on Sun, Oct 21, 2001 at 08:30:19PM -0500, Jim Choate (ravage@einstein.ssz.com) wrote:
On Sun, 21 Oct 2001, Karsten M. Self wrote:
Summer, June/July, IIRC. I've done a couple of look-ups since. There's been little additional news or information (I'm not saying none, I'm saying little). OpenBSD, a relatively little-known free 'nix, gets rather more press and community coverage.
You need to be on the mailing list. There is almost constant changes. You can also visit the wiki link at Bell Labs for the most current info.
I'll stop by.
proposed licenses and terms. I'm rather convinced that novelty, all else being equal, is bad.
Can't disagree more.
Care to expand (off list if you wish). It's an area of interest. Nutshell argument: license interactions are factorial. Interaction complexity reduces overall value of a codebase, and tends to marginalize minority licenses. By various methods (Debian package listings, Sourceforge projects), the GPL or LPGL are applied to some 84% of free software. A tally from January of this year: Of the roughly 8,800 listed projects with a license on SourceForge: 8,384 are based on an OSI approved license. 208 are based on an other or proprietary license. 235 are public domain. Of the OSI licenses, the breakdown is as follows (note that results may vary daily as projects are added and removed): GNU GPL: 6,178 74% GNP LGPL: 844 10% BSD: 480 6% Artistic: 302 4% MozPL: 114 1% MIT: 110 1% Python: 78 1% QPL: 60 1% zlib/libpng: 46 1% IBM-PL: 10 1% MITRE (CVW): 4 0% As mentioned, 84% of projects are licensed under the GPL. Compatibly licensed projects include software under the BSD (revised) terms, MIT, Artistic, and Python (most recent) licenses. Major QPL projects are licensed compatibly with the GPL. Major MozPL projects are licensed compatibly with the GPL. Given some room for variance (there are non-compatible BSD, and MozPL projects), some 90-95% of projects are likely licensed under terms compatible with the GNU GPL. Noncompatibility puts you in a rather small mindshare camp, with a serious sacrifice of network effects (Metcalfe's Law). This does assume that a project's intent is to become relatively widely used and supported by broad mindshare. As these are among the principle technical advantages offered by free software / open source, it's not an advantage to discard lightly. Per the FSF's analysis, Plan 9 is, again, not open source, free software, or GPL compatible. This is a significant strategic handicap. Moreover, the bulk of terms in the Plan 9 license serve the corporate interests of the software's owner -- there's little quid pro quo for the developer or community. This is typical of corporate licenses, particularly first drafts. The evolution of IBM's own Jikes licensing is instructive. If the code exists for its own purposes, it may not matter. From a broader community perspective, you could do better. Peace. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Home of the brave http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ Land of the free Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html