OpenBSD 3.1 Preorders (And Tunes) Available

An Anonymous Coward writes: "For those bored out of their skull this morning, there are some interesting tunes available on the OpenBSD website to enlighten (frighten?) those cow-orkers. Also should be noted that the Canadian and European ordering site have the OpenBSD 3.1 3CD set available for pre-order, it's scheduled for release around 19 May."

Comments

Re:Animal husbandry

[david duncan scott]

Well, apparently Timothy agrees with you, although he opts to make it explicit.

One of the reasons I read The New Yorker is their insistence that the act of working together is "coöperation" (hope that renders right), rather than cooperation or co-operation.

A similarity I'll try to make more clear.

[jbn-o]

Theo would have to have gone to a little trouble to achieve this and I don't see how preventing people from just selling exact copies of the official CD's somehow hurts the community.

Debian goes to some trouble to produce multiple systems for multiple machines too. Debian needs contributions and cooperative development help as well. But Debian allows people to copy official ISOs (and sell them). I'm not interested in selling any copies of either, just sharing them at no charge with friends. Neither production effort nor financial need are revealing hinges for this issue.

If all you use is OpenBSD i386, then just ftp/wget/rsync the i386 tree and then burn your bootable i386 CD.

The number of platforms supported and the FTP/wget/rsync availability are completely besides the point. I realize functionally equivalent duplicates are possible and I know how to make them. I'm interested in sharing an exact duplicate with my friends, not a functional equivalent.

People who pay for the official OpenBSD and abide by Theo de Raadt's layout copyright are the ones who cannot share copies of official OpenBSD discs with friends. These people could obtain ISOs online (as per the FAQ) but they choose to help the project instead. It seems ironic to me that only the people who are trying to help cannot make this kind of copy to share. With OpenBSD, unlike Debian, those who cooperate are under a limit that those who violate are not.

I don't think paying OpenBSD users need to be restricted from producing this copy. They are the ones who have demonstrated they want to give. I understand the need for money, there is no need to review that. I am among those computer users happy to give money to support Free Software efforts. As a member of the Free Software community I maintain that financial need should not interfere with my software freedom.

People don't like being limited like this when we're talking about audio CDs, DVDs, or e-books. They want to share their legally obtained data with their friends. I don't like it either, so I don't pay the publisher to get audio CDs, and I have never bought a DVD or an e-book. Similarly, I will not buy official OpenBSD. I have switched to Debian because Debian lets me copy the official disc ISOs and burn copies for my friends.

Please read carefully the extent of my comparison; I am not saying these products are all the same. I am aware proprietary products are very much unlike OpenBSD in most respects. The one respect in which they are the same is the restriction from producing an identical copy of the disc for a friend.

I am eager to contribute to Free Software causes regardless of their focus. I want to encourage Free Software development and sales. But I want software freedom in exchange.