idea of loose open standards between FreeBSD, other BSD's, similar operating systems and non-viral software

From: pyrus aboris <pyrus_at_bsdmail.com>
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2023 19:44:49 UTC
Dear FreeBSD community,
 
I would like to float the idea of a loose open standard between BSD operating systems, along with similar systems like OpenIndiana, Haiku and Minix, and BSD-like software. The purpose would be to increase collaboration between BSD's and similar operating systems, by making use of less effort, while each can still work independently of each other.
 
An opensource framework would like how there are different organizations and projects that use XMPP, SIP, ePUB, IAX, WebRTC, MQTT, MGCP and CAP. Such organizations that govern opensource frameworks include IETF, XMPP foundation, Oasis and W3C.
 
It wouldn't be intended as a strict set of standards, and all BSD's don't have to comply perfectly, but standards can be voluntarily endorsed as applying to a specification. Also, there can be competing or multiple specifications. The point would be to promote progress on different opensource software used by FreeBSD, DragonflyBSD, NomadBSD, NetBSD OpenBSD, OpenIndiana, etc while each operating system remains on its own terms.
 
For instance, OSS implementations are already used. It can get developers from all of these operating systems working together, for standardization among OSS, Sndio, SunAudio or a BSD implementation of Portaudio. One standard in this would be the equivalent of an XEP or RFC of IETF. FreeBSD can choose to take part in one or multiple of these.
 
Other standards that would be beneficial are HID standards (which many BSD's already use or adopting to), compiling tool chains, development utilities, build utilities, display servers (Xenocara, Xorg and/or Wayland collaboration) implementations, printer backends, scanner driver standards, Zeroconf implementations and drivers for other hardware.
 
It can also be for software standards, which are commonly used software with FreeBSD. Software would voluntarily verify themselves by those standards, and it doesn't all have to be standardized rigidly. Organizations such as ISC could collaborate on software standards.
 
There can be multiple standards for licenses as well, which are optional, including permissive, permissive with a patent clause, non-viral and file-based copyleft licenses. A point here, would be to make permissive and file-based copyleft licenses (or non-viral licenses) first class for interoperable use. LGPL would be included in first class, but also act as a glue to further software in the GPL.

The best way forward with a standards organization, which can be of multiple BSD's, similar OS's or any BSD working as an organization, would be for loose criteria for what makes a BSD at its core, and the full operating system doesn't have to be fully under those basic standards. The purpose is that it's inclusive of BSD's and similar OS's, based on what they're known for. As in IETF or XEP, many standards are optional or unofficial, but even the unofficial ones are implemented in a professional capacity. It could be run together from many BSD operating systems, or even loosely run from several organizations, but the goal would be a loose cohesiveness. Also, it would be useful for software that's specially developed or implemented on different BSD's.
 
Thank you!