With a recent change that removed dialog in favor of bsddialog, FreeBSD has now retired the last piece of GPL-licensed code in its base system. Although the impact of this change will be minor for …
The upshot of the BSD-license in the case of FreeBSD is that it has found it and its components used in many commercial products, including MacOS/OS X, the PlayStation’s Orbis OS, and of course the BSD networking stack is happily used in Windows, macOS and just about anywhere else. Meanwhile the GPL forced Linksys to open the firmware to its WRT54G series of routers, ultimately leading to the development of OpenWrt and similar projects.
They make it sound like the *WRTs were the worst thing to happen to consumer networking and that corporations not being required to contribute back to projects has made BSD stronger, rather than given companies free labor. I find the *BSDs to be pretty interesting, but let’s not pretend that they’re benefiting from companies using their work. Very shilly tone to this article.
Seriously, it’s the only reason I bought one. Plus, my WRT-54gl is still supported 20 years later on DD-WRT, not that it’s all that useful at 100mbit. I still use it for testing.
Like if having gpl code in free bsd forced all these companies to be more open with their software, and now they can be more closed with it, isn’t that bad?
It allows freebsd to be true to the BSD license, and I agree with the author that it makes licensing easier. BSD will always be free and incredibly permissive, and I don’t see this changing anything. But a lot of the strides that linux has made is because people need to release their changes.
BSD on the other hand doesn’t require giving back, so you get Apple that was the largest company in the world building off of the work of FreeBSD. I certainly don’t see FreeBSD being comparable to macOS like Fedora is to RHEL. It’s more like Apple took what they wanted and walked away.
No no I just like seeing my work get used without any care or contribution back to create systems that absolutely don’t care about the rights of the users too /s
Agreed. I also want to learn more about micro kernels as well, which the BSDs use.
I think we have a pretty interesting dynamic viewing the two different licensing schemes. Linux/gnu has been making some huge strides, whereas BSD is kind of just very slowly chugging along in niche areas. It does seem to be pretty damn good at the things it does, though. I honestly feel like the BSD license should be a better license because it gives more freedom, but with the existence of greed and capitalism GPL is required to get profit seekers (greedy bastards) to play nice.
Edit: I was wrong, got it mixed up with gnu Hurd when looking things up in the past
I honestly feel like the BSD license should be a better license because it gives more freedom
It does not. Saying the BSD license gives more freedom because it lets developers choose to close up the code is like saying the Confederacy gave more freedom because it let white people choose to own slaves.
Now you’ve got me questioning myself, never claimed to be an expert…
Edit: yep I’m wrong, a microkernel was developed, but looks like it eventually made it’s way to GNU Hurd and not really implemented into the BSDs. I recall coming across when looking into different OSs, I guess I got it mixed up.
You are very shrilly yourself. Plenty of companies have shown it isn’t hard to take GPL without contributed back. There are high odds you are using a chrome based browser to read this - did you know that is a GPL project because once upon a time it was khtml (from the KDE project), but the changes were never contributed back. Many embedded companies have their own fork of linux as well - their changes are all available as the GPL requires, but the changes won’t be accepted to the kernel as is and so the fact that they are available is useless.
Meanwhile there are many companies using FreeBSD who choose to contribute their changes back, just like some companies choose to contribute back to various GPL projects they use.
There are high odds you are using a chrome based browser to read this - did you know that is a GPL project because once upon a time it was khtml (from the KDE project), but the changes were never contributed back.
Chromium is what you’re ignoring here, and they are contributed back.
Many embedded companies have their own fork of linux as well - their changes are all available as the GPL requires, but the changes won’t be accepted to the kernel as is and so the fact that they are available is useless.
And that’s fine, if someone ever did want to pick it up, they could.
Meanwhile there are many companies using FreeBSD who choose to contribute their changes back.
I didn’t say there weren’t people/companies contributing to BSD. I am saying that since they aren’t required to, BSD isn’t getting the level of support it deserves. The companies contributing to GPL projects are required by law to release the source, so they might as well contribute to the project. I can guarantee there would be a lot less progress in linux/gnuland if releasing the source wasn’t required.
Um, so yay for companies that have stolen open code and not contributed back? What even is your angle here?
In the end every licence is only as strong as your lawyers. And even if they don’t get merged into the main tree, their code being available is still a big win for users and devs alike
Basically his argument is that because some companies choose to contribute back to BSD projects even though they aren’t required to, and because some GPL projects choose not to merge some changes from downstream forks, the GPL and BSD licenses are effectively the same. I think the flaw in this logic should be pretty apparent. I think the GPLv2 vs. GPLv3 debate is a lot more interesting, particularly since Linus has come out against GPLv3.
They make it sound like the *WRTs were the worst thing to happen to consumer networking and that corporations not being required to contribute back to projects has made BSD stronger, rather than given companies free labor. I find the *BSDs to be pretty interesting, but let’s not pretend that they’re benefiting from companies using their work. Very shilly tone to this article.
