Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
Notice the difference between these two approaches? It means there's basically no chance that what happened with RedHat will ever happen to FreeBSD. In fact, so disgusted am I with the thought of a Microsoft-dominated future, and so impressed am I with the FreeBSD system (and by that I mean the whole system, including the way code is offered up by volunteers who do it for the quality of the end result), that I'm going to donate $25 to the FreeBSD Foundation right now. And I'm unemployed, that's how much I like FreeBSD. Among other things, bandwidth for CVSUP and FTP mirrors is also a good thing to donate. -- Cordula's Web. http://www.cordula.ws/ ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
RedHat is a company that tried to make money by giving away their product. They found they couldn't make enough money this way, so they stopped giving it away for free. I browsed the Red Hat web site and saw the announcements for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux product ($$$) and the Fedora Project (free). Is Linux no longer subject to the terms of the GNU copyleft license that would have required Red Hat to redistribute the basic Linux part of its new Enterprise product for a nominal fee? It doesn't look like the Fedora version qualifies unless it contains all the modifications that Red Hat makes to the basic Linux in the Enterprise product. Dan Strick [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
Kris Kennaway wrote: Notice the difference between these two approaches? It means there's basically no chance that what happened with RedHat will ever happen to FreeBSD. No, but it surely is possible that the people that devote time to FreeBSD will be taken for granted, and will drift away from spending time on the project? In fact, so disgusted am I with the thought of a Microsoft-dominated future, and so impressed am I with the FreeBSD system (and by that I mean the whole system, including the way code is offered up by volunteers who do it for the quality of the end result), that I'm going to donate $25 to the FreeBSD Foundation right now. And I'm unemployed, that's how much I like FreeBSD. I no that money is a crappy donation, but I don't have any spare hardware, and I'm not a good enough programmer to offer any actual code (I'm currently 2/3 the way through a PHP forum system, and I've stalled dead - anyone got any tips for getting past a stall like that?), but hopefully a bit of money will become something useful to the system. The important point is that a donation is discretionary. My all-time favourite company, Microsoft, don't seem to realise that students, and teenagers, and the unemployed cannot fork out 180 GBP for a 'professional' operating system, then 180 GBP for a 'professional' word processor (which does nothing that the 1997 version did, as far as most people can tell), and then XXX GBP for development software. I hope that FreeBSD continues to be built by people who don't do it for money, because I really believe that free software is built more lovingly (sorry, I couldn't think of a better word) than commercial, factory-produced stuff. But a donation here and there can't hurt. -- Bob ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 03:00:37AM -0800, Dan Strick wrote: RedHat is a company that tried to make money by giving away their product. They found they couldn't make enough money this way, so they stopped giving it away for free. I browsed the Red Hat web site and saw the announcements for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux product ($$$) and the Fedora Project (free). Is Linux no longer subject to the terms of the GNU copyleft license that would have required Red Hat to redistribute the basic Linux part of its new Enterprise product for a nominal fee? It doesn't look like the Fedora version qualifies unless it contains all the modifications that Red Hat makes to the basic Linux in the Enterprise product. The GPL makes no requirement that software distributed under it's terms has to be cost-free -- described in most Linux/FSF circles as free, as in free beer. You can charge for GPL'd software, and charge as steeply as the market will bear. What you cannot do under the GPL is restrict people's access to the source code of the software, or in other ways control what the purchaser does with the software once you've sold (or given) it to them; other than requiring them to extend the same conditions to people they sell or hand the product on to. Contrast this with the traditional licensing model as used by Microsoft, Sun, Apple etc. where you, as the licensee, don't actually own the software, you just get a 'right to use' license. The 'free' in Free-Software refers to this freedom to use the software in whatever way you see fit -- described commonly as free, as in free speech. Whether distributing and supporting software under GPL'd terms would form a viable business model was one of the great questions of the 90's -- after all, there's a built in problem whereby you supply the results of your intellectual effort to people who might well be your competitors. I think that question has pretty much been answered affirmatively in the case of large-scale projects such as whole Linux distributions, where each individual contribution forms a small fraction of the whole. FreeBSD takes this model on step further: it removes practically all restrictions on derived works. This permits a corporation to build their proprietary systems on the solid base of well tested, open source code and to direct their efforts towards their own particular added value -- Apple is the obvious example here: by using substantial chunks of FreeBSD code to form the Unix foundation of their product, they can concentrate resources on developing the user interface, which is really what makes the Mac distinctive as a product. The BSD licensing model means that the FreeBSD project as such could not realistically turn itself into a successful for-profit corporation and still maintain it's licensing terms -- consider how the OpenSSH project grew out of a code fork from an previous version of SSH Corporation code available under BSD-like license terms. However, anyone can take BSD licensed code and include it in a proprietary product; assuming that they can add enough value to make their offering competitive with the freely available product it's based on. Furthermore, by reusing exemplary open code (of either GPL or BSD-licensed varieties) in this fashion it promotes higher quality generally, standardization and improved interoperability. Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
