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lpf Removed From OpenBSD
A nameless reader writes: "A few hours ago Theo DeRaadt removed the ipf source from the OpenBSD cvs tree in reaction to the licensing change by Darren Reed, the author of ipf. Theo's remarks on the licensing change are visible in the commit log
here." Theo notes there that "software
which OpenBSD uses and redistributes must be free to all (be they
people or companies), for any purpose they wish to use it, including
modification, use, peeing on, or even integration into baby mulching
machines or atomic bombs to be dropped on Australia." That's keeping things all-purpose all right ;)
They can take our lives, but they can never take our freeeeeeedom! (/bad scot accent)
Coming from a background where people built Linux systems from scratch -- yes, that's right, without a friggin' distribution CD (gasp! The horror!) -- I don't see what's stopping folks from just downloading the IPF sources and compiling/installing the old fashioned way. Is there something I'm missing? There are thousands of software packages that are not distributed on OpenBSD CDROMs; does that mean you're not going to be able to use them? Something tells me that when SSH (ahem... OpenSSH) wasn't distributed on OpenBSD CDs, you still got the CDs and used OpenBSD. What's different this time?
Personally, I don't give half a shit whether or not IPF is on a CD; if I want it, I'll get it, compile it, install it, and use it. You're still free to do that. If you modify it, don't distribute it. If you have religious issues regarding this practice, I guess there's no hope. Personally, I get software for its utility, not for the doctrine that I need to chant every time I crank the stuff up. The software is free as in beer, it's slick, and it's probably the simplest firewalling solution for any free *NIX out there. That's good enough for me.
Dropping support for OpenBSD because IPF isn't on the CD is simply nuts. OpenBSD is not IPF; don't mix the two. There's more to the security of OpenBSD than the firewalling.
[...] software which OpenBSD uses and redistributes must be free to all [...] for any purpose [...], including [...] atomic bombs to be dropped on Australia.
Where do I get OpenBSD?
Kiwi
Yes, it does imply precisely that, because according to copyright law, any rights the copyright holder does not explicitly grant are reserved. Since the license says only that you can redistribute the code, not that you can modify it, you can't modify it.
Youdon't need to bea Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't beany future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Let's keep to the facts and look t the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyists dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
iptables is GPL'd code and is therefore inaccessable to a non-GPL development effort. In order to incorporate iptables into the OpenBSD kernel, OpenBSD would have to change its license to the GPL which would place more restrictions on OpenBSD's code and would displease a large contingent of the OpenBSD userbase.
Any time somebody claims that a movement or
organisation is 'promoting freedom.... but....'
it's very important for everybody to know that
they're generally promoting the opposite of
freedom. They're pushing their movement's
agenda, which often is quite the opposite of
freedom.
This point has clear application to the rhetoric
of the GNU cadres.
Darrens license and the GPL are very similar.
His license refuses you the right to do modifications while the GPL forces you to release your modifications.
I can see why the BSD people hate both licenses.
I can't however see why GPL people have anything to say about his license.
You are sadly mistaken
It doesn't attempt to infect code it touches. It's goal is to form a club of Free Software users and Developers. It's not a malicious goal, although it could be harmful to proprietary software developers.
Nobody is forcing you to join the club. If you find it repulsive, make sure you aren't developing software against GPL'd programs, or make sure they are Lgpl'd. It's very simple.
Of course, if you are just an GNU basher, that's not saying very much for you personally. I can udnerstand your sentiment, but I dont think you can extrapolate sentiment to a generalized condemnation of a software license. Think hard about other people's freedoms to do whatever they damn well want to, including join a software club that furthers their interests.
Companies that use GPL software know very well what they are getting into. IBM has a literal army of lawyers analyzing every legal move the company makes. They dont consider the GPL a threat to their "intellectual property" if IBM follows a few guidelines about its use. And if they do use GPL software wisely they stand to benefit greatly. They are already wagering 1 billion dollars on GNU/Linux, a GPL'd Operating system, with the calculation that it will pay off greatly.
Maybe you should reconsider the fallacies you've just propounded. They are obviously wrong and misleading.
Forced infectious freedom isn't freedom. True freedom is being able to do *anything* with the source, commercial, redistribution, or whatever. If some commercial company picked up and supported my favorite GNU-based app, I'd be thrilled, even if they didn't release the source. If they did something that was that special a value-add, they should be recognized for it. And the open source community is free to clone their features in as free a form as they see fit.
I really wish more people saw the GPL as having the hampering effect that it does; let it truly be free; let the market forces and the open source cloners and innovators determine how the code evolves and branches. If someone uses it commercially, make them give credit, but don't make them give up their value-added code which they make their living with. If the changes are useful, someone will clone 'em! If they can't, then the company is really adding something special; don't restrict or disincent them from doing so by forcing them to give up the rights and privacy of their proprietary addition.
You are conflating two distinct meanings of the word free. This thread was clearly using the libre sense, and you're bitching about the gratis sense. Liberty does have a price.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
That is too bad. I really liked IPF and OpenBSD for my firewall. I guess Theo has to stick to making hot-headed decisions. Time to switch to Linux 2.4 and Netfilter. :-)
You're looking for netfilter for Linux 2.4. Two different projects. As far as I know, netfilter is GPL'd since it is included in the kernel. It probably has everything ipfilter does except a BSD license. If you're just looking to build a stateful firewall it should work fine.
not even that sometimes. What is amazing is the number of moderations that actually have the correct label.
I regularly notice the wrong label tacked on after I moderate something--and it's not always even in the right direction (although the direction may be right even if the label is wrong).
hawk, still pushing for a "funny" choice in meta-moderation
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, contact an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
>THEY misunderstood the license
That's far from clear. WHat he "meant" is not dispositive (or even relevent). The meaning of the license is determined by the words used in the license, possibly modified by context (e.g., the number of nominally GPL licensed projects that have had one or more terms of the GPL revoked by the use of non-assimulable libraries and the invitation to compile and distribute).
Out of context, that license doesn't give permission to modify. Given the standard usage of the words he used and his target audienc, it might well give permission.
From the information currently available, a jury could decide either way.
The moral of the story is to have a lawyer involved when choosing your license. Many projects have come to grief by using words or actions that they didn't mean, or by assuming that the GPL did what they wanted.
hawk, esq., suffering through netscape as slashdot has another anti-lynx day
Of course, the difference is that Free Software hackers aren't generally interested in "borrowing" commercial source code. Nobody would whine about the GPL if the only code that was released under it was the Pascal version of "Hello World." To commercial developers GPLed software is like being lost at sea without any fresh water. There is plenty of useful code, but using it would be poisonous.
When push comes to shove its just sour grapes. They want to be able to use other people's code without sharing their own. The GPL won't let them do that.
The OpenBSD people get their wish, and all the code they distribute is completely free of any restrictions on use, modification, etc.
And OpenBSD users are left without any firewalling solution. I'm using OpenBSD for a couple of firewalls, and without IPF, they're just useless boxes sucking up electricity. The sad thing is that I agree 100% with Theo. I just wish they'd taken a more pragmatic approach, and kept IPF in the tree until a suitable alternative could be written. I suppose, though, that removing it will increase the pressure to write such a replacement, which might otherwise have been a back-burner project. Oh well, I guess at least I still have my OpenBSD 2.8 CDs around...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Accordingly, the only way you might benefit from the BSD license over the GPL is if you were writing or using a proprietary program.
In this case, who are you to complain about freedom?
I should know better than to bicker with AC's...
> I don't consider the GPL freedom
Fair enough.
> it saddens me that so many people are misled by it
Oh drat...the objectivity didn't last long, did it?
> it really is a virus, trying to infect code it touches with its own license
Perhaps so, but you are glossing over a very important point...it only "infects" software who's authers *choose* to be infected. If that is what the author wants, who are you to argue?
> don't restrict or disincent them from doing so by forcing them to give up the rights and privacy of their proprietary addition.
Again, GPL code doesn't "force" them to do anything. It lays down licensing rules for use, just like any license. If a person doesn't like those rules, they don't have to use that software. They have no god-given right to it.
> I really wish more people saw the GPL as having the hampering effect that it does
The GPL seems "hampering" to you simply because it doesn't fit into your ideal of complete openness that lets "the market decide".
That doesn't fit with *my* ideal. I've seen what the market "decides" on, and I don't like it.
I happily use the GPL, and it bothers me none at all that you find it "hampering". I find it liberating.
--Lenny
Your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose.
Exaclty what piece of GPL code they need for their commercial software.
Proof that that piece is not actually under the LGPL or any of the zillion LGPL-like licenses, or under another free license, or available commercially.
Proof that there is no equivalent piece of software available commercially.
Documentation showing that they attempted to contact the author and get them to relicense the code in a way that it could be used in their commercial product, and were turned down (note that any price quote does not count as being turned down!)
A convincing argument as to why they could not clean-room reverse engineer the code.
This rather simple set of requirements will restrict the submittors of these messages to the actual commercial software developers who are seeing their business destroyed by the GPL. Unfortunately the number of these is exactly ZERO.
Sorry, I was responding to one of the earlier postings, not yours.
Now lets talk about your claims.
Here's what DJB says about software licenses:
DJB gives his software away, but he retains the copyright. You don't have the right to distribute copies of his software to other people unless he gives you that right.
That being said, he explicitly gives you the right to distribute or copy his software here:
This gives you the right to distribute his software. You can also distribute any of your patches right along with it. You may not modify qmail with your patches and then distribute that without prior permission from DJB . He retains the copyright which means he gets to determine how his software is copied and distributed.
DJB does not LICENSE his software because he knows that a "software license" is legalese bullshit. It's a manufactured concept that doesn't really exist. Federal copyright law (in the US at least) is the "controlling legal authority."
How can you have a problem with someone retaining the copyright to their work?
The GPL is a legalese response to a situation that shouldn't really exist. It's unfortunate, but when you release the source code to your software, unscrupulous people will take that code and do what they want with it. the BSD and GNU "license" are not "software licenses" in the same respect that Micro$oft's shrink-wrap "license" is, they are a standard "distribution terms" from a copyright holder.
DJB's software is free in every sense of the word. You can obtain it gratis and you are "free" to modify it however you wish as is the right of every owner of a copy of a piece of software. You even have the right to give away or sell copies (yes sell!) of DJB's software. You can modify and patch his software as much as you want, but in order to continue to have the right to distribute the software freely, you must keep your work separate as a patch. Alternately, you could just ask the copyright holder for permission to distribute a modified version of his software as a precompiled binary. Assuming that you don't break DJB's compatability directive you'll probably be granted that privilege.
The GPL is no less restrictive when it says that you must release the source code to your modifications to a GPL'd piece of software.
Some lawyers disagree with you. Author's who signed book publishing rights to publishing houses suddenly find that the publishers assume electronic distribution rights, even though they were not explicitly specified.
Everybody knows and understands that if you don't get open-source software from the original author, someone might have changed it. But in reality, I've never heard of a backdoor in open source software. If you're worried about your reputation, you can ask that the name of the software be changed (Artistic) or that any change be noted, and marked with when it occurred (GPL).
Sometimes software needs to be modified. If Debian doesn't like where you put your files, we need to modify the code to change where you put the files. If there's a serious security hole, we need to fix it now, not when he gets back from vacation in 6 weeks. If you die, then we would like to continue making needed bug fixes and improvements.
"it's just software - not like the world will cease spinning"; this is one of personal pet peeves, people minimizing the importance of what other people care about. Very little will stop the world spinning; the complete extinction of the human race could happen and probably wouldn't touch it all. But OpenBSD needs the ability to modify the software, so a small group of people is probably going to spend many hours working on the code for a new firewall. Others are going to have to consider modifying their current firewalls or not updating them. To those people, this problem will take up many hours that could be spent doing more productive things. To me, it's just an example of why we care about licenses - because people will have to spend those hours.
