*BSD News Article 14610


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From: nate@cs.montana.edu (Nate Williams)
Subject: Re: Summary of Linux vs. 386BSD vs. Commercial Unixes
Message-ID: <1993Apr17.210303.12001@coe.montana.edu>
Sender: usenet@coe.montana.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: CS
References: <1qo0lq$1hm4@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu> <1993Apr17.161516.2794@serval.net.wsu.edu> <1993Apr17.175431.25015@coe.montana.edu> <1993Apr17.193029.5707@klaava.helsinki.fi>
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1993 21:03:03 GMT
Lines: 43

In article <1993Apr17.193029.5707@klaava.helsinki.fi> wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) writes:
>nate@cs.montana.edu (Nate Williams) writes:
>>And then Linux and the GNU folks will take what 386BSD has done and
>>restrict it.  Now, isn't that nice....... taking my work and restricting
>>it.  I always thought that was awful kind of them. (NOT!)
>
>I would be interested if you would be kind enough to elaborate on
>this.  As far as I know, nothing that Linux or GNU (which have little
>to do with each other, except that Linux uses a lot of GNU programs)
>has imported has been made available under a different copyright
>notice than what the copyright holder (typically the author) has
>agreed to.  Anything else would be illegal.

The stdio code that HJ has done lots of work on(and I commend him on
it).  The original code, before he fixed some of the bugs, was originally
distributed by AT&T, but HJ's fixes are now GPL code, so in order to
get working stdio code we have to do those fixes all over in order to
make anything compiled against those libraries ABSOLUTELY FREELY
REDISTRUTABLE.

>
>One similar example would be when 386bsd imported Linus' math
>emulator: the copyright was changed to the same style that the rest of
>the 386bsd kernel uses, when it originally was under the GPL.  (The
>change was done with Linus' complete approval, I haste to add.)

And I commed Linus, and his work highly for that.  I wish that more of
the Linux people were more willing to do that.  (And to be honest, I
haven't asked very many folks about this).  But, some people believe
with distributing anything but GPL code, because the 'end all/be all'
way to distribute code is to GPL/LGPL it.  I disagree, and am considered
a 'bad guy' because I distribute my fixes w/out any added restrictions
that the original code had.


Flames by email,

Nate
-- 
osynw@terra.oscs.montana.edu |  Still trying to find a good reason for
nate@cs.montana.edu          |  these 'computer' things.  Personally,
work #: (406) 994-4836       |  I don't think they'll catch on - 
home #: (406) 586-0579       |                            Don Hammerstrom