evolutionary
fitness-selection process.  I've heard that said about BSD :)

Nothing should prevent the various camps from freely borrowing and sharing
with each other.  If that isn't happening, then "freeness" ain't the
issue, there's a wierd social dynamic going on that have nothing to do
with the technical end of things.  IMO no hacker worth their salt will
pay attention to that, they'll just *use* what they want to, giving *real*
meaning to the "free" of free software.
--kurt
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *  From the Listowner  * * * * * * * * * * * *
.	To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to:
majordomo at scn.org		In the body of the message, type:
unsubscribe scn
==== Messages posted on this list are also available on the web at: ====
* * * * * * *     http://www.scn.org/volunteers/scn-l/     * * * * * * *