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Minix Now Under BSD License
Minix is now Free Software! Andrew Tanenbaum posted to the comp.os.minix newsgroup yesterday announcing: "Better late than never. I finally got permission from Prentice Hall to change the MINIX license to the BSD license. The lawyers sort of sat on this for two years." You can read the full posting on deja, as well.
I really enjoyed reading the Tanenbaum vs. Torvalds debate in the back of Open Sources. As much as many of A.T.'s arguments seem short-sighted in retrospect, he had several very good points about Linux (e.g. it was not portable, it could not deal with externally maintained extensions, and other things that had to be fixed in the 2.0 and later series). I think it will be well worth the community's time to re-read the Minix source and figure out if there's any more lessons to be learned, and/or incorporate the features that make sense.
Question, though: does Minix still have a future as a teaching tool, or do OSes like Linux and *BSD make it obsolete? I would certianly like to see a good textbook that teaches OS design, using the source to a modern OS as examples....
Did you even read the post? It answers all of your questions:
MINIX is much smaller than Linux and might well be suitable as the operating system for a watch, camera, or transistor radio. The manufacturer of, say, a watch might really not want to provide a CD-ROM with the source code with each watch or even a web site with the source code, as being too much trouble. The new MINIX license says you can distribute source if you want to, but you don't have to.
So, that's what it's good for, and that's why he didn't pick the GPL. 'Nuff said.
Who would have though it would end like this :)
OK. To all the complainers that it isn't GPL'ed: Anything that is (non advertising) BSD can be incorporated into GPL. In other words, GPL provides a subset of the freedoms provided by BSD.
Now, follow my directions. 1. Draw a big circle. 2. Label it "BSD". 3. Draw a little circle inside the big circle. 4. Label it GPL. 5. Draw another little circle inside the big circle, but be very careful to make sure that it doesn't touch the other little circle. 6. Label the second little circle "closed source".
Now, what have we learned from this little exercise? We learned that BSD is a big circle that encompasses both free and proprietary software. It's a rising tide that lifts all boats, not a whirlpool that sucks them down.
Let's sing a little song: "Now I know my BSD's, won't you come and play with me..."
Got it kiddies? Good. Now it's nap time.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
A device made out of individual transistors and capable of running MINIX would be... interesting, to say the least.
FreeBSD really rocks,
But only Intel / Alpha box.
The 'Net' one runs on so much more.
The 'Open' one is more secure.
Now I know my BSD's. Won't you come and play with me?
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If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
You know what?! Someone should take the Minix code and add a bunch of stuff to it, like virtual memory and increased driver support. In a few years, you might even have a new operating system that would take the world by storm.
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this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
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There is a very interesting FAQ written by Andrew Tanenbaum on Tanenbaum's site. Amongst other answers and questions, I found this ones:
What do you think of Linux?
I have never used it. People tell me that if you like lots of bells and whistles, it is a nice system. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Linus for producing it. Before there was Linux there was MINIX, which had a 40,000-person newsgroup, most of whom were sending me email every day. I was going crazy with the endless stream of new features people were sending me. I kept refusing them all because I wanted to keep MINIX small enough for my students to understand in one semester. My consistent refusal to add all these new features is what inspired Linus to write Linux. Both of us are now happy with the results. The only person who is perhaps not so happy is Bill Gates.
What's wrong with LaTeX?
Nothing, but real authors use troff.
What do you think of MS-DOS?
It is better than Windows. At least it has a command line interface, albeit a pretty feeble one.
Ehm... I guess Tanenbaum likes simplicity a bit too much. I mean, he is convinced that a GUI can not make any improvement at all. For example, I use Lyx for making my thesis and I am convinced it is able to produce real quality material. Yes, it's a graphical WYSIWYM frontend to LaTeX. How can anyone be convinced Lyx isn't good because of that?
WE DO NOT WANT YOUR COMMERCIAL SHIT. And yes we include BSD in this because it can be used in commercial software.
You say non-copyleft licenses suck. You're reading this on a text browser, right? Mac OS is proprietary buyware. Windows 9x is proprietary buyware. BeOS Personal is freebeerware but still proprietary. X Window System is X11-style free software, and so is BSD. So you're reading Slashdot on GNU/Linux with the Lynx or w3m browser, right?
If you want it to be GNU GPL, then just make a couple changes and fork off your own distro. That has been OK since June 1999, when Berkeley finally removed the advertising clause from the BSD license.
And there is commercial free software: just look at boxed distributions (e.g. Red Hat Linux) of primarily GNU GPL software.
Will I retire or break 10K?
How difficult is it to burn a CD with source on it? Not very hard at all, actually, seeing as you're only including the source for one thing (when you're including the source to many things, as is done with a Linux distro, that's another subject). Plus, there's this little thing called volume. This is not Linux we're talking about. Who's going to want the source for the OS on a wristwatch?
True, but.... Seeing as how no-one (in terms of percentage of buyers) is likely to want the source to the OS, then providing the source for those few is going to be a waste of *some* money, even if it is a very small amount. It will require some resources, no matter how small, and margins are always of concern to companies.
But the real point is, if no-one is going to want the source then why use the GPL? Think of it in terms of a company's perspective - they have Minix as the core of their embedded OS, with certain proprietary extensions designed for the technology it is controlling. Under the GPL, this source would have to be made available to anyone asking for it. Given the intense competition in the embedded market, this is not a path that a company would be willing to take, and thus if Minix was GPLed, it wouldn't be taken up as a solution.
I know /. is a place full of GPL supporters, and yes, it's a great way of keeping source open and free, but it doesn't always make sense from a business's (is that right?) perspective. When you're in a competitive market, the slighest advantage can win the day, and companies won't adopt an OS that could compromise that. It's sad, but it's capitalism.
http://charged.net/tim/venn-bsd2.gif