chefren wrote:
> If a programmer has a bright idea he should be able to choose to give it
> away or make money with it, which gives her/him even more freedoms.
Despite the rhetoric from Redmond-followers, making money from software
is something that both the GPL and BSD licenses allow. There have been
many, and the number is increasing, companies that make good money using
either license. Early on, FSF was apparently even partially funded by
sales of Emacs tapes. However, the start of the thread is not directly
about the licenses.
When the BSDTalk interview was posted, it was brought up that the ports,
which are not part of the base system, include non-free (by everyone's
measure) packages. You can find usability studies and findings of fact
in court, among other things, which point that bundling implies
endorsement.
The packages have been carefully selected and include only open source
material:
http://openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html#PkgFind
The start of this whole thread is about the ports tree.
It *is* possible to filter out the non-free (by everyone's measure)
packages from the ports tree. It is just not obvious until one becomes
familiar with OpenBSD. What would go a long way in improving an already
useful system would be to separate out the non-free (by anyone's
measure) packages from the ports tree so that those wanting a quick
start with open-source-only packages can do so.
It would make sense to play on OpenBSD's strengths, one of which is
strict licensing, and have these reflected in the ports tree. Changing
what is and isn't allowed in the ports tree would not be a simple task,
either technically or politically. However, labeling or partitioning
the ports tree would probably be feasible technically.
Regards,
-Lars