Robert Downes writes: I no that money is a crappy donation, but I don't have any spare hardware, and I'm not a good enough programmer to offer any actual code (I'm currently 2/3 the way through a PHP forum system, and I've stalled dead - anyone got any tips for getting past a stall like that?), but hopefully a bit of money will become something useful to the system. While the donation will surely be welcome, may I suggest a place where you can make a more direct contribution? Especially since you have non-zero coding experience. Documentation. There are 192 open prs of category docs; none are Critical, but 15 are Serious. (Some look like they would take a couple of minutes to fix.) If nothing else, it would inspire a lot more confidence if the last review date for various man pages did not mention FreeBSD 2.0.5 or even 1999. Robert Huff ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
On Fri, 2004-01-09 at 21:35, Robert Downes wrote: Kris Kennaway wrote: Notice the difference between these two approaches? It means there's basically no chance that what happened with RedHat will ever happen to FreeBSD. No, but it surely is possible that the people that devote time to FreeBSD will be taken for granted, and will drift away from spending time on the project? The company I work for (an ISP) has over 20 odd servers running FreeBSD, we rely on it to run our network, applications and services. Part of my regular work day is spent learning, improving, writing and supporting parts of FreeBSD and it's supporting applications that are important to our business. It doesn't matter if other people take this work for granted, or if contributions don't get included in future versions, we do it because it's important to running OUR business, and this is our way of giving something back to the community. I believe this philosophy has a lot to do with why FreeBSD (and the other *BSD's for that matter) is an excellent server platform, and is pretty lacking as a user friendly desktop environment. Desktop FreeBSD is not important to our business because virtually all our desktops are all windows based for a variety of reasons, the main one being it's the platform that 99% of our customers use. So although FreeBSD could benefit from an improved installation process and a more advanced desktop environment, we won't be contributing to it any time soon because it works fine for us just the way it is. I hope that FreeBSD continues to be built by people who don't do it for money, because I really believe that free software is built more lovingly (sorry, I couldn't think of a better word) than commercial, factory-produced stuff. But a donation here and there can't hurt. I think FreeBSD has been built out of necessity by the people, like us, that use it to serve a purpose, rather than by people who seek to produce a competitive product. This is another reason why FreeBSD won't 'die'. FreeBSD is a community project, not a company product, so while ever people still use it, there will be people equipped to contribute to making it better. Anyone can contribute to FreeBSD, and it doesn't need to be in the form of a donation, or writing code. Writing and revising documentation doesn't require much in the way of programming abilities at all. And it's something that every programmer loathes doing at one time or another. The key to choosing what to work on is to find something that you NEED, or is important to YOU and work on that. If you try to find something that you think other people will want but you have no real use for, you are destined for failure. If you decide to contribute by helping people on mailing lists or forums, you may end up writing documentation anyway because you find yourself answering the same questions regularly. Anyway.. best of luck. I'm sure your efforts, in whatever form they may be will be appreciated. Seeya...Q ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 11:35:38AM +, Robert Downes wrote: Kris Kennaway wrote: Notice the difference between these two approaches? It means there's basically no chance that what happened with RedHat will ever happen to FreeBSD. No, but it surely is possible that the people that devote time to FreeBSD will be taken for granted, and will drift away from spending time on the project? It's surely possible, but with hundreds of active committers it's hardly likely to happen this way. In fact, so disgusted am I with the thought of a Microsoft-dominated future, and so impressed am I with the FreeBSD system (and by that I mean the whole system, including the way code is offered up by volunteers who do it for the quality of the end result), that I'm going to donate $25 to the FreeBSD Foundation right now. And I'm unemployed, that's how much I like FreeBSD. Thanks for the donation - every little bit helps! Kris pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, Robert Huff wrote: There are 192 open prs of category docs; none are Critical, but 15 are Serious. (Some look like they would take a couple of minutes to fix.) Where can one see these? ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
