Fractious BSDers

Fractious BSDers

Posted Sep 20, 2007 16:29 UTC (Thu) by jzbiciak (✭ supporter ✭, #5246)
In reply to: Fractious BSDers by man_ls
Parent article: The case of the unwelcome attribution

Yeah, I've always thought the dichotomy of how Linux is treated vs. how Microsoft is treated wrt. to BSD software was schizophrenic at best.

If you take a look at MS's initial set of TCP/IP tools, they're all the BSD tools. Sure, buried somewhere in all their documentation etc. is a copyright notice for the BSD stuff. "Yay, our name in Flyspec-3 lights! Woo!" But have you seen any of the updated source code? "Who cares, our name in lights! Who cares if it's on the back page of a manual nobody will look at, or buried in a README nobody will open? THEY KEPT OUR COPYRIGHT MESSAGE! YES! Viva la freedom!" *sigh*

So, we goof on the copyright message but leave the code and its changes out in the open. "Bad Linux. You messed up our copyright message. And we don't like your dual license. What if Microsoft wants a copy? You owe it to us to let them copy it again. At least they print our copyright message." "Dude... wait, what?"

I personally agree with you that Stallman's position is more consistent. "I will your give you this code with some restrictions. The restrictions are merely that whatever rights I grant you are transitive: I give you the code with certain rights and responsibilities. All I require is that you do the same for the next guy." Makes sense to me. You lose the right to hoard, in exchange for the generosity of others.

Eh, I think we're both preaching to the choir here.

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