The FreeBSD 7-STABLE branch saw its first point release today. Don't let the point release moniker fool you, though, as FreeBSD 7.1 comes packed with a number of pretty significant changes, such as support for OpenSolaris' DTrace, as well as a new, more efficient scheduler.
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Member since:2005-07-11
It is disheartening to see this opinion always modded down. (Oh well, maybe it was the inflammatory part and not the core issue that got the post modded down.)
Listen, GPL people, all things considered we are you allies, not your enemies. Not all GPL critics are evil. I can only speak for myself: I publish source, I advocate openness of hardware and software, standards, interoperability and I oppose software patents. But, I choose a more permissive license. And I accept the cost of not being able to reuse GPL code by mixing it into my own works. Some don't seem to understand the extent of that cost.
Software development is a lot about code reuse - from naive copy&paste programming of script or web code, to porting undocumented device driver code between very different operating systems. Do we all have to submit to a single license just to be able to freely share source with each other? I hope not. That's not the ecosystem I signed up for.
As I see it, the GPL primarily solves a problem I don't care about, which is "closing" of available source. I don't see it as such a big deal. It's not like the original source disappears, or stops working and can't be developed further.
Member since:2006-01-01
Well, if there had to be one free software license "to rule them all", I'd advocate WTFPL. The FSF website says that WTFPL is "a free software license, very permissive and GPL-compatible". If you can't decide under which license you should publish your programs, WTFPL is always a safe choice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL
Member since:2005-07-06
Yes, that's why even if you don't care about code 'protection' like the many devs who use GPL do, it's better to use a software license compatible with the GPL: BSD 2-clause for example, not the CDDL (which was made by Sun to prevent this code re-use).
Member since:
2007-07-27
Agreed! It is great that code is shared among different projects! No need to duplicate work, well done by others?
Why Linux can not use ZFS and DTrace is because of GPL, of course. Solaris CDDL license allows licensing on separate files. You can CDDL just one single file if you wish. This makes it possible to mix licenses. Apple can lift in ZFS files and mix CDDL with Apple's proprietary code without problems. GPL on the other hand, requires that _everything_ must på GPL. No mixing of licenses are allowed. GPL doesnt work together with others. FreeBSD and Solaris and Apple does.
The Linux camp and Linus Torvalds, demands that everyone must change to GPL, or else they will spew out gall and utter discontempt. "Solaris is dead, it should die" etc. :o(
Edited 2009-01-05 21:41 UTC