GPL vs BSD Licence

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chuck Swiger [mailto:cswiger at mac.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2004 4:14 AM
> To: Ted Mittelstaedt
> Cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: GPL vs BSD Licence
>
>
> Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> [ ... ]
> > You might consider that opensource.org is NOT a BSD site, it was
> > setup by Linux people not BSD people.
>
> Sort of.  The Open Source definition started from Debian guidelines about
> "free software".  However, the OSI board has people from various
> organizations
> besides Linux on there, including Sun (Danese Cooper), IBM/the
> Apache project
> (Ken Coar).
>
> You'll find people lurking from Apple (Ernie Prabhakar), Python/Zope, and
> various other projects.  There seems to be less input from
> BSD-specific people
> besides Apple, true, but the BSD and MIT licenses are much less
> complicated
> than newer licenses and have been around longer, so perhaps
> people here don't
> see much need to spend time debating software license issues.
>
> > There has been little interest from opensource.org in FreeBSD
> or anything
> > other than Linux.
>
> This is not true of most people who are active on the OSI Open
> Source lists.
>

When BP, ESR and the rest of them mounted their Microsoft attack letter
last year - which garnered huge press - anyone from any of the BSD side
was excluded.  Not a single signatory was from the BSD community.

OSI may appear open towards BSD but when a press photo op comes up
and the big names get trotted out, all
they talk about is Linux.  FreeBSD and the other BSD's are ignored.
It apparently is too difficult for them to actually deal with the
issue that there's an alternative to the GPL, one that Microsoft
happens to endorse.  (ie: the BSD license)  In the OSI's eyes, this
is not a war of open source against closed source.  This is a war
between Linux and Microsoft.

>
> Besides the OSI, there is the Free Software Foundation, and the Creative
> Commons effort.  Saying that the OSI is not an authoritative
> reference for
> "open source" is a lot like saying the FSF isn't authoritative on
> what "free
> software" means.
>

Saying that OSI is more authoratative on the subject of BSD licenses
than FreeBSD .org is a lot like saying that RMS is reasonably open about his
positions, his goals, and the methods he uses to achieve them. ;-)

Ted