> GPL = the socialist ... BSD = the libertarian
GPL has been demonstrated to work reasonably but isn't to everybodies taste, but BSD are just a bunch of wackos no-one takes seriously? I think that's rather harsh on the BSD camp.
--
rant
I was not referring the Darren's legal rights, but his responsibilities as a member of a community -- basically, I guess that I was hoping for some courtesy, and I was disappointed that people are assholes (Theo included, from the rant, and myself, for that matter, for complaining about it.)
He's benefitted from the community, and while he has the right to place his code under any license he wishes legally, I'm disappointed with the way that he handled the misunderstanding on the part of OpenBSD et al.
Shit, this is starting to sound like "Can't we all just get along?"
-30-
Did he ever try to correct the "misunderstanding" by the OpenBSD project? They were violating his license, if you go with the idea that he just clarified and did not change the license. Why didn't he tell them before now?
/tell/ them before they became dependent on the code. It's seen as a change, because he's never let anyone know they were violating the spirit of his license, at least as he read it. IANAL, so I make no comment on the license itself, but it was poor of him to let the OpenBSD people use ipf, "violating" his license, and become dependent on it, before he "clarified" the license.
If someone misunderstood the license, he had a responsibility to
People aren't as pissed about the licensing as the way it was done.
-30-
It's "IP Filter", not "ipf". 'ipf' is a binary included in the package that is used to control the firewall, not the proper name of the package. It's like calling Linux "vmlin" because the Linux kernel is often named 'vmlinuz'.
I wonder whether anyone has grepped through the whole OpenBSD source tree for similar licence statements which might be open to 'reinterpretation'. Perhaps several contributors will be getting messages asking them to change the copying conditions attached to their code to remove any possible ambiguity.
This incident shows one reason why the FSF asks for copyright assignment on code submitted. With a legally binding agreement, you don't get nasty surprises later on. Of course it is a complete pain and some people refuse to do it (one of the reasons for the Emacs / XEmacs fork).
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
iptables is GPL, and the *BSD kernel is the BSD license, it probably would not work very well to try and use both licenses in the same kernel. Also, I don`t think it would be very easy to put iptables in the *BSD kernel, it was designed specifically for Linux, and ther BSD kernel has quite a different structure from the linux kernel. Putting it in the BSD kernel would probably require pretty much a complete rewrite, and if you`re going to do that, you might as well just design your own implementation.
Also, ipfilter is a little easier to set up than iptables, iptables uses shell scripts with a BUNCH of commands, while ipfilter uses a configuration file, I would expect that the OpenBSD people would want to stay with the config file approach, and they will probably try to make it compatible with ipfilter config files, or at least have an emulation layer like ipfilter has for ipchains and ipfwadm.
> Correct, the GPL does impose a restriction. That restriction is that you may not impose that
> any restrictions upon code based on that code.
Or you can't remove any restrictions, i.e. I can't say that anyone that does redistribute only an unmodified binary of the code only has to give instructions of where to get the source code. And don't have to make the redistribution them selfs. There are a loot of restrictions in the GPL some that might be good some that are less well working. (I see no reason too keep a copy of the source tree availble for tree years if you give avaon a compiled emacs). In strict terms the GPL may force you to do this (or atlest make shure that you can get that code).
I agree with you about the market forces choosing, but thats exactly what IS happening NOW! and they seem to favour the GPL over *BSD style licences so far judging by the rate of code released under each.
Hmm... I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that the GPL gets considerably more publicity, is openly championed here on Slashdot and has a raving religious code-fanatic preaching its virtues in public at every chance he gets?
If someone misunderstood the license, he had a responsibility to /tell/ them before they became dependent on the code.
Obviously, you're misunderstanding things seriously. It is the duty of a group using a piece of software to acquaint themselves properly with the license. The author has no *responsibility*, as you so kindly put it, to rectify their misunderstanding. If I release a piece of software under the GPL, someone misunderstands it and uses it for a closed-source program, I sue him! It wasn't my *responsibility* to point out to him the terms of the GPL at any point. It was his task to get acquainted with it when using my code.
By that token a law that forbids people to kidnap other people is restricting freedom? I see where you are going...
bye
schani
IPF is extremely easy to understand and its logical and powerful control was one of the reasons I use it versus IPFW in FreeBSD. Works fantastically.
Say what you will about Theo, but there's no denying the fact that he's just as fanatical about BSD-licensed software as RMS is about GPL'ed software.
That's to be respected, even if you don't agree with them.
As a side note, I use ipfw (in my freebsd kern) to do my firewalling packet filtering. I picked it as it seemed more logical in implementation. IE: Why the fuss about ipf when ipfew is in the (FreeBSD) kernel?
SPOON!!!
Yes, but whats that got to do with the price of tea in D'ni?
IPF has been removed from -current (The development version) OpenBSD 2.9 (Due out RSN) will still have ipf in it.
The plan appears to be replacing IPF before the next release.
Theo notes there that "software which OpenBSD uses and redistributes must be free to all (be they people or companies), for any purpose they wish to use it, including modification, use, peeing on, or even integration into baby mulching machines or atomic bombs to be dropped on Australia."
What Theo does not show what BSD should be. It shows the very nature of software. And BSD recognizes this very nature as a principle of use. Unfortunately many people attempt to overcome a natural fact by putting licences and restrictions. Much like the "bridge taxes" that were so common on the Middle Ages. Taxes were not only made on bridges built by the owner, but also on ancient roman bridges, bridges built by the community or third parties. Frequently taxes rose to absurd levels, which lead to clashes and even small wars. Something very similar can be seen in todays software.
Meanwhile there is a danger that Theo might have got too far. First because Australia surely will further see OpenBSD as a national menace. Second because Theo seems to live in California and there seems to exist a very weird rule there that considers even sugestions of using atomics as a terrorist threat... So time for Bush to switch out his NMD plans in exchenge for the new BSD (Berckley Software Defense) program... Considering the fact that BSD is red and has a small devil playing around with a fork, it will be absolutely easy for the conservative minds at Washington to readapt to the new threat:
"The Reds are coming!"
"The Red Evil menace"
"It's the devil in cheap... o damn... sheep clothes. Anyway it's in cheap clothes also..."
"software which OpenBSD uses and redistributes must be free to all (be they people or companies), for any purpose they wish to use it, including modification, use, peeing on, or even integration into baby mulching machines or atomic bombs to be dropped on Australia."
Unless, of course, the method they choose to use for redistributing it is dd-ing the OpenBSD CD into a file, then making the file available for download.
-
Looks like someone from monkey.org (big OpenBSD lovers) is starting up a new project. If it follows in the history of other OpenBSD alternatives it will be about 30 times better than the original and have some cute Blowfish/Daemon shirt. Damn OpenBSD people! They're beating the other BSD's simply through how cool their t-shirts are! :)
xm@jolt:~$ whois openipf.org
.com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.
.COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU domains and
Registrars.
Whois Server Version 1.3
Domain names in the
Domain Name: OPENIPF.ORG
Registrar: TUCOWS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.opensrs.net
Referral URL: www.opensrs.org
Name Server: NS1.FRIES.NET
Name Server: NS0.FRIES.NET
Updated Date: 25-may-2001
>>> Last update of whois database: Wed, 30 May 2001 02:01:56 EDT The Registry database contains ONLY
Found InterNIC referral to whois.opensrs.net.
Registrant:
OpenBSD
600 N. Chowning Avenue
Apt. W110
Edmond, OK 73034-5110
VI
Domain Name: OPENIPF.ORG
Administrative Contact:
Fries, Todd todd@fries.net
600 N. Chowning Avenue
Apt. W110
Edmond, OK 73034-5110
VI
405-715-4168 Technical Contact:
hostmaster, monkey.org hostmaster@monkey.org
PO box 2031
ann arbor, mi 48106-2031
US
734 623 0456
Billing Contact:
Fries, Todd todd@fries.net
600 N. Chowning Avenue
Apt. W110
Edmond, OK 73034-5110
VI
405-715-4168
Record last updated on 29-May-2001.
Record expires on 25-May-2002.
Record Created on 25-May-2001.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS0.FRIES.NET 206.30.141.10
NS1.FRIES.NET 208.128.7.232
Besides, aren't you telling us what freedom means?
(not, btw, to dispute that the GPL makes more restrictions than the BSD license, but it is inaccurate to put "socialist" as the diametrical opposite of "freedom")
-Yenya
--
-Yenya
--
While Linux is larger than Emacs, at least Linux has the excuse that it has to be. --Linus
I am getting pretty sick of people who won't put their email address next to their name criticizing how other people license their software.
... but it's there). The GPL keeps my program open forever and protects the freedoms that I'm interested in protecting.
GNU advocates are meaningless in the context of this discussion. Why don't we talk about people who write software and release it under the GNU GPL? I release my software under the GNU GPL. I have some very good reasons for doing so. The biggest is that this is *my* code. It is something that I put my time into. I want it to be protected from someone taking and closing it and selling it. I'm not interested in your freedom to do what I consider bad.
The BSD license if no better than public domain. Sure, you're name is on it (often you need a hex editor to see it, ala Windows FTP client
How's that?
And if you'd like to respond, but a name and an email address next to it or don't bother.
You can copy and hack the source as much as you like
No, you can't. The distribution terms (aka: LICENSE) specifically state that you can not. As you said yourself, the distributed binaries must operate the same as the originals. That prevents patching. If, for instance, I patch qmail to write localtime rather than UTC in the headers, I can no longer distribute qmail, because its behavior has changed. If I patch qmail against a buffer overflow that gives remote intruders a shell, I can't distribute that package; it no longer operates the same as if my users had downloaded and compiled DJB's source.
Read the FAQ again. If you still don't get it, read it twice. You can not distribute modified binaries. If you think otherwise, prove it.
Sure, you COULD write your own code, but that just defeats the purpose of opensource
You are obviously confused. The GPL is not about "Open Source". The GPL is about Free Software. The point is to make sure that the software and any derivitave works are Free. Nowhere will you find any evidence that the GPL is about saving you (a developer) any work at all, if your software is not Free.
The point of the BSD license is open source and reuse. The point of the GPL is not.
OK, but lets take this in context... The post to which you replied claimed that packages such as BIND, postfix and sendmail are more free than Qmail (and djbdns), claiming that the license of the latter prevents redistribution. From a commercial distributors' perspective, this it totally true. When the original poster made his statement, this is the meaning that I got from it, dunno about you.
You're absolutely right. DJB specifially allows you to do whatever you want with your own personal copy of qmail or djbdns. However, the original poster is not "so wrong about djbdns". His point is totally valid. The GPL and BSD licenses specifically allow you *all* of the freedoms that the original author had. DJB's software takes away your freedom. With sendmail/bind/postfix, you are free to distribute modified binaries. With djbdns/qmail you are not.
See my reply at: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/05/30/12425 5&cid=387
You can't distribute modifies source, either. You can only distribute the original, unmodified source, binaries created from the original, unmodified source, and patches. That makes qmail/djbdns 100% not Free Software.
If you find a buffer overflow in the current version of qmail that can give a remote intruder a shell, I'll suck your dick!
4 25 5&cid=387
That was totally unnecessary. I was trying to make a point, not issue a challenge.
You can read my reply to the original poster here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/05/30/12
DJB's software is free in every sense of the word.
Except the sense that matters to Free Software developers and the Free Sofware Foundation. Every other sense, maybe. Free Software developers value the freedom to modify Free Software and share those modifications with others, without restrictions. qmail doesn't give you that freedom. You are restricted from forking or distributing modified source or binaries. That means that qmail and djbdns DO NOT meet the Free Software guidelines. See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Ask Debian why they don't distribute DJB's software. Ask Red Hat why they don't. DJB's software ISN'T FREE.
