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For OpenBSD, "No More Apache Updates"
joshmccormack writes "On June 6th Henning Brauer, an OpenBSD developer announced on one of the OpenBSD mailing lists that the version of Apache shipped with OpenBSD will stay with 1.3.29, due to Apache's license changes. There will be bug fixes, but no more updates. Discussion on blogs, websites and mailing lists on what's next bring up some interesting ideas and strong opinions. Difference of opinion and control have been catalysts to the growth of OpenBSD in the past. Will this be like the birth of pf in OpenBSD, or even the start of OpenBSD itself?"
Don't count on it, son.
i tutes "community support" for their license fiasco. Maybe Apache is next.
Every time something like this comes up...he turns it into something good. His reputation grows, and the idea of quality software over Every Imaginable Feature spreads.
I doubt there will be an OpenBSD replacement for Apache. However, Theo knows one thing most people forget: you can whine and moan all you want, but when you accept the product, they win. However, if a few teams stand up and say, "This is NOT acceptable, we will NOT tollerate it", maybe something can change. XFree86 has managed to marginalize themselves, and convinced themselves that a whole lot of nothing:
http://www.xfree86.org/distro-support.html
const
It sounds to me like they are just taking steps to ensure they don't introduce a more restrictive license to the base system.
Reading through the Apache 2.0 license, I cannot find anything that is more restrictive than before. It's actually less restrictive in some areas, in an attempt to be compatible with the GPL. The two major differences are:
1) Legalese. The original BSD-like Apache license was quite loose in its wording. This scares the crap out of most corporate lawyers ("OMG, there's no clause imdemnifying us against jaywalking!"). So the new license has been tightened up with lawyer-friendly language.
2) Patent license. The old license was a copyright license. It didn't cover patents. The new one does. You're gaining rights as a user with this.
I really don't understand what OpenBSD's problem is with this. It's a free license. It's a "copycenter" license. It's unrestricted and unencumbered. I suspect this is about politics more than any actual license terms.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
This is a bad thing (in a BSD advocate's view)
I am a BSD advocate. The license is certainly longer, and in a way, that's bad because fewer people can understand it. But my understanding is that it is necessary. In the past we used licenses to tell other hackers that they had permission to use our software. But we are no longer a community of hackers, we now have lawsuit happy lawyers among us. When you have major lawyer-bound organization using (and contributing) to Apache, you can't hold on to the pollyanna licenses of the past.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Actually, it's quite the opposite. OpenBSD's creed of "Security first" condemns it to a sort of "media obscurity" (nothing kills a story like "It doesn't do anything fancy, and just works") yet Theo's colourful disagreements with practically everyone under the sun keeps the mindshare of OpenBSD alive and well.
Couple that with their habit of doing things differently from everyone else just once in a while to keep track of who's watching, and you have a winner.
Reading the comments at undeadly.org, it seems the big beef is with a clause that covers patent issues of any code as well as copyright issues.
Basically, the clause says that if you have any patent claims to the code that you contribute (or is it just use? I'm not sure.) then you irrevocably grant license to others for those patents and if you sue , then you can't use Apache.
I'm unsure as to how this is a bad thing. Most "free" software licences were written before software patents were a big issue, and therefore only deal with software as a copyrightable, and not a patentable entity. Just as software code must be updated to deal with new operating enviroments, so legal licensing code must be updated to deal with a changing legal enviroment.
The new clause forces patent holders to play nice as well as copyright holders.
Would it be better to encourage lawsuits over patent issues?
evanchik.net
I hope he means the US and EU governments here. Had there been no software pattents under incredibly lax oversight with the subsequent abuse thereof, the Apache Software Foundaton wouldn't be forced to write this clause into the license.
It goes to great lengths to protect the web server machine against attacks and breakins from other sites.
Well, you shold try to google for thttpd security . It has a security record which makes Windows 95 look pretty good.
RFC1925
Well, first, I would like to apologize for the AC asshole that replied to your post. Clearly brainless.
Second, I didn't say anything that contradict your post. BSD and GPL are different licenses. I totally understand the different approaches.
One difference, though, is that you tend to discard BSD against GPL which is - to you - better. You have to understand that different people may think differently.
Las of all, one of your last statements: "Now do you see how restrictive BSD licenses are?".
On that I will disagree. GPL is more restrictive than BSD: I don't think you can find one situatons where someone would be impeached or forced to do something with BSD and not with GPL. The opposite trivially doesn't stand.