On Friday 09 January 2004 10:00 am, Robert Huff wrote: While the donation will surely be welcome, may I suggest a place where you can make a more direct contribution? Especially since you have non-zero coding experience. Documentation. There are 192 open prs of category docs; none are Critical, but 15 are Serious. (Some look like they would take a couple of minutes to fix.) If nothing else, it would inspire a lot more confidence if the last review date for various man pages did not mention FreeBSD 2.0.5 or even 1999. Where do I go to help edit man pages/docs? I would love to do a more direct approach, maybe even earn a little recognition in the freebsd community as an active participant. TIA -- Eric F Crist AdTech Integrated Systems, Inc (612) 998-3588 pgp0.pgp Description: signature
Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
Eric F Crist [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Friday 09 January 2004 10:00 am, Robert Huff wrote: While the donation will surely be welcome, may I suggest a place where you can make a more direct contribution? Especially since you have non-zero coding experience. Documentation. There are 192 open prs of category docs; none are Critical, but 15 are Serious. (Some look like they would take a couple of minutes to fix.) If nothing else, it would inspire a lot more confidence if the last review date for various man pages did not mention FreeBSD 2.0.5 or even 1999. Where do I go to help edit man pages/docs? I would love to do a more direct approach, maybe even earn a little recognition in the freebsd community as an active participant. TIA Right here: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/ Executive summary: install the textproc/docproj port, cvsup the doc tree, start generating patches, and send-pr them. -- Dan Pelleg ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
Hi Everybody , I don't know Who can answer it or Do FreeBSD creaters watching this list but I wonder What is the end of FreeBSD OS. I mean Does it like RedHat ?! one day will come and FreeBSD will inform After that , We are Not Free Thanks Vahric ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
On Thursday 08 January 2004 06:19 pm, Vahric MUHTARYAN wrote: Hi Everybody , I don't know Who can answer it or Do FreeBSD creaters watching this list but I wonder What is the end of FreeBSD OS. I mean Does it like RedHat ?! one day will come and FreeBSD will inform After that , We are Not Free I understand your point. RedHat has done something odd by splitting off. Redhat is now Enterprise (for those that will pay) and Fedora (Think of it as StarOffice and OpenOffice). I seen how LindowsOS has gone too over the past 18 months. From an almost free OS to almost a pay for everything. In any event - I have been with FreeBSD since 2.x.x and its still been free with the option to buy the CD's. Will they fall the same way as the before mentioned? I doubt it. -- Best regards, Chris ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 02:19:38AM +0200, Vahric MUHTARYAN wrote: Hi Everybody , I don't know Who can answer it or Do FreeBSD creaters watching this list but I wonder What is the end of FreeBSD OS. I mean Does it like RedHat ?! one day will come and FreeBSD will inform After that , We are Not Free RedHat is a company that tried to make money by giving away their product. They found they couldn't make enough money this way, so they stopped giving it away for free. FreeBSD is a group of volunteers who work on the OS in their own time and give away their product. Companies take the product that we produce and sell it (e.g. on CD). Notice the difference between these two approaches? It means there's basically no chance that what happened with RedHat will ever happen to FreeBSD. Kris pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
On Thursday 08 January 2004 06:26 pm, Chris wrote: On Thursday 08 January 2004 06:19 pm, Vahric MUHTARYAN wrote: Hi Everybody , I don't know Who can answer it or Do FreeBSD creaters watching this list but I wonder What is the end of FreeBSD OS. I mean Does it like RedHat ?! one day will come and FreeBSD will inform After that , We are Not Free One way to avoid this happening is to donate to the FreeBSD Organization. I'm sure they're willing to accept any hardware or even small dollar amounts. I'm sure if a good number of the user base were to either contribute some bits of code, a spare HDD, or even $5, it would add up to be quite substantial. I have not yet donated to FreeBSD, but I do donate to others on the list. I guess it's because other software developers (UnrealIRCd, for example) are more forward with asking for it. I guess you guys are next on my list! -- Eric F Crist AdTech Integrated Systems, Inc (612) 998-3588 ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?!
At 2:19 AM +0200 1/9/04, Vahric MUHTARYAN wrote: Hi Everybody , I don't know Who can answer it or Do FreeBSD creators watching this list but I wonder What is the end of FreeBSD OS. I mean Does it like RedHat ?! one day will come and FreeBSD will inform After this date, We are Not Free RedHat is a company, with employees it has to pay, and shareholders that it has to answer to. They *must* have a standalone business model -- one that allows them to make money. FreeBSD is still a group of volunteers, some who work for companies and some who work for fun. The companies do not make money from FreeBSD directly, but by using FreeBSD to get something else done, and they make the money from something else. In my case, I work for a college. The college doesn't actually care at all about FreeBSD, but they pay me to make sure Printing works. I happen to do that with some programs from FreeBSD, so any work that I do on printing could be given back to FreeBSD without my college caring about it. Note that RedHat is not the only source for linux, so there are still ways to get linux for free. In fact, you can still get it for free from RedHat, but it's called Fedora and it will change at a much faster pace than Redhat used to change. To my mind, Fedora is pretty much the same idea as the freebsd-current branch. A cutting-edge product, appropriate for people who have the time to deal with the constant stream of (possibly incompatible) changes. -- Garance Alistair Drosehn= [EMAIL PROTECTED] Senior Systems Programmer or [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rensselaer Polytechnic Instituteor [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