The GPL is certainly less restrictive than the distribution terms for qmail/djbdns. The GPL mandates only that you not deprive others of the freedoms that you have. DJB doesn't give you those freedoms to begin with.
Sorry, it's the other way around - you can't distribute derivative works without explicit permission. The lack of a clause preventing you from doing something doesn't give you carte blanche to do it. The "redistribution and use" you describe doesn't include modified source and binaries.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
It doesn't have to imply it at all - under copyright law, you have no rights to redistribute derivative works without the explicit permission of the original works' author. Any rights you have to redistribute a copyrighted work (modified or unmodified) must be explicitly granted to you by the copyright holder(s).
A comment above this had the statement but it included "with or without modification", which would make everything OK and would mean that Darren is changing the rules at this point. I don't know which original license is the real one, though.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
It also depends on the license, which I'm not too familiar with. Copyright law is what governs redistribution, and my understanding of such law is that you can't redistribute without explicit permission, and you can't redistribute derived works without explicit permission. Use is governed by the software license, which may or may not be similarly confusing :)
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
You can modify it all you want, but you probably can't redistribute your modifications. You can bet that Microsoft doesn't let people distribute improved versions of Windows when they let other companies see the source code. And in the long run modifying just your local copy of the code doesn't buy you very much, since you would have to merge up every time the principal distributor releases an update.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
When will pathetic lusers like you realise that developers can do whatever the heck pleases them with THEIR source code?
No, developing software with a license that doesn't give freedoms like the BSD and GNU GPL license will NOT hurt the community. I can develop whatever I want, and put it under a BSD-style license with the addition of a condition that demands that you give me your first born child for my private army or whatever. It's my software, it's my license, you can all go and #@% yourselves if you prefer GPL.
Also, can slashdot PLEASE for the love of $DEITY stop this misinformation? IPF did *NOT* change license. It's just that nobody bothered to *READ* it until now. It is *NOT* BSD style, it never mentioned that redistribution in modified form of source or binary is permitted - people just *ASSUMED* it is, and they were wrong.
Come on, this is getting childish.
Are you out of your mind? The burden of compliance with the license rests upon the licensee not the author.
How could you expect the author of IPF to track all users of his software and ensure that they do not supply it in modified form?
He did precisely that mind you. Upon realizing that some group was distributing modified code, he added a clarification that this was against the license.
It was then that all hell broke loose, because some people want to have their cake and eat it too.
People shouldn't be pissed with the author of IPF, but with themselves, for failing to read the license in the first place.
It was *never* under the BSD license.
/*
Read carefully:
* Copyright (C) 1993-2000 by Darren Reed.
*
* The author accepts no responsibility for the use of this software and
* provides it on an ``as is'' basis without express or implied warranty.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted
* provided that this notice is preserved and due credit is given
* to the original author and the contributors.
*
* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
*
* I hate legaleese, don't you ?
*/
Contrast that with the BSD license and observe that
Reed's license does not allow redistribution in modified form:
Copyright 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGE.
It's simple really, the license did not grant you the right to distribute modified versions of the software. Take a step back: It's his software, and it's copyrighted by him. He lets you do two things, provided that his notice is preserved and due credit is given (which is fair enough):
1) use it in source and binary forms
2) redistribute it in source and binary forms
One could argue that using the software includes doing the necessary modifications for it to run on your system and whatnot, although I doubt if this would stand in court, however I belive that Darren wouldn't mind you fiddling with his source.
You have no right whatsoever though, to redistribute modified versions of his software in any form, simply because he hasn't explicitly granted you that right. To do this, you would need his permission from day 0, and all he did was clarify the license, not change it.
I have faith that with DeRaadt's legendary tact and reserved diplomatic manner things will be smoothed out and we will all be happily filtering with current very soon.
"Tension is the great integrity" -- R. Buckminster Fuller
A person claiming to be a lawyer earlier said that this was ambivalent. That a jury could decide either way.
That's what I get out of it too. I can't figure out how I should have read it, if it hadn't been "clarified" for me before I encountered it. I'd probably have figured it was up for modifications.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
There was clearly a change. Whether the change changed the meaning may not be totally clear. But the checksums wouldn't match, so there is clearly a change.
With that out of the way, It doesn't matter unless YOU decide to develop a firewall with ipf as a base! OpenBSD has decided to go with some other (yet unknown, possibly yet unwritten) firewall. Courts aren't going to get involved. The author's expressed wishes will be obeyed. Etc.
Pity, but better a vile disagreement, than an amicable courtroom encounter.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Go back and read the original post. I don't know about the license, but it's clear you weren't paying attention to the poster. You go to the trouble of quoting "copy and hack the SOURCE as much as you like", then come back saying "Read the license! you can't distribute modified binaries!" The original poster seemed to be saying that "screw modified binaries, we can distribute modified source".
I don't know whether or not that's true, but your point is invalid either way.
Assuming that somebody wrote the original GPL code and it is the best code for the job, how about just contacting the author and negotiating a special license? Afterall, the author is (even in the case of GPL'd code) still the copyright owner.
I am German but my email isn't...
Huh? He just now realized that OpenBSD was distributing a modified version of his software? He had no clue they had been doing it for years? Are *you* out of your mind?
And that's beside the point. He was under no obligation to tell Theo that he was violating the license. Sure, it may be an assholish thing to do--what are you going to do, sue him? The fact of the matter is, it's Theo (and company)'s fault for assuming that the license was BSD style and not a proprietary license.
Hi, Bill! I just wanted to say I really LOVE your company. And that Bob thing that Melinda did, it's SO great!
Anyway, I was thinking, since you're obviously so into freedom, can I put some of your Word code into this StarOffice project I'm working on?
If the situation were the inconvenience of one man versus the lives of his entire community, then I will most certainly side with the community. But if comes down to the life of one man versus the inconvenience of the community, well then, screw the community!
But the situation in the Free Software Movement(tm) is at neither of these extremes. It comes down to the minor inconvenience of the community getting their noses out of joint, and the major inconvenience of the individual developer having to reinvent the wheel.
But the code belongs to the author, and it is up to the author to decide how it will be distributed. If he decides that the "common good" of his particular community is paramount, then the GPL may be his best choice. But it has nothing to do with freedom. Freedom is for everyone, even for those you don't like.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Information doesn't suffer from inherent scarcity the way material goods do, so the common good pretty much consists of freedom to fully use it.
But the GPL is not about the freedom to fully use the software. There is no scarcity of information, remember? If Microsoft comes along and "steals" Linux, guess what? Your copy of Linux is still there! Untouched! There is nothing Microsoft can do to an illegal copy of Linux that could impact you or your community in any way (other than insult your fragile sensibilities). Apple "stole" FreeBSD and created Mac OS X out of it. Guess what? FreeBSD is still there! Unchanged! No one using FreeBSD at the time had their "freedom" diminished in any way.
Copyleft is irrelevant if information is not scarce. If my downloading of MP3s does not harm the musician, then why should my distribution of a GPL binary without source harm the developer?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
A proprietary Microsoft variant of GNU/Linux would interfere with their customers' ability to interoperate with us...
...their only alternative to being at Microsoft's mercy would be the painful and expensive process of completely abandoning the system.
Interoperability has nothing to do with software licensing. Microsoft could make a variant of LiGnuX, release it under the GPL, and still have it be incompatible with other linuces and unices. Or to put it another way, MS Word is not incompatible with Abiword because it is released under a EULA, but because it uses a different file format. It may be easier to reverse engineer the format if the source code were available, but the format differences would still be there. And I'll bet you last year's AbiSource profits that AbiSource would still be tracking every release of a GPLd MSWord to see what new incompatibilities were unleashed upon the world.
How is the process of completely abandoning a Windows system any less painful and expensive then abandoning a Linux, GNU or BSD system?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
It doesn't attempt to infect code it touches. It's goal is to form a club of Free Software users and Developers.
Precisely! GPLd software is not written for everyone, only a certain select few. They'll let you use it, but if you want to touch, you'll find that their definition of "freedom" only applies to club members.
The FSF and many GPL supporters are communitarians. They believe that the community is more important than the individual. They don't want individuals to own software, they want the community (or the FSF) to own the software, which is why it's still copyrighted and owned. They don't like the BSD and MIT licenses because users from outside the community are not required to play by community rules.
Just as the politicians in the material word holds the wants of the community in higher regard than the freedom of the individual, the Free Software Movement(tm) holds the the community's want to control the software distribution in higher regard than the freedom of the individual developer.
RMS has long looked for a less misunderstood term than "Free Software". How about "Community Software". It fits their meaning and it's easy to understand. And as a benefit, it de-emphasizes "freedom", which in the FSF rhetoric, has always played second fiddle to the "common good".
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
There are two concepts of freedom. You are thinking of freedom only in its negative sense (freedom from interference) whereas there is also positive freedom (freedom to acheive your goals).
All societies have rules which restrict behaviour. These rules may benefit your freedom in the positive sense. The simplest example I can think of is the law that you must drive on the left hand side of the road. This, and other traffic regulations, keep traffic flowing as smoothly as possible and greatly assist you in your goal of getting from A to B. This is why you never hear people complaining "But I want to be able to do what I want with my car!"
Of course, positive freedom doesn't make any sense without some societal context. I think when people criticise the GPL they miss the social dimension of the free software movement. RMS's idea was to create a community of people who would cooperate with each other. The GPL is just a statement of the rules you must obey in order to be part of that community. And of course, you always have a choice about whether you want to take part or not, unlike the society you were born into.
It was never GPL. The license hasn't been changed.
The license permitted 'use for any purpose in source or binary form'. It did not permit modification. This was simply a misunderstanding.
In light of recent clarifications by the author on this, people are getting antsy because they just assumed they could do whatever they felt like with his code.
Though.. I suppose one could argue that 'using the source for any purpose' would include making new code with it.
He has spent countless hours working on code, and now everyone is acting all pissed at him because THEY misunderstood the license. Knowing how the /. crowd tends to work, I wouldn't be surprised if he's getting TONS of harassing flames from uninformed idiots.
Folks, it is not for us to tell the author of ANY code what he can or cannot do with it.
Bwa ha ha ha. With the GPL you can view the code, use the code any way you want, and change it in any way you want, and redistribute it freely.
And that's "more demanding" than, say, Microsoft's license, where you can't view the code, can't use the source code, can't even use the binaries in some ways(!), can't change the code, and can't redistribute it freely?
Or if you are part of the "shared source" club, maybe you can view the code. But you still can't change it, use it, or redistribute it.
Or maybe you sit down and negotiate a source code license from some software company with a proprietary license. (That might take a month or two.) Now you can view it and use it and maybe change it, in some limited and restricted ways. You will have to pay, of course... probably a lot.
"But", you cry, "Now I have the freedom to keep my changes secret!" Well guess what, you can do exactly the same thing with GPL'ed code: Go negotiate a secondary, non-GPL source code license with the developer! Exactly like you would with a closed-source license!
"But", you whine, "The developers of the GPL'ed code don't want to do that, or they want a lot of money for an alternate license!"
Well boo hoo! If you don't like the terms, write it yourself! Or go talk to Microsoft and see what cheap, easy, friendly terms they give you for source code access. Don't be ridiculous. "More demanding than any closed source license". Yeah right!
>I'm all for the creators of software controling >what happens with it but the GPL rubs me the >wrong way when it seeks to control other works >that the original author did not create.
That is a self-contradictory statement. Creators of software who release it under the GPL are simply exerting some minimal control over what happens to it, which you say you have no problem with. Now, since the GPL does not seek to control _independent_ works that have nothing to do with the GPL'ed code, when you say that "the GPL rubs you the wrong way" you must not like that it has some minimal control over changes to the original work by the author. The only control is that the modified source must continue to be available. But that's the WHOLE POINT of the GPL, and that's why the authors released it that way... which you say you don't have a problem with. So which is it?
