[TUHS] Happy birthday, Dennis Ritchie!

Warner Losh imp at bsdimp.com
Mon Sep 18 05:08:18 AEST 2017


On Sun, Sep 17, 2017 at 12:57 PM, Kurt H Maier <khm at sciops.net> wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 17, 2017 at 02:49:16PM -0400, Chet Ramey wrote:
> >
> > I remember multiple FSF efforts to solicit volunteers for named projects.
> > There were lots of people willing to donate their time and effort. And
> > at that time, there were very few non-FSF projects licensed under the
> GPL,
> > so the issue of "absorbtion" was minor to non-existent.
>
> But that time changed, and was replaced by a time where the FSF pushed
> hard on copyright assignment to the FSF, and led to a time where we
> wound up with GPL, GPL2, GPL3, AGPL, LGPL, ad infinitum, which landed us
> in the present day, where half the tech organizations on earth are so
> unwilling to step into the morass that BSD/MIT licenses are making a big
> comeback.
>

FreeBSD started out life with lots of GNU/GPL software. After GPLv3 was
released, the project made a conscious effort to move away from all GPL'd
software in the tree. When FreeBSD 12 comes out next year, there's a really
good chance all the GPL'd code will be gone from the tree.


> They've spent so much time trying to 'fix' international patent law by
> clubbing people with copyright licenses that the company behind the most
> popular linux distribution is working on a BSD-licensed kernel.
>

Fun times, that....


> The history of UNIX and its ilk fascinates me, but only half of it is
> technology.  The other half of it is a bizarre forty-year-long license
> war, which the partisans refuse to stop fighting, even after they win.
>

Yea...

Warner
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