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OpenBSD Removes qmail and djbdns From Ports Tree
KingArtr writes: "qmail and djbdns have been dropped from the OpenBSD ports tree. According to the message from Theo de Raadt at the OpenBSD Ports Archive its because the license does not permit modification.". Update by nik: Note that NetBSD and FreeBSD continue to include qmail in their ports trees. DJB's license forbids redistribution of modified binaries, but does not forbid distribution of a 'framework' for modifying the source code.
Theo at it again...*but*! that's what makes OBSD unique...(in an odd "it's my ball, so i'm taking it and going home" kinda way).
:-)
I'd suspect that given a few more years of this, the only thing OBSD will have installed is anything made by the OBSD team, and emacs (which will be the shell, editor, mail prog, etc).
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
I applaud Theo's decision, even if it does
happen to piss a few people off;
maybe now DJB will realize how much his
licensing ideas suck, and change them.
If you dont like OpenBSD's decision to
remove it from its ports tree maybe you
shouldn't use it, especially if you get
pissed over such a small thing.
Looks like djb doesn't want to play by Theo's rules. No matter, that's his choice. But Theo chose what he wanted for OpenBSD a long time ago, and if djb doesn't like that, then that's his problem. Personally, I agree with Theo on many points: /usr/ports should stick to /usr/local for where they write stuff (I've never liked the whole damn /opt idea that Solaris popularized), and for pity's sake, anyone that thinks their software is important enough that it needs its own directory off / needs a serious ego-deflating! For all that people critisize RMS and his ego, all of the GNU tools are very well-behaved in that department. Would that others were equally as nice.
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
Sure. <TROLL>BSD users know BSD (of whatever flavor) is technically superior to linux, therefore the only thing left to argue about is the politics!</TROLL>
NetBSD: the cathedral vs the bizzare.
I just read that mailing list thread and got quite a chuckle out of it.
It's always amusing to watch two egomaniacs duel it out. I'd have to say Theo won this argument though, DJB came out looking like a real ass.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
>He is the EXACT reason why I won't run Open BSD >on my systems (I will admit that I use OpenSSH >though).
So in what way does he affect your computers?
You still can DL and install bernstein stuff.
>The old addage of you can catch more flies with >honey than vinigar needs to be tought to Theo.
Actually, he is following the wishes of the
license. The license says "dont redist" and he
doesn't. Why does Dan get upset for someone
following his wishes?
>If he TRULY wants to have people using his OS, >then he needs to take a chill pill and STOP >ACTING CHILDISH
Actually, I can't think that you will find such
a reference. You most probablt will find only
texts saying "OpenBSD is free for all", rather
than "OpenBSD should be used by all".
-- I'm as unique as everyone else.
Theo and the rest of the OpenBSD have been performing a licence audit of OpenBSD, as part of the fall-out of Darren Reed changing (sorry, "clarifying" *cough*) the IPFilters licence. This is a responsible thing to do, given that many third parties redistribute OpenBSD.
In most cases where a licence collision has been found, the licencer has agreed to changes, or the OpenBSD team have been able to make simple substitutions. In this case, the licencers have stuck by their guns. Not surprisingly, the OpenBSD team have opted to stay out of the compound, rather than risk being shot at.
Theo gets a lot of stick largely because he has a reputation for being abrasive, not least because of the whole reason why OpenBSD was created in the first place. However, if a licencer puts out a licence for a piece of software demanding that nobody make changes to it, or in Darren Reed's case, pretends that his licence, which previously granted a blanket right to use and redistribute, always had such a no-modify clause, then what do you think the responsible thing for the OpenBSD team to do is?
If developers want to have their code in OpenBSD, which they have every right not to want, then it is they who need to bend. Theo, and the rest of the OpenBSD team, is quite right to demand that the only code present in OpenBSD be modifyable by both the OpenBSD team and by end users. That's not childish. That's commonsense, and that's legally the only responsible position to take.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I suggest taking a look for yourself. I think it's reasonable to suggest that the only reasons Reed got agreements with the NetBSD and FreeBSD teams were (a) Because Reed wanted to give Theo the finger for daring to be unhappy at Reed's retroactive licence change ("clarification" my arse), and (b) because both *BSDs are a little happier about including proprietry code than the OpenBSD team are.
I'm glad Theo stuck to his guns. OpenBSD remains the the most open Unix-like operating system out there.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
You're obviously a trolling Linux bigot but I'll bite anyway.
BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last [sysadminmag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test
Yawn ... another lame statistic. What was that about lies, damn lies ... most Unix users can find their way around BSD (even if they haven't tried it yet) simply because Berkeley's offspring has had such a massive influence.
Or perhaps Usenet postings are a lame way of calculating usgae. Unlike Linux, where many Unix newbies cut their teeth, and consequently post slews of Linux related Usenet questions, most NetBSD and OpenBSD users *know* what thy're doing. This doesn't mean that Linux is a less admirable operating system, just that there's more newbies out there using Linux.
FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS
Bullshit. BSDI finally saw that selling an operating system with source code was a little pointless when three freelly avaliable alternatives existed. The high quality of these alternatives was more easily ascertainable than with BSDI's own product, so they decided on the sensible course of merging with FreeBSD. So arguing that BSDI faced an uncertain future is reasonably valid, but your other inferences are rubbish. And FreeBSD is not and never has been a business. Loser.
If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers
Much like the cutting edge of Linux development will. Companies like RedHat may employ Alan Cox, etc. but the loss of such positions wouldn't undermine their enthusiasm to develop.
Now get back under the bridge troll.
Chris
You have been trolled more than you think. What our friend here is doing is using Usenet posts to work out the ratios between the BSDs, thus there are 5 times more Open posts than Net, and twice as many Net as BSDi, and that these three together are 20% of the market with Free making up the rest.
What you have ignored is the line
which is undeniably bollocks. If you were to check, you would see that in factThat is the beauty of this troll. Recalculate (and where you see those numbers multiplied by 4, use 5 to represent the 20% other + 80% freebsd), and you get a figure of between 1 and 2.5 million for all *BSD, which is far more credible.
Someone wanted changeable files under /usr? Isn't the split between /usr and /var supposed to be so that /usr can be shared over NFS and/or mounted read-only (I prefer to keep /usr mounted read-only, although I have not tried that on OBSD), while /var is instantiated on each server and can be expected to be writeable? Why can't Theo compromise and use something like /var/local for the variable parts of ports where the static parts go in /usr/local, then we can symlink /var/qmail to /var/local/qmail or /var/spool/qmail or something like that.
But I do like that Theo is sticking to his stand on modifiability and binary distributeability. DJB is being more hardnosed than even RMS is.
BTW, I used qmail for about a year, and switched to Postfix almost a year ago. I have no thoughts of going back to qmail ... or sendmail.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars