GPL, not freebsd should be rewritten based on microkernel architecture

[Aryeh Friedman]

On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 1:25 AM Dave Hayes <dave at jetcafe.org> wrote:

> On Tue, 21 Apr 2020 12:08:06 -0400
> Aryeh Friedman <aryeh.friedman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 21, 2020 at 11:52 AM Valeri Galtsev <
> galtsev at kicp.uchicago.edu>
> > wrote:
> > > Kevin (and others),
> > >
> > > Please, stop feeding the troll.
> > >
> > > Other mail lists will kick him long time up the thread already. This
> > > list is too kind, and is being abused due to that. Stop helping the
> list
> > > being abused.
> > Sorry to ask a very naive question but since all I am doing is defending
> > FreeBSD's choice of licenses and explaining (IMO) why it is right [to]
> make me
> > a troll?
>
> This is a common tactic by someone who disagrees with you but cannot pierce
> your arguments and/or convince you of your wrongness. The goal is to get
> the
> list to perceive you as "abusive" (by some arbitrary definition of abusive)
> and hence this person "wins" by removing your ability to debate.
>
> My advice is to ignore it and them.
>

You might not of wanted to defend me now you will be labeled a troll by
association.   It sure would be nice there was some requirement on the list
to state in your signature or something what your preferred OS (and
license) is.   The reason for saying that is it is abundantly clear to me
that the people who took offense to my comments publicly fall into one or
more of a few categories -- all of which were/are not subject matter of
this debate, which is should FreeBSD adopt GPL and as a side issue can
programmers make a living under GPL (see article on licensees on the
foundation's site for the arguments since I agree with every single
statement made in it:
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/bsdl-gpl/index.html).

Just so it is clear here are the categories (as far I can tell) of people
who loudly objected to my comments:

1. End-users (even if you are a computer professional by only doing IT,
e.g. sys/netadmins,  and not programming, you are an end-user for this
purpose)

2. Work for large organizations with excellent job security

3. Prefer Linux over FreeBSD (and by extension prefer GPL over the BSD
license)

4. If they are open source developers (none provably are) then their work
is subsidized by some organization that sees software as not their primary
business but the open source project does make their main product line more
useful (ex. Apple supporting various projects makes Macs and iPhones more
useful).

Note: Every one of these categories benefit from having free (money)
software as well the right to modify it to suit their local needs.  For
this reason anything that makes software ever cost money is a bad thing in
their eyes.   Note though if you get a free lunch then the cook doesn't get
paid (and if done frequently enough starve to death).

And also to be clear here are the categories I fall into -- which are the
exact opposite of the above, thus making the people arguing against me
uniquely unqualified to understand the economic realities of someone in my
position.

1. Programmer (I am an end-user only so far as it helps my programming
and/or non-professional use of computers/the Internet)

2. Member of a tiny (2 people) consulting/freelance team that makes custom
software for clients who view the software as being key to their ability to
generate funding for their organizations.  Much of this software is subject
to various regulations that have fines associated with them for ignoring
the regulations (ex. HIPAA in the US... $50k/patient/breech fines for
willful disregard of the regulations by a software developer).   Given both
these no client in their right mind would not force us to sign a contract
that makes us a full partner in the liability (in some cases the
regulations even require us to sign such contracts).    If I was forced to
give away our work, as I would be under GPL, then we would be insane to do
it (same for all of our competitors).

3. We do not have a large organization behind us.  It is only us and the
client (and the regulations).

For this reason when we do release stuff that is general purpose and not
client specific we do so under the BSD license because it negates none of
the realities above while GPL does (we don't consider must of our libraries
to be mature enough for use by third parties yet thus will send them on
request but have not put them up for general download).   Note we purposely
open source all such non-client specific code in order to avoid some client
attempting to claim it as their own (since we never billed the client for
it, they have no possible claim).
-- 
Aryeh M. Friedman, Lead Developer, http://www.PetiteCloud.org