To summarize: Everyone who complains about the GPL either:
1. Does not understand it, or,
2. Wants to leech from the Free Software community by taking and not giving.
I have yet to see a counterexample.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
djb's license doesn't prevent redistribution.. you just have to distribute it the way djb wants it.. modifications to the source have to be distributed as patches and any binary distributions must have the same file structures/placements as djb's version. He doesn't prevent distribution, just limits it. Whether that's good is debatable, I guess...
Correct, the GPL does impose a restriction. That restriction is that you may not impose that any restrictions upon code based on that code.
What the GPL does not do is impose *any* restrictions on the users, only on someone wanting to make a derivative work. As that is something that is not allowed in the case of a regular copyrighted, program, this isn't much of a restriction. Indeed, the GPL offers the right to do many things you would otherwise be unable to do.
This is why most GPL supporters don't see the GPL as being restrictive, they see it as granting many freedoms. Perhaps other licenses (BSDL) offer more rights, but there's no such things as 'the most' rights... I could write a license where you also gain the right to marry my sisten, this doesn't suddenly mean that the BSDL is restrictive because it doesn't likewise offer this right.
So, the GPL places restrictions on the behavious of a licensee, but because licensing is optional, not required for users, and grants many rights, I think it's pretty unfair to call it restrictive in any way.
The only demand the GPL places on a developer is that they don't restrict the use of their source code/application any further than you have restricted the use of yours.
It's completely voluntary. If you don't use GPLed code, you don't need to GPL your application.
If the best libraries out are under GPL, that's an incentive to use them, but nothing prevents your writing your own libraries. If *all* the libraries out are GPLed, you can still write your own, just like the original authors did.
The GPL can never make it harder to write proprietary software than it already is, well, than it is to do without ripping off someone else's code. But if you're a good programmer you shouldn't need to do that.
If having a closed source application is so important to you, write it yourself.
My company uses a lot of free software in the things we do, mainly modifying GNU tools to handle slight kernel extensions, etc.
We have used BSDL code in the past and our lawyers told us to not release the source code for our modifications. We might be held liable for it in some way, or we might discover some tiny use for it later that we couldn't properly exploit if it was public.
But when we started using GPL they didn't mind. They realized that following the GPL is a cost of business and that it's well worth it for us to not have to rewrite all that software ourselves.
If there's no requirement for our company to release source, the tiny possibility of future lawsuits keep us from going there (because there's no benefit to offset that risk). As soon as there's the smallest requirement for us to release source, we do. Lawyers require a cost/benefit analysis and won't do *anything* without something on the benefit side.
So in my experience, the GPL is a good thing. It got a lot more source released that the BSDL would have.
The BSDL is good for things you want people to incorporate into everything, like TCP/IP, or JPEG support, but for most other things, the GPL gets my vote.
which part didn't you get?
Copyright law says that WHICHEVER rights not specified, are the authors, and his to decide.
Just like you dont have to explicitly list the do's an don't"s of a published work, all you have to say is that it's copyrighted by such and such.
(Troll or serious? Er, stuff it, I'm biting)
That final paragraph rather jumped out.
I'm _not_ an open source zealot. I'm happy that closed source can have its place and people can have their reasons for choosing it.
But, I've long thought that any open source projects I released would be, unquestionably, BSD licensed.
I know and understand why people like the GPL. I can see the point, I merely disagree with it.
Write and release code under BSD and you have a library of code that your fellow coders can, basically, do what they want with. Don't have to worry about the law or the politics of it, they can just grab the source and work with it. This is a fantastic attitidue which I applaud from the rooftops.
Yes, if the someone wants to they can take this code and release a subsequent version under a restricted license. Know what? I don't care. The original is there and free for everyone to use. Can't put that genie back in that bottle.
There was a lovely comment I saw years ago. I forget the author... To paraphrase, "A good coder writes good code. A great coder borrows and adapts good code." BSD makes this truly, universally possible and I applaud it.
When and where I release code under an open license, I have every intention of placing every last chunk under a BSD-style license with a real, evangelistic zeal.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
comp29.tgz is an optional part of the OpenBSD OS, so you don't have to have it to run OpenBSD. And none of the code generated by GCC would be covered by the GPL either.
... you should know better Brett.
IPF however, was in the kernel, and now (retroactively) has a far more restrictive license than GCC does.
So stop spreading FUD
next week.
(But let me clarify....I am not a monger, i am not uber - i'm just the only guy that knows enough unix here to be the one who's job it is to set things up.
I'm as geek as you get here, so please don't shoot me down if i use incorrect terminology or say something stupid... because i know a lot of people like me who are sysadmins not by choice.. and have not done it for years...
i am the result of people like you who say that using free software is better - so *please* bear with me as i try to understand this so i don't fuck it up and have everyone say "Damnit, someone install Windows on it and just pirate some software")
2.9's biggest feature is its improved filesystem speed... which, i guess, isn't that big of a deal if i'm only setting up a firewall..
except that i was also going to set it up as a backup mail server and VPN server as well.
and now, if i go to install under 2.9, i'm fucked because all my previous ipf settings files will be worthless if i don't do a 2.8 install..
So - wtf do i do? Do i stick with 2.8 and not worry about it - or do i go with 2.9?
And - as a point of clarification - is ipf taken out of 2.9? I mean, if the CD's are available... Friday.. then how the hell could they not have ipf on them? This all went to shit - not that long ago.. and apparently after the CD's were burned. SO - will the 2.9 CD ship with it or not.. cause i can't sodding tell.
damnit.. am i going to have to install a Mac with IPNetRouter or some Windowz box with Norton Firewall? (ha ha only serious)
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
However, if someone has already written a fair chunk of what you want to do under the GPL, and you want to use that code, as it is the best code for the job, you MUST release your program under the GPL, as well. Sure, you COULD write your own code, but that just defeats the purpose of opensource and code sharing in the first place.
Ok, you're right. Tough luck. If Microsoft had already written the same code, you would still have to rewrite it. By this definition, closed source is viral. Obviously that's absurd.
The BSD license isn't "better" or "worse" then the GPL. They each have different, specific advantages. Some authors prefer one, other prefer the other, still others choose the license based on the project. Even closed source has it's advantages, though I personally feel that those advantages are outweighed by it's disadvantages for most types of programs. Regardless, use the license that you like & don't illegally use code that you don't have the rights to. It ain't that tough.
You almost have it! In many cases, the GPL does "infect any program written on top of it". Of course you still must specifically choose to build your code on top of the GPL'd code, so calling it viral is flawed. I could almost buy calling it "addictive", though. After all, unlike a virus, an addict CHOSE his course of action. But of course, for the FUD monger, addictive doesn't sound as bad, so it clearly won't work for your purposes.
Nobody that is just the price for using GPL software. Anything with a price cannot be considered free.
Wrong. That is the price of redistributing an application based existing code that has been released under the GPL. That's a pretty specific set of circumstances. You must a) develop code, b) redistribute said code, and c) said code must be based on code that was GPL'd. Unless all three conditions are met, no violation has occurred. Since you must specifically choose to use the GPL'd code, calling it "viral" is FUD at it's worst & most obvious.
I don't consider the GPL freedom, and it saddens me that so many people are misled by it. As mentioned on some previous topics, it really is a virus, trying to infect code it touches with its own license, and
I think that hurts the software community.
what a horrid slur. The GPL is deliberately applied to any software licensed under it by the authors. That's their choice. No infection occurs. If you don't want that for your software, choose a different license!
If there were not an implicit assumption that the source would be modified, why the term original author and not simply author?
You imply that the authors of the original work should not be recognized. Remember that the recognition they ask is exactly this: if you create something special thanks to their code, you give it back.
And if this commercial company is not willing to recognize the work of the original authors, the company is still free to clone your favorite GNU-based app features as free a form as they see fit.
Seems that someone figured out that OpenBSD is making the play for the lucrative baby mulching business and they're using ipf as a roadblock to these ends...
from Darren Reed:
IPFilter no longer available...
What's the alternative? Holding the wants of a single person in higher regard than those of the community he lives in. Sounds like a fair trade to me.
So that leaves the question "Did someone contributed any significant code for this program under a BSD license that could be brought back in the creation of a 'free' version of ipfw?" Since I don't track this program I was just wondering if that was the case.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Well, looking at it from a pure technical point of view, it should be mostly a matter of "let's do a shell script that reads firewall rules from a configuration file", which every admin put in charge of configure the firewall should be able to do (IMHO).
On the human side I agree that life could be somewhat easier without the "firewall configuration scripts du jour" that the previous admin (or the previous guy who played as an admin on TV) left somewhere on the system and now it's your job to locate/check/mantain...
Yes, possibly...
The message you refer to, and the whole mess in general, give me the impression Darren is a bit...touchy.
...or putting both Reed and de Raadt on the same planet is bound to cause trouble :-)
(no flames please, just my personal impressions)
Same here.
-- Colin
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/current-users/2001/05 /30/0004.html
Oh, and Reed's message above is some kind of Theo de Raadt-oriented flamebait :-)
-- Colin
I'm not taking sides here, I'm just saying that technically the BSD license seems freer (in a dictionary sense) than the GPL only because it allows you to do whatever you want.
Correct, GPL is less free than BSD.
The GPL, IIRC (I'm not a license guru), mandates that if you use GPL code in your code you must GPL the entire thing (if this is not what the GPL says, then I am sorry for making the incorrect assumption).
You've got it pretty much right.
This is forced freedom.
Nonsense. You could call it "negotiated freedom" if you like but there is no element of force involved. If you want to use GPLd code in your program then in return you must licence your program under the GPL. If you don't want to use the GPL then you can't use the code. That's it. No force, no compulsion.
Which is better is all a matter of personal preference, but it appears to me that his point is valid in that the GPL places more demands on those who wish to use GPL code than the BSD license puts on those who wish to use BSD code.
That's correct, GPL makes more demands than BSD and is less free. Whether this cost in freedom is worth the gain is a matter of judgment. If you can just get over this idea that "force" is involved, you've got it.
Socialism, by definition, means that the means of production and distribution are owned collectively, generally by the state.
It's government, by definition, which means that the state dictates what activities will and will not be permitted. Some governments place fewer restrictions than others.
I suppose that will do for this discussion; Socialism means more than that, but what you stated is, I think, most appropriate for the current topic.
There are, of course, consequences of ownership of industry by the state which go beyond the mere detail of who holds the deed. By 'definition,' though, I mean something you can use to test any given system of government for 'socialism-ness.'
You make it sound like the main difference between one form of government and another is the number of restrictions.
It wasn't supposed to sound that way. I was aiming for the idea that the most important common trait of all governments is that of setting restrictions--despite the fact that there is a wide variation in those restrictions. What sort of government could there be which placed no restrictions of any kind--not even "you must abide by the terms of a contract into which you enter" or "you must not kill a human without provocation"? Such a situation would be precisely a *lack* of government.
I think that would be a superficial analysis of government, analogious to claiming that the main difference between one math problem and another is the value of the results.
It would be incomplete because it would look only at the restrictions placed by the government, and not the effects those restrictions would have. However, I wasn't intending to claim that such an analysis would be complete. I do believe that it is useful for the purposes of classifying governments (as opposed to evaluating them for desirability).
The reason or means by which one arrives at a certain result usually is much more important than the actual result one gets.
That depends *greatly* on the setting of the problem. If you're attempting to discern whether a student is learning material correctly, then it's more valuable to see him get the wrong answer but most of the steps right than it is to have him give you the correct answer he copied from a classmate. If you're engineering a skyscraper that I'm going to work in, though, I don't care how you get your answers so long as they're correct!!
From here on out I'm mostly playing devil's advocate, as I would not particularly be in favor of converting the county I happen to live in (the US) to full-on socialism.
A problem with socialism is that it decreases the efficiency of the accumulation of wealth.
