Wojciech Puchar wrote:
FreeBSD popularity will be affected if the big cats (ie. networking companies) continue to ""not contribute"" back thethis will affect their sales - FreeBSD user will simply buy network card from another manufacturer.
I think the keywords here are more 'Juniper' and 'Cisco' (both of whom have products either based on FreeBSD or incorporating quantities of FreeBSD code, and neither of whom are in the business of making network cards that I know of) rather than 'Intel' and 'Broadcom' (not that Intel has anything to be ashamed of with regard to their support of their NICs under *BSD. If anything they are the model that we would encourage other companies to emulate). In any case, why should companies be constrained to open their code as the only way of giving back to an opensource community? I agree that it would be desirable, but commercial realities are such that it's not going to happen any time soon. Companies do have other routes to 'give back' -- donations of money or equipment, sponsoring development projects or conferences, providing day-time employment for FreeBSD developers, even just publicly acknowledging that they use FreeBSD technology. None of which is required by the terms of the license, but frequently seems to happen anyhow. Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 7 Priory Courtyard Flat 3 PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Ramsgate Kent, CT11 9PW
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