WRT was the only reason some of those routers were even usable.
Seriously, it’s the only reason I bought one. Plus, my WRT-54gl is still supported 20 years later on DD-WRT, not that it’s all that useful at 100mbit. I still use it for testing.
I still keep a WRT54Gv3 around with DD-WRT because of devices that require WEP. (cough cough)
It’s really nice having it set up as a subnet with a ton of restrictions. Something it would be incapable of stock.
So this sounds like a bad thing then…
Like if having gpl code in free bsd forced all these companies to be more open with their software, and now they can be more closed with it, isn’t that bad?
It allows freebsd to be true to the BSD license, and I agree with the author that it makes licensing easier. BSD will always be free and incredibly permissive, and I don’t see this changing anything. But a lot of the strides that linux has made is because people need to release their changes.
BSD on the other hand doesn’t require giving back, so you get Apple that was the largest company in the world building off of the work of FreeBSD. I certainly don’t see FreeBSD being comparable to macOS like Fedora is to RHEL. It’s more like Apple took what they wanted and walked away.
There was an attempt back in the day to do something like that but it never went anywhere.
Yes, it’s bad. Permissive licensing (instead of copyleft) is for cucks.
No no I just like seeing my work get used without any care or contribution back to create systems that absolutely don’t care about the rights of the users too /s
Yes that’s probably bad
WRT54G were the best shit back then. So much choice with firmware, loved the Tomato firmware and its flexible QoS. Good times.
OpenWRT is still the best shit now.
I bought a linksys wrt simply because they had the open firmware. That router was amazing!
yeah I liked that bsd really kept to the unix style but license wise gpl is what I respect.
Agreed. I also want to learn more about micro kernels as well, which the BSDs use.I think we have a pretty interesting dynamic viewing the two different licensing schemes. Linux/gnu has been making some huge strides, whereas BSD is kind of just very slowly chugging along in niche areas. It does seem to be pretty damn good at the things it does, though. I honestly feel like the BSD license should be a better license because it gives more freedom, but with the existence of greed and capitalism GPL is required to get profit seekers (greedy bastards) to play nice.
Edit: I was wrong, got it mixed up with gnu Hurd when looking things up in the past
It does not. Saying the BSD license gives more freedom because it lets developers choose to close up the code is like saying the Confederacy gave more freedom because it let white people choose to own slaves.
I will add to the agreement. I wish gpl was not needed. I did not realize any bsds used micro kernels though.
Now you’ve got me questioning myself, never claimed to be an expert…
Edit: yep I’m wrong, a microkernel was developed, but looks like it eventually made it’s way to GNU Hurd and not really implemented into the BSDs. I recall coming across when looking into different OSs, I guess I got it mixed up.
I thought Microsoft pulled or rewrote the tcp/ip stack a while ago?
You are very shrilly yourself. Plenty of companies have shown it isn’t hard to take GPL without contributed back. There are high odds you are using a chrome based browser to read this - did you know that is a GPL project because once upon a time it was khtml (from the KDE project), but the changes were never contributed back. Many embedded companies have their own fork of linux as well - their changes are all available as the GPL requires, but the changes won’t be accepted to the kernel as is and so the fact that they are available is useless.
Meanwhile there are many companies using FreeBSD who choose to contribute their changes back, just like some companies choose to contribute back to various GPL projects they use.
Chromium is what you’re ignoring here, and they are contributed back.
And that’s fine, if someone ever did want to pick it up, they could.
I didn’t say there weren’t people/companies contributing to BSD. I am saying that since they aren’t required to, BSD isn’t getting the level of support it deserves. The companies contributing to GPL projects are required by law to release the source, so they might as well contribute to the project. I can guarantee there would be a lot less progress in linux/gnuland if releasing the source wasn’t required.
What do you mean “never contributed back”? All of these projects give their source code back, as the GPL requires.
The source is available but not in a form that will be accepted upstream. Often for good reason, but that doesn’t do you any good.
So? It’s not like upstream should have to accept everything every fork does.
What is the practical difference between code not accepted and code hidden?
The practical difference is that the code is there for whoever wants to use it.
Um, so yay for companies that have stolen open code and not contributed back? What even is your angle here?
In the end every licence is only as strong as your lawyers. And even if they don’t get merged into the main tree, their code being available is still a big win for users and devs alike
The problem is that with GPL we can at least cherrypick the features and implement them ourselves, with BSD, everthing get closed and you get fucked
So your argument is that because there are some exceptions to a rule, the opposite of that rule is true.
Basically his argument is that because some companies choose to contribute back to BSD projects even though they aren’t required to, and because some GPL projects choose not to merge some changes from downstream forks, the GPL and BSD licenses are effectively the same. I think the flaw in this logic should be pretty apparent. I think the GPLv2 vs. GPLv3 debate is a lot more interesting, particularly since Linus has come out against GPLv3.
Those are not exceptions.