Why is maximizing the overall efficiency of wealth accumulation an important goal?
The collective acts as a drain on those creating the wealth, distributing the wealth to everyone, whether the others created similar wealth or not.
If efficiency is to be the primary goal then it should be noted that wealth redistribution can, in some circumstances, increase the total efficiency of a system: After a certain point, the marginal utility of a dollar decreases; at the low end, a dollar can mean the difference between life and death, then the difference between comfortable living conditions and meager living conditions, then eventually being really really rich and only being really rich. Transfering a dollar from someone with a lot of them to someone with not many can increase overall efficiency because it deprives the rich person of less marginal value than is gained by the poor person. I don't see this in and of itself as justification for making such a transfer, but if the goal is effiency as an end unto itself, it can be a viable strategy if pursued correctly. Most governments at least attempt to temper efficiency with justice. The trouble is agreeing on what constitutes justice.
Everyone is reduced (to some degree) towards the same value.
Well, if that were strictly speaking true, there'd be nobody advocating socialism. Some people, those who receive more than they put out, are raised toward that value. Even if the aggregate efficiency is decreased, some individuals will be better off. It's possible for those who will be better off to vastly outnumber those who won't. Then, the minority go off to star in an Ayn Rand novel or something.
A reason this is a bad thing is that the controllers of the collective cannot possibly have or test all the possible good ideas for the use of wealth; without the accumulation of wealth, it would be impossible for most major innovations to be developed. The only entity accumulating wealth is the collective, which, as I indicated, cannot be as diversified as a capitalistic system. Diversification can be a very good thing.
If the controllers of the collective cannot test all possible good ideas, how possibly could any individual? If the answer is that there are more individuals (or at least, more individuals posessing the capital to implement the ideas), then the socialist could rebut that the solution would be to replace a single socialist government with a series of smaller, decentralized ones.
I'm getting very tired, so I'll leave you with a question. It's intentionally polarized for effect, and I'm not suggesting that you would pick one or the other choice.
"To the extent that they conflict as goals, is the maximally efficient accumulation of wealth more important than providing free food to people who are starving because they are otherwise unable to obtain it and will die as a result?" One example conflict would be if it were to be cheaper to just dispose of the dead bodies than to these people food.
Property is one manifestation of a freedom (the freedom to own property), so control of someone's property is control of their freedom to control that property.
You are not allowed, as a citizen, to own a nuclear warhead. While this is a control an a restriction on your property rights (preventing you from gaining property rights in such a thing) it is not control of all your freedoms.
I wasn't suggesting that the fact that you were accumulating the wealth was causing the people to starve, but societies everywhere through history seem to have had an underclass of starving people. Personally, I see preventing a starving person from dying as much more concrete a goal than ensuring that the accumulation of wealth is maximally "efficient" in some unspecified sense.
The intent of the question was to see whether you believe there are circumstances in which an economic inefficiency might be socially justifiable.
I don't know about you, but for me the primary use of the "source form" would be to modify it, and since that use has not been explicitly forbidden, then modifications should be OK.
This seems like a nice opportunity to add iptables to *BSD. Iptables is the linux version of ipf. Some people claim that iptables is superior (or at least more flexible and easier to understand) to ipf ....
Actually, I find it much more likely OpenBSD will modify ipfw from the other *BSDs. ipf is an optional replacement in the other two BSDs, and Darren has no problem with their distributions since no modifications were made by the Free/NetBSD teams to his code.
As well, there's the GPL issue...I'd imagine Theo might have something (ok, a helluva lot:) to say about that.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
And OpenBSD users are left without any firewalling solution.
Oh come now, do you really think the OpenBSD team would release a new version without firewalling, a necessary option in pretty much all free Unices? It's just as you said; chances are, a replacement will be written or adapted within days.
My money's on ipfw dropping in within days, unless there are license issues there. As far as I know, ipfw is BSD-licensed, so there shouldn't be any issues).
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
I'm not sure urination is covered in either license. In fact, I'm positive use of software isn't covered by the GPL, and I don't see the BSD license going off into Bizarro World and restricting you from pissing on the software.
So, yes, if I were GPLd or BSDd, you could pee on me.
However, I'm PDPL'd - same as the GPL, except no peeing, pooping, puking, or busting a nut on me. Sorry there, chap.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
So Darren Reed gets his wish, and the OpenBSD people will no longer be modifying his code without his permission.
The OpenBSD people get their wish, and all the code they distribute is completely free of any restrictions on use, modification, etc.
Two lessons to be drawn from this mess:
1) Carefully read the licenses on code you intend to use before you actually use it, and feel free to get any questions you have cleared up. The worst that can happen (in theory...) is that the lawyers give you an answer you don't like, and you can't convince the developer to agree to otherwise. Which leads to the second lesson:
2) Don't use code you can't/won't adhere to the licensing restrictions for. Free/OSS licenses are rooted in copyright law, using it in an unorthodox fashion to allow instead of restrict freedom, but still relying on its existence for their own. If you don't like the GPL, don't use GPL code. If you can't use Windows without being able to see the source and fix patches on your own, and you don't have a whack of cash for the right/the stomach to sign the NDA, don't use Windows code.
If the developer's being a bit of a jerk about an ambiguous part of his/her license, screw 'em, switch to a freer/Freer alternative. There's tons of GPL'd and BSD'd code out there for the studying and using; why waste your time trying to pry a privilege from someone who doesn't want to give you that privilege?
I know, I know - easier said than done, and I'm sure you have several objections and points to bring up. Point being, it could have been much, much nastier. As it is, Reed's code won't benefit from the advantages of open source/free software as quickly as the BSD/GPL alternatives will, but if that's the way he wants it, fine by him. That's his right, just as it's Theo's right to tell him to shove off and take his code with him.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
just a thought.
tagline
... hi bingo
We all play in Theo's yard cause he has the best fence and the coolest toys and we all get to take the fence and the toys home. Plus we like throwing penguin stuffies to Farmer.
Forced infectious freedom isn't freedom...I really wish more people saw the GPL as having the hampering effect that it does; let it truly be free; let the market forces and the open source cloners and innovators determine how the code evolves and branches.
:)
Well put. GPL = the socialist, we'll tell you what freedom means license. BSD = the libertarian, truly free license. All the BSD folks want is "credit where credit is due" and "don't sue us"
"Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided that this notice is preserved and due credit is given to the original author and the contributors."
In the "new" (or "clarified" whatever) license, the phrase "Yes, that means you need permission from the authors..." was tacked on. I don't see that as a clarification at all. Neither providing notice and giving due credit, imply that you have to actually get explicit consent from the authors. It's not a clarification, it's some extra limitations added on for the heck of it. Of course I don't know the whole history, etc., and am just deducing this from the visual diff of the two licenses, but still it seems rather specious.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
The Open Baby will recode IPF from scratch. Just give her some time.
{{.sig}}
*sigh*
How can a license "try" to "infect" things? Does it have a mind of its own?
and "Forced infectious freedom?" who is forcing you to release your code under the GPL exactly?
I agree with you about the market forces choosing, but thats exactly what IS happening NOW! and they seem to favour the GPL over *BSD style licences so far judging by the rate of code released under each.
Now that I have disagreed with most of what you said, I must add that I personally prefer BSD style licenses for my own code but I am respectful of the choice of others (and yes it was a choice, dont give me any more of that "viral" crap) to use the GNU GPL, often because of their distrust of many large corporations who might "steal" their code otherwise.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
This seems like a nice opportunity to add iptables to *BSD. Iptables is the linux version of ipf. Some people claim that iptables is superior (or at least more flexible and easier to understand) to ipf ....
The main site for iptables is: http://netfilter.kernelnotes.org but that site has been down for some time now, use http://www.samba.org/netfilter/ instead.
RFC1925
"I don't like the GPL because it tells me what I can and can't do with code I wrote, not just code I found."
Wrong. You own the rights to any code you wrote, and can release it again under any license you choose..
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Correct. If you agree to another licence by distributing your code as part of a project with the other licence, your work is in that distribution under the other licence.
However, your work in patch form or whatever, could also be distributed seperatly at your discression under any old license you choose.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
I think you missed a point...
The license (as "clarified") bans modified versions.
The version used with OpenBSD is modified.
So they had to take it down.
Now you have two choices:
Download and install a copy of the modified version. This violates the license.
Download and install a copy of the UNmodified version. This means you don't have the OpenBSD modifications.
Now since the whole POINT of OpenBSD is that it has been heavily vetted for security bugs, do you REALLY want to install the UNmodified version? Of the FIREWALL code?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Free and Net are different as the do not ship with ipf in the kernel and base install. IPF exists in packages on those two platforms. IPFW is probably the heir apparent. Although openipf.org has been registered, it appears all versions of IPF are affected by the license "clarification", so not direct parallel to OpenSSH can be drawn
ostiguy
Nice troll. Read www.openbsd.org/goals , specifically the 2nd bullet point, which lays out the project's goals on software freedom. Because OpenBSD seeks to keep firewalling in the default system, they have to migrate away from IPF.
ostiguy
No, AFAIK, ipf is out of current, but stioll in 2.9. (I think I read this on Bugtraq, but since I cleaned up my mailbox just about 30 minutes back, I can't do a local grep.). Sorry about that.
Devdas Bhagat
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
And this post is offtopic how? if you use OpenBSD for a firewall, chances are you're using IPF. removing IPF from openBSD is a big deal - the natural first question for users to ask is, "oh, ok, so like, what the hell am I supposed to use now...".
Think before you moderate.
I write trance music.
Just because it not included in the distibution does not mean you cant use it. You can still download the package from http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~avalon/ and compile it yourself.
You are so wrong about djbdns... Read Dan's Frequently asked questions from distributors. The only real restriction is on the distribution of binary packages: They must operate the same as a user would get downloading and compiling the source themselves. You can copy and hack the source as much as you like. In fact, there is no license because Dan doesn't think you need one; read the links on the page.
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You can copy and hack the source as much as you like.
No, you can't. The distribution terms (aka: LICENSE) specifically state that you can not.
The distribution terms specifically state this:
In any case, I specifically said, "The only real restriction is on the distribution of binary packages: They must operate the same as a user would get downloading and compiling the source themselves." Yes, that means you can't distribute modified binaries. So what if you patch qmail to use localtime instead of UTC? Are you distributing binaries? Unlikely. (About as likely as finding a buffer overflow in any DJB code, and that approaches zero.)
You can copy and hack the source as much as you want. What you can't distribute the results outside of your own organization and call it djbdns. Lots of people distribute patches for various odd things, especially for qmail. And there are also qmail RPMs and djbdns RPMs. Maybe you should be reading FAQs...
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Folks, it is not for us to tell the author of ANY code what he can or cannot do with it
Yes, but it is alleged that DR has repeatedly referred to IPF as Open Source, which is plainly false. Combined with the fact that `you must credit the authors when distributing the work does not logically `clarify' to `you may not distribute modified versions of this work without my permissions, two scenarios are possible:
1. The license was changed recently
2. The license was always the way it was and the author was not telling the truth about what the license meant and not bothering to correct false assumptions.
The details escape me now, however. Anybody remember?
Darren Reed is Happy that OpenBSD is no longer using his ipf code?
Uhm, isn't the main purpose of OpenBSD to audit the code base to ensure maximum security? If he is happy they are no longer pouring over his code and checking for possible bugs and/or exploits, doesn't that make anyone here just a wee bit uncomfortable?
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
Are you guys affiliated with http://www.gnu.org/software/shotyourfavoriteoriell yanimal/safaree.html
Someone you trust is one of us.
We are desperately in need of developers to write replacement code for lpf over here at http://sourceforge.net/projects/babymunchingmachin e/home.html
Someone you trust is one of us.
