*BSD News Article 36197


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
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From: sef@kithrup.com (Sean Eric Fagan)
Subject: Re: BSDI/FreeBSD
Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.
Message-ID: <CwrMG1.JB@kithrup.com>
References: <5f4_9409260326@ima.infomail.com> <Cwr5yM.2A4@filetek.com> <CwrAzs.BGH@kithrup.com> <ianm.780627543@miles>
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 1994 01:50:24 GMT
Lines: 20

In article <ianm.780627543@miles>, Ian McCloghrie <ianm@qualcomm.com> wrote:
>sef@kithrup.com (Sean Eric Fagan) writes:
>A slight addition:  Another part of the settlement with USL specifies
>that their next release be based on BSD 4.4Lite.  This will remove all
>USL proprietary code from the kernel, so there won't be any object-only
>files from this issue.

I'd suggest you reread what I wrote:

>>In addition, due
>>to part of their settlement with USL, as well as NDA's signed with other
>>companies, not all of the sources are included with their product.

Do you see that part about "NDA's signed with other companies"?  Guess what:
some companies will not allow people to distribute source code to drivers
for their hardware.  Since BSDi has decided to ship drivers for those boards
anyway, they can only be distributed in binary form.  If BSDi should decide
to support the Adaptec 2xxx series of SCSI controllers, for example, that's
what they'll have to do.