Don't be mistaken. This doesn't mean that a developper of BSD code will get more reward than a developper of GPL code. It means that whoever you are (integrator, developer, user), you have less restrictions with a piece of code under the BSD license than with a GPL code.
No flame intended, not quality judgement, just a fair statement: Less restrictions.
You want to use GPL code, everything has to be GPL
You want to use BSD code, go ahead
You want to write GPL code. All of it has to be that way
You want to write BSD code, go ahead.
The list could go on and on, proving one point: BSD is less restrictive than GPL. Nothing else.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Then don't fsking use other people's code, write your own!
The essence of GPL is this:
Yes, you can use other people's work, but then you'll have to contribute some work yourself.
If you just take other people's work without giving something bakc, you're just a THIEF!
Time to de-lurk, as other ACs are resorting to name calling, and don't want to be confused with them. I wasn't being so much an Anonymous Coward as a "Lazy Bum", too lazy to look up my old slashdot name and PW. :)
... can disappear while GPL derived code can not" This is not true (at least for my definition of "dissappear"). Once a work is released with a license, that license can not be revoked on that particular version of the source. The project may fork at that point, with someone taking a BSD'd project in a non-BSD direction (i.e., Apache or XFree86 or SSH), but the OLD VERSIONS remain with their old license. Believe me, if SSH.com could revoke the old v1 ssh code's BSD license, they would in a heartbeat. They took their app closed source, OpenSSH took the old BSD code and extended it (and a side note: I have no doubt that both OpenSSH and SSH.com's products are better because of the existance of the other, which means the users win).
:)
Most of our disagreement here appears to over terms and usage. I think we've made our respective meanings clear...now readers get to decide for themselves which they prefer 8).
Hopefully we can also agree with this point: there are benefits and downsides to both BSD and GPL licenses -- the choice of license should always be up to the coder. I would also think that the acceptability of each should always be left to the person using the software in question.
HOWEVER, I do want to pick on this statement of yours: "BSD derived code
Now, if by "can disapear", you mean developement can take place that is not fed back to the open source community, sure, but that's not what I would call "disappearing". XFree86, Apache and SSH didn't "disappear" from the world, just got "less free" development. If the open source community cares enough to continue "free" development of BSD licensed code, they can.
As for is sharing back modifications "really asking too much?", the idea sounds great...however, it gets messy. Making a three line change in a GPL program? Sure, easy. Incorporating a small 100 line GPL'ed routine into a 10,000 line application forcing the entire app GPL? That doesn't seem "fair" to me. Things get ugly if you start trying to draw a line here...lawyers get involved. The BSD philosophy is "just use it. Feed back your contributions if you wish to, but you are 'free' do to as you wish in that regard". Personally, I prefer that acts of generosity be voluntary...but that's me.
AC> This is a common misperception for GPL advocates, when they argue for GPL against BSD. The GPL code can "disappear" as described above, if the code and changes aren't in distribution.
AC> Generosity is about giving without expecting any return. The BSD license has higher deference in this regard.
That's a bullshit counter-point. I'm specifically talking about programs that are distributed and not private sole-use creations which couldn't be controlled anyhow. (I don't care what you do in your own bedroom, you know?)
Generosity is about giving without expecting return, but greediness is about taking without giving back. I will be generous, but not to the greedy. That is my choice.
There's a lyric in a song that goes like this:
we don't mind
we've been doing it all the time
but if you want us to sacrifice
you got to give something back to life
Google for:
thttpd security: 26000 results
apache security: 2860000 results
I'm not entirely sure that google results are conclusive.
The GPL encourages expansion of the GPL body of work.
The BSD licence encourages use of the code by everyone.
That's an excellent way to put it, though I would rather put it as:
The GPL ensures expansion of the GPL body of work for everyone.
The BSD licence permits use of the code by anyone.
Bite this, troll:
Truly free software can't exist in a market economy that treats software as property. GNU implements a free market in which software can not be bought and traded like "real" property, but it has to use the existing copyright laws to do so, otherwise anyone could change a few lines and release non-free software. Remember, software is not Free if all you get is the binary, with no right to redistribute it.
OpenBSD doesn't like the GPL, it is infact replacing all the GPL code in the base system with BSD varients (diff, gzip, awk and others).
Your comment is out of place here, Apache being GPL incompatible had nothing to do with OpenBSD rejecting it, it was that the license is OpenBSD incompatible. Free as in free.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.