You can't blame Reed for this, even though he may have duped the BSD community into relying on his code. You have to blame the BSD community for not being rigorous in figuring out what IPF's license grants as rights and what it doesn't.
For the cynic, Reed might have played an exceelent game of spike the punch. The guy attatches a seemingly innocent, personalized quasi-license on his Ipf Code, never formally putting it under BSD license. Everyone assumes that because he offered the code it is under BSD license. Woops. Little do they know that they now have no rights to use this code in any way that Reed does not like. Reed can go to Sun and extract millions of dollars for compensatory damage, and future rights to proprietize his code. BSD just got screwed.
You are sadly mistaken
It doesn't attempt to infect code it touches. It's goal is to form a club of Free Software users and Developers. It's not a malicious goal, although it could be harmful to proprietary software developers.
Nobody is forcing you to join the club. If you find it repulsive, make sure you aren't developing software against GPL'd programs, or make sure they are Lgpl'd. It's very simple.
Of course, if you are just an GNU basher, that's not saying very much for you personally. I can udnerstand your sentiment, but I dont think you can extrapolate sentiment to a generalized condemnation of a software license. Think hard about other people's freedoms to do whatever they damn well want to, including join a software club that furthers their interests.
Companies that use GPL software know very well what they are getting into. IBM has a literal army of lawyers analyzing every legal move the company makes. They dont consider the GPL a threat to their "intellectual property" if IBM follows a few guidelines about its use. And if they do use GPL software wisely they stand to benefit greatly. They are already wagering 1 billion dollars on GNU/Linux, a GPL'd Operating system, with the calculation that it will pay off in large measure.
Maybe you should reconsider the fallacies you've just propounded. They are obviously wrong and misleading.
Incorrect.
You don't have to agree to the GPL in order to use the product. If you have the source, you don't have to agree to the GPL in order to view it or modify it. Thus, you can modify or use any GPL-ed product to your heart's content. Go nuts.
However, you cannot distribute your modifications unless you agree to the GPL.
This is a subtle but important distinction that many people miss. You may still have a problem with the GPL, but it is incorrect to state that it prevents any use by dissenters.
Linux uses ipfilter too. I'm surprised this has been overlooked thusfar. The official ipfilter for Linux 2.4 site went down two days ago, along with documentation and the CVS archive. And yes, iptables is only the frontend to ipfilter in the kernel. iptables is not a firewall in itself.
How many times do we have to say it? If you don't want your code under the GPL, don't include code already under GPL. Write from scratch, use code under BSD-like or some other license that lets you do what you want to do. That's all you have to do. SIMPLE, eh? The AUTHOR of the code gets to choose the license. This "Forced infectious" stuff is malicious nonsense - only fools fall for this argument. No one forces anyone to include GPL'd code in their own code.
--
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
You're wrong. GPL is like a grapefruit, very juicy and red. BSD is more like Volfram, sporting a truly remarkable meltingpoint. Seriously, that has to be the lamest aphorism I've ever heard.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
This is a delicate situation where OpenBSD conceivably broke copyright law and sold CDs as a result.
:/
Wouldn't FreeBSD/NetBSD be in the same boat? Or is the deal that only distributing modified code was bad? I should know this myself, but I still don't know what to make of this license. Upon reading it, I would assume it == BSD, but obviously that is not what the author intented, so I'll just go ahead and ask.
However, until they have something done, there is no reason for them to back Theo.
Yeah, well, as someone else in the room with me just noted, if there's one thing *BSD is good at, it's infighting.
Did anyone else see "IPF" and immediately think "I pee freely"?
This is not a troll, just an honest question.
-----
Since the current (or previous) version was GPL'd aren't we licensed to take it and continue modifying it even though there is now a version that doesn't allow that?
there are 2 kinds of people. those who divide people into 2 kinds, and those who don't.
Some open source programmers don't mind if their code is used in closed-source products. Some do. I don't think the FSF would like it one bit if some company extended a GNU program without releasing the source, even if it was a significant value-add.
Personally, I prefer to use the LGPL. Most of my work is in libraries, and I want anyone to be able to use them in any project. However, I wouldn't want anyone to pull a Microsoft-style embrace-and-extend on me. The LGPL prevents that. And yes, I have considered switching to a BSD-like license from time to time, but that doesn't mean that I think everyone should.
If you don't like the licensing terms placed on a piece of code, don't use it. Write your own.
------
For the benefit of people who didn't read Monday's posts on this subject here is a link to the key post in that discussion.
Or you can cut out the middleman and go to Darren Reed's comment that that post links to.
http://scottish.politicaldiscussion.org
Whats up with Darren. I mean, is he trying to pull one of these Gracenote things? IPF is a wonderful product, and so is openbsd...so why the restrictive license? Why must Darren make it so hard for people to use his software.
http://www.freebsd.org
I knew you could use ipf to filter packets, but filtering nukes on Australia! goodness me!
--Brett Glass
"god - i hate people who are intollerant of intollerance. i just can't tollerate them."
dude - shut up.
-k
So what are we supposed to use now, harsh language???
The idiots on =deadly.org didn't help the situation. A bunch of whiny jerks got all obnoxious. Additionally, the mail bombing of personal attacks from slashdot/deadly was EXTREMELY counter productive.
This is a delicate situation where OpenBSD conceivably broke copyright law and sold CDs as a result.
Diplomacy was needed here, and all this reporting was counter productive. I love OpenBSD, but this was unfortunately Theo's doing. The version of IPFilter in OpenBSD was modified, and the author was never notified. While BSD and GPL licenses don't require notifying the author, common decency does. Unfortunately, an unspoken goal of OpenBSD is to have better software by keeping their changes kinda quiet. You could build a product off OpenBSD, but migrating OpenBSD's changes into FreeBSD is problematic. Given how much gets taken from FreeBSD, this is kinda obnoxious. Nobody really calls OpenBSD on this because it is a small userbase. We only run OpenBSD because the servers we run need very few applications, and the OS+Ports gives us that quickly without cruft. However, the political issues in OpenBSD are a little sad.
Net/Free will stay away from this pissing match with a 10-ft pole. They may hope for a Free (BSDL) filtering package to show up, but they won't get involved in Theo and Darren's pissing match. If OpenBSD gets one working (and likely will in the next 6 mo., OpenBSD's coders are as brilliant and competant as Theo is obnoxious...) FreeBSD and NetBSD may migrate to OpenIPF. However, until they have something done, there is no reason for them to back Theo.
Theo, good luck and happy coding. I wish you would pick up some diplomatic finesse, it would make your life easier. Either way, love the system and look forward to my OpenBSD 2.9 CD.
I believe that it is not unreasonable for a lay person to conclude that modification is implicitly permitted, since what is explicitly disallowed is a specific form of modification -- that of removing the notice.
Further, asking for "due credit" to be given suggests a general sort of modification to any redistribution, the wording itself up to the entity performing the modification, as long as it constitutes "due credit".
Now, a lawyer representing someone considering redistributing a modified copy of software under such a license would probably point out that such a thing is not clearly authorized, just as a lawyer representing the author would probably point out that the license is too ambiguous, needing clarification regarding modification.
Both lawyers would be right. I doubt the license was written by an experienced IP lawyer, and I also doubt the license was reviewed by one before the product was included into OpenBSD, though it would be interesting to know for sure.
(If leaving something out of the license was a 100% guaranteed way to withhold permission for it, whither all the stuff about no warrantees, for example?)
In the end, this is not a particularly big deal. To the extent anyone thinks it is, they ought to count their blessings that RMS and the FSF have IP lawyers write, as well as review, pertinent licenses, so nasty surprises are less likely for GNU.
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
> I pee on my software all the time. It seems to behave just like the toilet anyway.
;-)
So, I see that we have something in common--we've both installed the newest Win2k Service Pack.
C'mon, guys; it had to be said...
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
by The_Messenger
30 May 2001
Theo de Raadt revoked software developer John Smith's OpenBSD commit privileges earlier today, when Smith refused to let De Raadt play with his shiny yellow ball. Tensions between Smith and De Raadt have been running high after the 1999 "Hey! He broke my Lego castle!" incident, and today's ball-related disagreement was the final straw.
"We all know how Theo is about his toys," says fellow OpenBSD developer Chad Jones. "He's threatened to revoke my commit privileges on multiple occasions when I haven't let him borrow my Tinker Toys for the weekend."
Sources report that Jones' commit privileges were revoked shortly after he made this statement.
A second developer, commenting on the guarantee of anonymity, recounts today's fiasco. "John was sitting by the swing set, playing with his yellow ball, when Theo finished watching Mr Rogers and came outside. Upon sight of the ball, Theo immediately demanded that possession of the ball be until the afternoon. When John protested, Theo began rolling on the ground, crying, and beating his fists. John then muttered something about De Raadt being 'a big baby', and that was when John's commit privelges were taken away."
De Raadt is the lead developer for the OpenBSD project, which was created in 1998 after an unrelated temper tantrum caused him to steal the NetBSD source code and run home.
Mothers Outraged
Neighborhood mothers expressed open resentment of De Raadt and his "no good family" after today's blowup. "I don't want you playing with that Rat boy anymore," Jones' mother was reported to have told several developers. "He's so mean to all of you, I don't understand why you keep going over to his house. And he smells like he needs a bath."
De Raadt has not returned our calls regarding his personal hygeine.
--
--
I like to watch.
Look at IPFW!
There are many different versions of this packet filter out there. Most of them incompatible with each other and a few even break backwards compatibility.
Darren just doesn't want a dozen, different, incompatible versions of IPF floating around. By having the license the way he does it's guaranteed that there'll only be one version and he won't be asked to support other peoples changes to his code.
Considering that this is a major piece of security software it's a good idea that it's not liable to forks by sub-standard coders.
End dual-measurement, let's finish going metric!
http://gometric.us
However, if someone has already written a fair chunk of what you want to do under the GPL, and you want to use that code, as it is the best code for the job, you MUST release your program under the GPL, as well. Sure, you COULD write your own code, but that just defeats the purpose of opensource and code sharing in the first place. BSD, on the other hand, makes no such decisions. If I want to take some BSD'd code, and incorporate it into my GPL'd program, fine. If I want to keep it BSD, fine. If I want to invent my own license, fine. It doesn't matter to the BSDL. BSD gives future developers freedom. GPL infects the future developers' code with itself.
Who said it would be proprietary?
It could be BSD, or some other opensource license. Or, it could be something else entirely that we haven't thought up yet. It could be any number of things.
I wasn't arguing that one was better or worse. Heck, I can't say I'm a huge fan of OSS in the first place. My point was, however, that regardless of your OSS leanings, GPL IS viral, and does infect any program written on top of it. Whether this is good or bad is an issue for the developer to decide, not you or me.
Right, because I specified "commercial" software. I also very clearly said that I thought the GPL was a bad thing.
Oh, wait...no I didn't! Try reading the full comment, and not what you ASSUME the comment says. All I said is that adding anything to GPL code makes the added code also GPL. This is a fact.
One's opinion of the consequences of this fact may vary, but it doesn't change the fact that the GPL will infect any code added to other GPL'd code.
Hang on, so Theo et al. in all their line by line code auditing never noticed that IPF didn't fall under the BSD license??! How many times has OpenBSD code been audited?!? How long has IPF been a part of OpenBSD??!
Umm... qmail is distributed as a binary package with FreeBSD 4.2 > now.. He realized the benefits of it. Big deal if it isn't GPL'd... There's more to life than GPL.
UPS Sucks
Because of this control of the whole line of decendants the GPL limits innovation nearly as much as closed source. It prohibits any author that does not agree with the GPL from using the code in any way. This is all fine for your "club of likeminded developers" but if you are truely shooting for freedom and want to spur innovation you would use a truely free licence. Something that required that your name be included in the documentation of any derivative document and would require that your source be made available upon request. I'm all for the creators of software controling what happens with it but the GPL rubs me the wrong way when it seeks to control other works that the original author did not create.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
That given I do realize that its terribly idealistic and won't work because for the most part people suck. I just want people who spout the glories of freedom being portrayed by the GPL to realize they are restricting choice just as much as any other lisence or code distribution method (other than public domain).
