Re: Bug#323855: ITP: opencvs -- OpenBSD CVS implementation withspecialemphasis in security
Thomas Bushnell BSG dijo [Mon, Aug 22, 2005 at 10:02:18PM -0700]:
> > The OBSD crowd have reimplemented many important subsystems because
> > they do not consider GPL-like licenses to be free enough. Yes, also
> > because of technical reasons, but in this case it seems to be about
> > (their version of) freedom.
>
> This would be an explanation if they had an ongoing project to
> reimplement all the tools which do not meet their licensing
> standards. Do they have such a project?
They do - They have replaced important parts of their system which
were GPLed or under other non-BSD licenses (the first and most obvious
example is OpenSSH, but there are many others, as simple as their own
implementation of compress/gzip). Take a look at the
OBSD policies [1] - I quote a bit:
The GNU Public License and licenses modeled on it impose the
restriction that source code must be distributed or made available
for all works that are derivatives of the GNU copyrighted code.
While this may be a noble strategy in terms of software sharing, it
is a condition that is typically unacceptable for commercial use of
software. As a consequence, software bound by the GPL terms can not
be included in the kernel or "runtime" of OpenBSD, though software
subject to GPL terms may be included as development tools or as
part of the system that are "optional" as long as such use does not
result in OpenBSD as a whole becoming subject to the GPL terms.
> And why should Debian be concerned one way or the other?
If they provide any added value, any better code, we should import it
into Debian. If they just provide the same but in a different way, why
bother?
> Anyhow, if something comes of this project, Debian will probably need
> to include the package, but we will also have to make sure it doesn't
> get called "cvs" (since it is going to have a different interface),
> and we'll have to do extra integration work. Joy.
Completely AOL.
Greeetings,
[1] http://www.openbsd.org/policy.html
--
Gunnar Wolf - gwolf@gwolf.org - (+52-55)1451-2244 / 5623-0154
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