On Wed, Oct 03, 2007 at 07:27:59PM +0100, Brian Candler wrote:
| That is blatant FUD. There are dozens of counterexamples of large-scale
free
| software projects which continue successfully without this sort of
emotional
| blackmail.
FUD ? Hmm.
| I would argue that OpenBSD is probably the least "free" of all the free
Unix
| options out there. Why?
|
| * You cannot download an ISO image and burn it yourself.
Yes you can. It may not be an image of the release CD's, but you can
most certainly download ISO's, burn them, copy them, make coasters out
of them, shoot them at the moon, watch them fall back on your nose,
etc.
| * If you buy a CD-ROM, you cannot legally make copies to give to your
| friends, your school etc.
This is true for most CD's you buy these days. Talk about FUD.
| By this measure, OpenBSD is about as "free" as, say, Red Hat Enterprise
| Linux.
By the 'you have to pay for the official distribution CD's', OpenBSD
is about as free as Microsoft. What is your point ? The fact that the
software on the CD is free ? Or that it isn't ? You have me confused.
| Of course, if there were enough demand, someone would go and make their own
| OpenBSD distribution with downloadable unencumbered ISO images built from
| source - such as CentOS do with RHEL. Nobody says "don't use CentOS; you're
| stealing money from those poor Red Hat guys who have put so much investment
| into refining their product".
So go do it. Nobody is stopping you, read Bob's mail again. You can do
it, go right ahead.
I won't buy it because it lacks the stickers - probably the only
reason I buy the CD's (oh, and the fact that I want the 'entire
series' of course). You may even find yourself ridiculed. You don't
seem to care about that, so why not do it ?
| The reason nobody makes free OpenBSD ISO images, I presume, is because the
| user base is comparatively tiny, and it's not worth the effort. And that in
| turn is probably because OpenBSD turns people away with this sort of
| nonsense.
What is the nonsense here, exactly ? The fact that OpenBSD tries to
generate some money to fund the project ? Or is it just the way they
do it ? There isn't some business funding the project on a steady
basis (that I know of), except their own business of selling CD's (and
other stuff).
| FreeBSD used to have a similar model: you had to buy the CDs and you
| couldn't copy them. They abandoned it several years ago, and have
flourished
| since. If they hadn't, they would have risked losing against the Linux
tide.
| They also risked losing high quality code contributors.
Perhaps the goals of FreeBSD differ from those of OpenBSD. I can't
tell for sure as I'm not deeply into FreeBSD. I do know that there is
a somewhat larger company backing the project, as is the case with
Linux (not just talking about Red Hat here).
| So if OpenBSD does come to an end, as you threaten, IMO it won't be because
| people don't buy the CDs - it will be because it continues to cut itself
off
| from the mainstream and simply becomes irrelevant.
I doubt OpenBSD will come to an end. "By the developers, for the
developers" has been seen on these lists several times. The public
(ie, me) may not get as much out of it as we do now, but that doesn't
mean it goes away. The funding pays for lots of stuff that we, as
users of the OS, get for free. If the funding disappears, it would
also hurt the users, so it's up to the users to make sure funding
doesn't disappear. Buy CD's. Donate. Make your employer donate. Do
what you can. It's sad to see that complaining about the "non
freeness" of the CD's is most what some users can do.
OpenBSD mainstream ? Don't think it ever has been. I doubt it's a goal
of the project anyway. "Irrelevant" ? OpenSSH.
Fud for thought...
Paul 'WEiRD' de Weerd
--
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