FreeBSD's problems as seen by the BSDForen.de community

Chuck Robey chuckr at chuckr.org
Thu Jan 10 17:21:43 PST 2008


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Aryeh M. Friedman wrote:
> Marian Hettwer wrote:
>> On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:46:23 -0500, "Aryeh M. Friedman"
>> <aryeh.friedman at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I decided to elaborate slightly on the previous reply....
>>>
>>> One thing that FOSS (BSD or GPL) has historical had issues doing
>>> cleanly is seperating free software from free beer.   The first
>>> being a very important goal and the second a unfair side effect
>>> of thinking that open source by definition means free use of the
>>> products.   Yes the source should be avaible to everyone but as
>>> far I can tell that does not automatically and should not
>>> translate into not having some responibility to the community
>>> that created the project in the first place.... my approach
>>> (along with 3 other small software vendors) is to have a
>>> requirement to contribute back to the community in some form (in
>>> work or help support those doing the work), namely it is free
>>> software but not free beer.
>>>
>> Please stop this. FreeBSD is BSD licenced and if you want to start
>> another holy war about wether this is good or bad, do it on
>> freebsd-chat. Or even better, stop here, right now.
> 
> a) I didn't start the thread and was keeping my comments to a min.
> 
> b) Contrary to it's charter -chat@ really is nothing except for a
> flame redirect location (thus as far I can tell almost no one reads
> seriously it)
> 

Two points: first, folks read it.  As crazy as it sounds, people actually
read even the FreeBSD-test channel, where folks are directed *NOT* to read
it.  Want proof?  Post something morally objectionable there (try praising
 M$) and see how fast the hatemail starts up.  Its stupid, but true.
Secondly, Even If It's True that one one reads it, it's flames: do you
really think the topic is worth better handling than that?  IMO most flames
are written for the flamer, not the reader, so it might as well be sent to
your neighborhood bathroom wall.

BTW, I did redirect this to -chat.

>> This really has nothing to do with the thread itself and with this
>> mailing list in special.
> 
> As two your second point see item b above.  As to the first point the
> OP was complaining about very nebulous (but important) issues which I
> feel are symptomatic the larger issues I pointed out; thus even though
> it is not 100% on the actual complaints it is still an attempt to look
> at correcting them.
> 
> - From previous experiences (both mine of others) the FreeBSD community
> tends to be way too conservative (yes it is good to be conservative
> but to the level we do it is pathological in some respects).   For
> example I think it is clear that some work needs to be done to improve
> the ports system and I stepped up to volunteer to do most of the heavy
> lifting (with two others helping) and on -ports@ got never ending
> grief from people who thought that if it is not completely broke don't
> fix it.  BTW when I was referring to other peoples experiences, one of
> my former bosses was one of the people who worked very hard to bring
> 386bsd to the masses (not Bill) and they turned me onto FreeBSD in the
> mid-90's... they no longer use any BSD because it was unable to keep
> pace with linux in areas they considered critical.
> 
> I happen to be situated (extremely luckily given my general econ
> condition) to be able to volunteer with the ports 2.0 effort (it
> serves some of the long term goals of my company in ways that leave me
> with being more comfortable with giving away some free beer).   This
> is not the case for some people and corporate support rarely helps
> recruit/retain such people (the reason is out of the scope of this
> thread).
> 
> In short I am not saying there is anything wrong with the current
> model just that it can be improved and my experience with ports 2.0
> has convienced me that a certain segment of the community is just too
> closed minded to even consider anything that is not already done.
> 
>> Thanks.
> 
> To avoid this a list to discuss the business/legal aspects of FreeBSD
> would be a good thing.
> 
> 

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