If you want truely free (as in speech and not beer) code then you can't have a license but to be practical I feel its fair to require that your source (and no other) be available upon request and that your name be in the credits of derivative software. The GPL is about free (as in beer) software and it definitely seeks to become the license for all code created. Its not about freedom so people get over it.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
too bad timing... The release of OpenBSD 2.9 is 1st of June...
yeah, but maybe Theo will delay the shipping, and the mirrors still do not have the 2.9 branch AFAIK...
Click here: https://https.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/order
Or just use your existing 2.8 for your firewall and use 2.9 for everything else.
I thought i knew c, but i`m unsure what to make of ipf.c !
No I doubt FreeBSD and NetBSD will follow suit... it appears they are tring to work with Reed... even if they do follow suit they will wait for a safe (and free) ip filter they can take/develop before droping support for it.
IMHO Net/Free/Open should all band together and code up a ip filter that is acceptable and useable by all projects... there is probably to much poltical BS to get into the way of that though...
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Socialism by definition means that the state dictates what activities will and will not be permitted. Owning property is a freedom (for example, here in the U.S.A. I can freely own a gun as long as I'm not a convicted felon, etc., etc., etc.). Being forced to turn over property to the state, or being restricted from owning certain items is therefore a loss of freedom.
Now, extending this argument to it's extreme (why can't I own another person) will result in absurd arguments. The general consensus in the United States is (or at least it used to be) that you can have freedoms as long as it does not infringe on the freedoms of others. Nowadays it's "You can have freedoms as long as you don't have more freedom than anyone else", but that's another matter entirely.
Just my opinion, and I don't mean this as flamebait. Please, if you want to respond to this or moderate me, take a couple of minutes to construct an argument and not just think of me as some kind of kook because I don't see things from your point of view.
Control of someones property is therefore control of someones freedoms. QED.
WRT to your question at the end of post #397. Why does the accumulation of wealth necessarily mean that others will be starving? I realize that you warned us that the question was polarizing, but why must it be so? There's plenty of gray area in there. Certainly, property rights (specifically the freedom to accumulate wealth), which is constitutionally guaranteed (U.S. specific!), are a more concrete ideal than some abstract, nebulous idea that because I'm accumulating wealth, I must be denying a starving person of money with which to buy food.
Again, just my opinion, I could be wrong.
The stock versions of IPF will not work with OpenBSD. They expect kernel modules to be installed with OpenBSD keeps it in userland.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
integration into baby mulching machines
LOL! Big, real, outloud deep belly laughs, like I haven't had for a while. Thank-you.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Shouldn't reply to my own posts, yadda yadda, but it wasn't a GPL, attempt made to 'clarify' license, blah I got too excited by the low post number
Special Relativity: The person in the other queue thinks yours is moving faster.
The GPL is not a licence that cares about the freedom of the source code. In fact its is more demanding than any closed source licence. It not only tries to control your use of the product that is licenced but any future product based on it.
That's bullshit, and you know it. Unlike any closed source license around, it doesn't limit your use of the program at all, either of the program or its derivatives. It only controls your distribution of the program. Given closed source licenses don't allow redistribution at all, redistribution under pretty damn reasonable conditions is FAR more free.
Because of this control of the whole line of decendants the GPL limits innovation nearly as much as closed source. It prohibits any author that does not agree with the GPL from using the code in any way. This is all fine for your "club of likeminded developers" but if you are truely shooting for freedom and want to spur innovation you would use a truely free licence.
Again, that's bull. It prevents a licensee who does not agree with the GPL from redistribution under a license other than the GPL. The author can do anything he likes. The licensee can also do anything he likes with the code, he just can't redistribute changes in a non-free form. How does this restrict innovation?
Something that required that your name be included in the documentation of any derivative document and would require that your source be made available upon request.
And the GPL doesn't even require the first one, just the second. That makes the GPL more free than your proposed license. So how does the GPL restrict innovation more than your proposed license would?
I'm all for the creators of software controling what happens with it but the GPL rubs me the wrong way when it seeks to control other works that the original author did not create.
It doesn't, and any claim that it does is pure rhetoric. The GPL controls what you can do with my work. If you are not using my code, you can do what you like. But if you ARE using my code, you have no right to expect me not to put conditions on it. If you don't like the conditions, stop whining and write it yourself.
--
There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
That is the point. If he had included GPL code, this wouldn't even be an issue, because he would be forced to open it up. But he can include all the BSD code he wants and the BSD community is screwed by their own license.
If you think IPF is cryptic and idiosyncratic, then you've got to be a moron. There can't be any other explanation.
IPF is the simplest and most powerful firewall I have ever seen or used, and I've used pretty much everything out there. Perhaps simple is an inaccurate word to use though; it is only simple if you know WTF you're doing, and what is actually happening as packets enter and leave interfaces.
sedawkgrep
Is that a salami in my pants or am I just happy to be me?
Someone correct me if I'm wrong:
When a copyright owner releases a work and grants a particular right to the public that the owner might normally reserve - such as right to distribute - you can't get that right back.
What I mean by this is, if you distibuted a work and explicitly allowed a specific right of use, you can't turn around and say "that wasn't what I meant". You can, legally, reserve the right on all future releases, for all the good it will do; but you can't sue someone for exercising a right you specifically allowed.
Furthermore, you can't claim that you "didn't understand". That way lies inability to enforce contracts.
It seems to me that if Reed wants to restrict his program, it's too late. I mean, at the very most, he can't restrict previous releases of ipf, since they were released contingent on the allowance of that right. Sure this could go to court and the judge could rule in favor of Reed, but my point is: isn't it really completely legal to continue to use ipf?
Those same publishers were also subsequently, and successfully, sued. All the authors had to do was show the court that the contract between themselves and the publishing companies did not specifically grant electronic distribution rights.
It doesn't matter what some lawyers think. Some lawyers think whatever their clients pay them to think. What matters is what the courts think.
"in reaction to the licensing change by Darren Reed, the author of ipf."
Get this through your heads: There was no licensing change. None. The terms of the license have not changed at all.
IPFilter was never under a BSD-style license. It never mentioned the right to modify. The way copyright works is that any right not explicitly granted is implicitly reserved. Thus since the right to modify is not explicitly granted, it is implicitly reserved (ie, denied).
Lots of people read the license and either saw the word "modify" where it didn't exist, or assumed that the right to "use" includes the right to "modify", which it in a legal sense it does not.
Because of this state of confusion and false assumption, Mr. Reed clarified his license by adding the statement, "Yes, this means that derivative or modified works are not permitted without the author's prior consent. "
The addition of this statement to the license in no way changed the terms of the license itself. Any previous version of the code bearing the unclarified license still implicitly denies granting the right to modify. Now any version of the code bearing the clarified license merely explicitly denies the right to modify. No real change there.
What so worrisome about the license now that people understand it is that there is no possibility of legally fixing the code in the case of Mr. Reed's refusal or inability to do so himself. Nor is there any possibility of creating a legal fork of the code since there is no point from which to legally fork it.
Yep. What shows is the last moderation. Modding a post that appears to be serious as 'Funny' would seem to be more of an insult that calling it a troll or whatnot.
---
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
It looks like you're right; I just went to the OpenBSD page, and it looks as if the announcement of the June 1 release date has been pulled. This particularly sucks because I just pre-ordered last night.
Sorry, I was wrong. The announcement is still there.
Personification. Just like information (or software) "wants" to be free.
Don't be such a ninny. Argue the point. I'm not taking sides here, I'm just saying that technically the BSD license seems freer (in a dictionary sense) than the GPL only because it allows you to do whatever you want. The GPL, IIRC (I'm not a license guru), mandates that if you use GPL code in your code you must GPL the entire thing (if this is not what the GPL says, then I am sorry for making the incorrect assumption). This is forced freedom. Which is better is all a matter of personal preference, but it appears to me that his point is valid in that the GPL places more demands on those who wish to use GPL code than the BSD license puts on those who wish to use BSD code.
Given a snippet a code (we'll call it foo.c), assume for the point of this example that it does what I need it to do, and I can't figure out any other way to do it. If foo.c is under the GPL, and if I want my program to work, I am legally obligated to make the rest of my program open source. If I work for a company that will not open source its work, then I lose. Too bad. If foo.c is under the BSD license, I can use it as long as I give credit where credit is due. Given this example, and withholding any value judgments ("The GPL is free because you are free to not work for that company"), it is quite clear that the GPL is more restrictive than the BSD license. Some people have a problem with that. Some people don't. Some people applaud the restriction. It doesn't change the fact that the GPL is not as free (as in freedom to do with it whatever you wish) as the BSD license, which was the original poster's point.
Someone made the analogy of (paraphrased) "Your freedom to swing your fist stops at the end of my nose." Well, the question applies here, too. Am I more free if you are not allowed to hit me, or am I more free if I'm allowed to hit you back? Personally, being physically non-violent, I prefer the former. That doesn't necessarily make it more free.
Well, wait just a second. Couldn't the GPL'd code be considered an attractive nuisance? Here's this code that does something you want to do. It's just sitting there. You can't help yourself. You have to go over and embrace it.
Next thing you know, you're infected by the GPL virus.
Seems to me, that's just how STDs work. You see a little hottie sitting on the corner, and you can't be bothered to slip on a condom (cleanroom software practices), and next thing you know, you're getting a shot for the clap or worse.
Not A Sig
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted... DOES NOT IMPLY... derivitive or modified works are not permitted without the author's prior consent.
In the U.S., the right to redistribute a copyrighted work is distinct from the right to create a derivative of that work. Further, they are rights reserved by the author by default. If Mr. Reed does not expressly grant permission to others to create derivative works, then only he has that right.
be twisted by the almighty dollar and such are the semantics of freedom
just in case you were wondering - its not like that everywhere... it dosnt have to be like that where you live either... ( i assume USA...)
GPL = the socialist, we'll tell you what freedom means license. BSD = the libertarian
Nice move. Anyone who dosnt know what socialism means will become alarmed when they here that. Socialism != Fascism. If you mean Fascism: Say it. Do not mis-apply Socialism when you dont know what the fuck you are talking about.
Socialism does not require oppression. Socialism can enable libertarian-style freedom. Capialism is more like Fascism than Socialism. Capitalism enables the few (those with the means of production) to dictate to those without. Communism, or shared ownership of the property, will apply the property based on the desires of the people - which employ democratic freedom to make its decisions.
Do not be confused by McCarthyism. Capitalism != Freedom && Communism != Fascism.
I must give you credit though - you sure know how to use those loaded/confused terms to get an ignorant crowd on your side...
I dont agree:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms
the 'use of source' permits me to modify. There is no purpose for source except to modify, outside of compiling. But 'redistribution in..binary forms' is already permitted. If you were permitted to use the source - but only compile - why not simply make the binaries available, the source is useless without the right to modify (think M$'s $hared $ource program)
The 'Redistribution' is also permitted. If use of source is permitted && modification is permitted - how can redistribution of modified source *NOT* be permitted?
All this aside, it is quite clear that the nature of the *BSD license allows people to take, modify, and redistribute *ANY WAY THEY PLEASE* code someone released as BSD. I Know he did not release this as BSD - but he should have known damn fucking well that if he were to be putting his code into a *BSD* project where 99% of the code is BSD, if his license was OPPOSED to the ideals there - he could/should/ought to have made it ABUNDANTLY clear. If the legaleese in his license was intended to mean what he asserts now, then he should have been *VERY* clear that this is what he meant - in the context of the rest of the project, the people he was dealing with and the level of attention paid to such issues Mr. Reed is really pushing his luck for people to accept the 'oh yeah, i also really meant this' crap he's pulling now.. if this is what he intended.. his license dosnt say it.
