I thought my 'take' on the idea of the CDs was more commonplace. I will clarify it for consideration.
The actual content of the CD is secondary in importance to many people purchasing it. People purchase the CD to support OpenBSD but with the added advantage that there is useful stuff for the popular architectures on the CD. If you favour an architecture such as the Zaurus (I'm not sure if this changes with the 3.9 release) then the CD isn't going to be your installation medium for the Zaurus since those binaries are only available from snapshots. OpenBSD is freely available in release form from many mirror sites. It is also very easy to implement security patches to source and because the patches are provided in short form they can be scrutinised easily against change or damage - these factors are important to the community. The current theme is to strive against the BLOB and whilst distributing binaries for OpenBSD isn't necessarily that bad if they can be verified and validated as trusted official builds, the community in general seems to favour source distributions. As far as copying the CDs go... don't. From a legal perspective it's wrong but most importantly from a moral perspective it's really bad - if you want to see OpenBSD continue and progress encourage people to buy CDs as a tangible asset to help fund it if they feel that making a simple contribution is too difficult. There is actually nothing legally wrong with you building your own binary distribution CDs with your own layout... you could sell them, you could withhold the source. The license allows you the freedom to do this. If, however, you end up making any money then consider funding the OpenBSD project for the future sake of the business you just started. - OpenBSD is not a business but a project - nevertheless it requires a lot of effort and expense and does need funding. -Andy -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Wijnand Wiersma Sent: 24 March 2006 14:19 To: Gabriel George POPA; misc@openbsd.org Subject: Re: copying software from the official iso On 3/24/06, Gabriel George POPA <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It seems to me quite a dangerous discussion. Why not security updates > for money? SuSE has made a lot of money... > I know you already discussed this, but this feature will make OpenBSD > VERY popular. No, that would decrease popularity. Wijnand -- OpenBSD needs your help improving the softwareworld, please donate: http://openbsd.org/donations.html Yes big code using companies, that includes you!
