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Re: GPL Liscensing on New Release: What Gives?
On Fri, 15 Jan 1999, Tony Taylor wrote:
> I was really surprised at the announcement that the new
> release of oskit is encumbered by the GPL scheme. What
> is really disturbing is that someone tacked on the cult Iicensing
> even though the project was funded by DARPA. What gives?
What gives with GPL is preventing people from taking public code, some
of which might be government funded, and privatising it. The US
government, even including the NSA (!), doesn't seem to have a problem
with GPL, judging by the following:
>From /usr/src/linux-2.2.0-pre7/drivers/net:
/* atp.c: Attached (pocket) ethernet adapter driver for linux. */
/*
This is a driver for a commonly OEMed pocket (parallel port)
ethernet adapter.
Written 1993,1994,1995 by Donald Becker.
Copyright 1993 United States Government as represented by the
Director, National Security Agency.
This software may be used and distributed according to the terms
of the GNU Public License, incorporated herein by reference.
I have been monitoring the Flux work with interest because I think it
shows promise as an eventual replacement for the Linux Kernel (nothing
lasts forever in the tech world), possibly in combination with ported Gnu
Hurd servers. Flux would be of no interest in this regard if it were not
GPL or something equivalent. Consider Mach; anyone still care about Mach
anymore? Pretty much dead code. If it was GPL when it came out, it would
be where Linux is now. I was all set to make cs.wcu.edu a Mach/BSD shop
back in about '92, but we got hung up with license issues. Then Linux came
along, and 386BSD. Linux would boot on all the machines, and there was a
new patch-level frequently. 386BSD would boot on half of them, and it was
something like a year until the next release: it had apparently been
junkyard-dogged by the original boy-girl team that started it, if I
remember aright. So Linux won by default.
-Jim http://as220.org/jb Software Libre O Morir!
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