> How can a license "try" to "infect" things? Does
> it have a mind of its own?
I heard of things called "viruses" that don't have "minds", yet they "infect" things all the "time".
Same goes for DJB.
Just another reason to avoid non-OSD software whenever possible....
Duh. Copyright law takes away your ability to give away software that you didn't write-- unless it is very old software or the writer actively disclaims copyright. The GPL comes along and hands me some additional rights, if I agree to not deprive others of those additional rights in the process of exercising them myself. The GPL has taken nothing away, and in the process granted me the ability to do things that are normally illegal without added permission. There is no price for using GPL software. You must agree to the terms of the GPL to distribute GPL software-- if you want to call that a price, so be it. But arguing semantics is a bad way to make your point if you think developers shouldn't protect their work from being taken and used in proprietary derivatives to which they themselves may have no access. It's a bit like saying "It's not really free speech if I can't tell lies about public figures without being sued."
I do not have a signature
Have you seen the progress of the OpenSSL code after Eric and Tim left? Almost nothing. That's what Openipf will be like. OpenSSH was forked, Darren's license says you can't fork it, regardless of how many version you go back. So you start from square 1. Darren's been doing this for 8 years. I seriously doubt that without his effort, knowledge, and help, Openipf will resemble anything like ipfilter, and should take a few years...
I assume you have a control group for your very scientific assertion that the last 300 years of innovations were based on intellectual property alone.
I at least provide the anecdote of Salk- innovation without ip. Here's another- the legality of reverse engineering allowed the PC revolution to proceed through the creation of IBM clones. Had this been found to be illegal, I assert that slashdot would not exist and computers would still be tools that only corporate and academic scientists were allowed to see for the most part. I could go on, but I'll wait until you back up your inane assertion.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
And this somehow encourages innovation? Open information encourages innovation by providing the basis for future works based on the original.
Again, you are without any support for your assertion. You imply that we need ip laws for large capital investments. The problem is, such a large part of the money spent in those investments is just for dealing with the legalities of what's being invented, coupled with the fact that each competitor in the industry must reinvent the wheel to prevent being sued rather than catapult from accumulated open knowledge, there's less money for actual innovation than there would be if there were no intellectual property monopolies. In other words, intellectual property as currently envisioned creates inefficiencies in the market and huge barriers to entry that vastly overwhelm the monetary incentive for innovation supposedly offered by the patent/copyright systems. And don't even get me started on how lawyers regularly advise their clients *not* to keep up with the latest work in their fields for fear that they'll read something someone else figured out and it will make their IP claims invalid.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
In a truly free market (i.e., without the temporary monopolies granted by "intellectual property"), the GPL would be redundant because everyone would already have all the freedoms you describe. The GPL isn't a virus, it's a vaccine. It keeps the intellectual property market from destroying itself. Salk could have taken a patent out on the polio vaccine, but he said that "would be like patenting the sun". We don't have many people with that much character these days.
Forced infectious freedom isn't freedom.
What a lovely little rhetorical flourish you add with the phrase "infectious". How is this different from laws which coercively restrict your freedom? The old dictum "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose" applies here. The idea of enforced freedoms requires that a little liberty be given up so that more total liberty will be available for more people. The GPL is just an example of the democratic system at work.
Intellectual property law (rather than the GPL) is the root of the problem, creating artificial monopolies without achieving its stated purpose of fostering innovation. This is what clogs up the market, and the GPL is the most powerful weapon available to keep information and ideas available to the public rather than in the hands of faceless corporations.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Hopefully this will make all the coders think twice before they change the licence agreements on their software. Looks like that in 2 yrs or so, when somebody mentions ipf, everybody would associate it with OpenIPF, quite the same like ssh=OpenSSH.
This is the place where you write something that will make you seem like a complete idiot.
funny word... i'm not sure it exists, but I'm
not English either.
No, such license can not be revoked from forked
versions, and when you look at the cvs link
above you see that the one in 2.9 _is_ forked
because it includes OBSD patches.
You _can_ start with the original code and make
OpenIPF, but the OWNER of his code still will be
reed. BUT the owner of the modifications (which
might be added by reed's _old_ license, I dont know
whether BSD license also can) will be e.g. deraadt.
Just my 0.02 EUR
--
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
Well shit, guess I won't be updating my firewall from cvs. :)
Seriously though, this sucks. Big ones. Though it lacks a couple of features I'd like to see, all in all, ipf is pretty badass. I'll miss it. And even if Darren changes to a BSD license or GPL's it, chances are OpenBSD will never use it again. Theo can hold a grudge like that.
The question is, will FreeBSD and NetBSD follow suit?
That's a biggie. I guess I won't be building that OpenBSD firewall for a while then.
Woohoo, I just love a good old-fashioned smear campaign. Ad hominem attacks and name-calling, just like the old days, can't beat that.
You are sadly mistaken
Nobody is forcing you to close your source code or "non-free" source code. If you find it repulsive, make sure you are developing software that is GPL'd, or make sure they are Lgpl'd. It's very simple.
Of course, if you are just an closed source basher, that's not saying very much for you personally. I can understand your sentiment, but I don't think you can extrapolate sentiment to a generalized condemnation of a software license. Think hard about other people's freedoms to do whatever they damn well want to, including use a software license that furthers their interests.
Companies that use closed source software know very well what they are getting into. IBM has a literal army of lawyers analyzing every legal move the company makes. They dont consider the closed source a threat to their "freedom" if IBM follows a few guidelines about its use. And if they do use closed source software wisely they stand to benefit greatly. They already have wagered and continue to wager billion dollars on close source software, including several closed source operating systems, with the calculation that it will pay off greatly.
Maybe you should reconsider the fallacies you've just propounded. They are obviously wrong and misleading.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Almost. If you link GPL code with yours, it must be possible to distribute the whole under the GPL. This means that your code must be licensed in such a way that it can be relicensed under the GPL. If you want to put the portions of the code you wrote under the BSD licence (minus the advertising clause), then that meets this restriction, as do public domain, the Perl licence (dual GPL + Artistic) and several others.
This is quite an important distinction if you don't like the GPL but need to use a GPL library. It's also good for those of us who do like the GPL and want to use BSD-without-advertising-clause libraries.
Yes, I've found that verbal abuse helps a great deal in stopping those bad little packets...
#1: Start every day by picking on someone weaker than you.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
The point is not that he doesn't allow the OpenBSD guys to change the code. The point is that OpenBSD won't allow ipf to be a part of their distribution unless *anyone* can legally modify and use the code.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
FreeBSD already has ipfw, a native packet filter free of ipf's cryptic syntax and idiosyncrasies. ipf may have been included in the contrib tree, but using it has been an excercise in frustration and pointlessness for some time.
Oh, no. What have I done? What am I doing? What will I do?
Developing open source software with a license that doesnt give the freedoms like the BSD and GNU GPL license will only hurt the community. Simply because not many will want to use it. So instead of another developer wasting time doing the SAME THING over again under a license with freedom, he could be doing something truly innovative.
When will they learn!
Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste.
James Brents
he did nothing wrong, it's just ipf is now against the openbsd goals in that they make modifications to the codebase themselves and they want their users to do the same.
"I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "
no, you can use any BSD licensed software any way you want. there's no restrictions other than posting the BSD license somewhere in the software and even that, you don't have to do anymore (i think)
"I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "
he lives in canada.
"I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "
quoting theo: "Furthermore, we know of a number of companies using ipf with modification like us, who are now in the same situation, and we hope that some of them will work with us to fill this gap that now exists in OpenBSD (temporarily, we hope)."
So let's hope they'll find out a solution quickly. I think it's just a big misunderstanding: ipfilter creator wanted to be sure his product could not be modified too lightly to keep it strong, and openbsd people.. just reacted badly. I'm sure ipf creator will allow certain companies to modify it.. he's benefiting just like they do.
Calm down people, let's avoid pouring gas on flames this time.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
"Why waste effort developing a new packet filter? Just use ipf." I guess it's not wasted effort anymore. ;-)
Well, considering Todd Fries (an OpenBSD developer) registered OpenIPF.[com|net|org] a few days ago, my guess is that the OpenBSD team will take the last 'free' release of IPF and turn it into a project similar to OpenSSH (and how many people use OpenSSH now?). Very interesting.
---------------
this is retarded. my apologies to all who have to read this junk
Everyone here has heard of OpenSSH, right? I don't know why so many of you are gloating about OpenBSD's "misfortune" when OpenIPF will possibly be better than anything previously designed. I don't mean to sound like a troll, but the reactions posted here are disgusting.
ipfno modify reed removed by deraadt
yacc/test/ftp.y no modify UCB removed by deraadt
tcpwrappers no modify wietse fixed wietse & deraadt
cron/popen.c no modify UCB alternative by millert
md5(1) no modify RSA rewritten by millert
games/hunt/list.c no modify d leonard fixed by d leonard
login_fbtab no modify wietse fixed wietse & deraadt
rpc.pcnfsd may not sell sun fixed sun & deraadt
NRL code not on file NRL/craig metz fixed cmetz & deraadt
We have a whole bunch of others to fix. I have contacted the authors of the other packages. I am optimistic that we can get most of these issues worked out. The ones which have particularily large problems:
the multicast tools
pppd
ppp
tcpdump
There isn't much like the scent of a fresh harddisk
Imagine I patch the ipf code to open up a door... I then distribute (say) binaries of my 'ipf' package... who gets the bad press? Darren. Obviously not fair.
So use it, don't use it... it's just software - not like the world will cease spinning because of a license change!
--
The only thing worse than a programmer with a screwdriver is a user with an idea!
"The version of IPFilter in OpenBSD was modified, and the author was never notified. "
Which, according to the license before it was clarified (read changed) was an acceptable practice. There's nothing in the original license about modifying it without Reed's permission. If he didn't want people modifying the source and distributing the code, he should have said so originally. Instead, the license reads:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided that this notice is preserved and due credit is given to the original author and the contributors.
Dinivin
So how are we supposed to know what redistribution and use does include? Based on what you've said, using it for ipfiltering could be illegal as well since he doesn't specifically state that's what it can be used for, now does he?
Dinivin
If modification wasn't OK with Darren, why specifically state:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided that this notice is preserved and due credit is given to the original author and the contributors.
If he never intended modification to be OK then there's no need for the disclaimer since removal of the disclaimer would qualify as modification.
Dinivin
I have noticed in the last few days many posts have gotten an overall funny rating. Even when it is obvious the post isn't funny.
Like the above post is rated
Insightful=3, Informative=1, Funny=1, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=7
Funny is only one out of the 7 mods. It get 3 insightful mods. Yet it gets an overall funny,
It seems slashdot just gives an overall rating to the last mod a post recieved.
Guess someone figured this out and is having some fun.
I'm unfamiliar with ipf specifically, but the GPL, modified BSD licenses and most other open source licenses cannot be revoked. So why does a change in license mean the software must be removed? Just consider the version existing in OpenBSD's CVS tree to be a forked version.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
just taken a look at the URL referenced in the original slash announcement with regards to the license change: http://false.net/ipfilter/2001_05/0332.html
and, i don't know about you, but surely this statement:
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided that this notice is preserved and due credit is given to the original author and the contributors.
DOES NOT IMPLY this statement:
+ * Yes, this means that derivitive or modified works are not permitted without the author's prior consent.
i think darren reed needs to get a little freshair.net!
36400 freebsd users damn.. if you really buy that.. well never mind.. it's darrens code he can do what he wants with it. as to the engine it's based on, I know he has made that and the paper that describes it available to developers in the past. perhaps this wouldn't of happened had some ego's not gotten in the way. but well thats life. robgar