Daemon News 199907 : The best of times...

The best of times...

Copyright © 1999 Brett Taylor

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

In the past two issues we've published two separate stories detailing the differences between the BSD-style license and the GPL license, one by Michael Maxwell and the other by Pedro F. Giffuni. This has generated a huge amount of feedback. The responses ranged from emotional arguments to plain old attacks on our character for publishing the articles. I guess I expected a response and I wasn't surprised when we got one. I was pleased that the comments, at least those comments sent to the editors, were mostly not flames of the authors or the editors.

There recently was an article on this same topic in 32BitsOnline. I personally thought this article was fairly unbiased (note I said fairly).

In any case the recent spate of articles like the ones published here and the seemingly constant BSD/Linux flame wars, primarily over the license it seems (see any BSD related topic at Slashdot for examples), have made me think about this whole "us vs. them" conflict.

So what's my take on the license issue? I think it essentially boils down to political arguments and the choice of the author of the code. In my view, people who use a BSD style license do so because they want to give away their code for the good of everyone. These authors hope that others will feed back changes and implements but don't want to force them to. Authors who release code under the GPL give away the code for free and then force those who use it and release it to the public to give back to the source. In any case, I mostly think the license is a non-issue in a lot of ways and I won't take up any more space on that!

Back to the quote at the top, which centers more on the topic I want to talk about.

We are living in an amazing time.

<\graduation speech mode>

A few years ago the choices of what operating system to run were far more limited. There are now many many viable choices of operating systems to run. I started out with Linux about 5 years ago and very shortly after that also began using FreeBSD. At the time, there were few applications that I could use to be productive in my work and I was occasionally forced into using Windows to get my work done.

Now I don't use anything but FreeBSD and I get all of my work done quickly and efficently precisely because there are lots of applications out there to help me be productive. (I am looking forward to trying NetBSD and OpenBSD on an old SPARCstation I'll have at my new job come August.)

We now have a case where there is a real choice in operating systems, and not just between Macintosh and Windows, but from any of the BSDs to B eOS to any of the various Linux distributions. People can now evaluate a lot of operating system alternatives, for free and find the one that's right for them. This clearly makes this the best of times!

At the same time we live in the worst of times. Because of the multitude of operating systems and distributions clans have developed, threatening to tear apart the various free Unices and Unix-clones. The same thing has happened before as detailed here in an editorial by Jordan Hubbard. As Wes Peters points out in this month's Daemon's Advocate there are lots of similarities between the BSDs and Linux. There is certainly the possibility that the conflict between us could destroy all or a few of us.

To avoid this, we as a community need to be tolerant to new users and help them to find the operating system that will best serve their needs and system. This might mean initially that they won't choose one of the BSDs, but it's certainly possible that they might move to a BSD after a run with Linux or B eOS or even Windows.

We also need to be tolerant amongst ourselves (the free software community). There are certainly going to be disagreements amongst the various groups, but we will gain far more by working together than tearing each other apart. It's especially important that the free BSDs continue to work together to grow and become better in addition to coexisting with the Linux crowd. Let's leave the flamewars for the Amiga vs. Mac crowd!

	The best of times... Copyright © 1999 Brett Taylor It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... In the past two issues we've published two separate stories detailing the differences between the BSD-style license and the GPL license, one by Michael Maxwell and the other by Pedro F. Giffuni. This has generated a huge amount of feedback. The responses ranged from emotional arguments to plain old attacks on our character for publishing the articles. I guess I expected a response and I wasn't surprised when we got one. I was pleased that the comments, at least those comments sent to the editors, were mostly not flames of the authors or the editors. There recently was an article on this same topic in 32BitsOnline. I personally thought this article was fairly unbiased (note I said fairly). In any case the recent spate of articles like the ones published here and the seemingly constant BSD/Linux flame wars, primarily over the license it seems (see any BSD related topic at Slashdot for examples), have made me think about this whole "us vs. them" conflict. So what's my take on the license issue? I think it essentially boils down to political arguments and the choice of the author of the code. In my view, people who use a BSD style license do so because they want to give away their code for the good of everyone. These authors hope that others will feed back changes and implements but don't want to force them to. Authors who release code under the GPL give away the code for free and then force those who use it and release it to the public to give back to the source. In any case, I mostly think the license is a non-issue in a lot of ways and I won't take up any more space on that! Back to the quote at the top, which centers more on the topic I want to talk about. <graduation speech mode> We are living in an amazing time. <\graduation speech mode> A few years ago the choices of what operating system to run were far more limited. There are now many many viable choices of operating systems to run. I started out with Linux about 5 years ago and very shortly after that also began using FreeBSD. At the time, there were few applications that I could use to be productive in my work and I was occasionally forced into using Windows to get my work done. Now I don't use anything but FreeBSD and I get all of my work done quickly and efficently precisely because there are lots of applications out there to help me be productive. (I am looking forward to trying NetBSD and OpenBSD on an old SPARCstation I'll have at my new job come August.) We now have a case where there is a real choice in operating systems, and not just between Macintosh and Windows, but from any of the BSDs to B eOS to any of the various Linux distributions. People can now evaluate a lot of operating system alternatives, for free and find the one that's right for them. This clearly makes this the best of times! At the same time we live in the worst of times. Because of the multitude of operating systems and distributions clans have developed, threatening to tear apart the various free Unices and Unix-clones. The same thing has happened before as detailed here in an editorial by Jordan Hubbard. As Wes Peters points out in this month's Daemon's Advocate there are lots of similarities between the BSDs and Linux. There is certainly the possibility that the conflict between us could destroy all or a few of us. To avoid this, we as a community need to be tolerant to new users and help them to find the operating system that will best serve their needs and system. This might mean initially that they won't choose one of the BSDs, but it's certainly possible that they might move to a BSD after a run with Linux or B eOS or even Windows. We also need to be tolerant amongst ourselves (the free software community). There are certainly going to be disagreements amongst the various groups, but we will gain far more by working together than tearing each other apart. It's especially important that the free BSDs continue to work together to grow and become better in addition to coexisting with the Linux crowd. Let's leave the flamewars for the Amiga vs. Mac crowd! Brett Taylor, brett@daemonnews.org

The best of times...

Copyright © 1999 Brett Taylor

Brett Taylor, brett@daemonnews.org