Fatal flaw in BSD?
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Butin light of what I see as a fairly serious hole in what was supposed to bean open standard, I'm having second thoughts on this neutrality.
In what has become Open sesame You see, the Clearly, had Kerberos been distributed under the GPL rather than aless-restricted license, Microsoft wouldn't have been able to do what theydid. Sure, the company could challenge the GPL or even try to flout it; butconsidering Unless I'm badly misreading something -- and in the quagmire of legalesesurrounding such issues, that's always possible -- this episode indicatesa specific example of real harm to the free software community thatoccurred because a BSD license was used. Furthermore, the problem wouldhave been prevented had the code in question been licensed under the GPL.If this is the case, then I'd have to say this event goes a long way intipping the balance of the two licensing models' respective merits. What do the labels really mean? Well, yeah. So it is. Whoopee. But what is really gained by winningthis particular debating point? If we want to pick nits, the most free license is no license. Yet youdon't see BSD code released into the public domain -- its proponents favorsome kind of restrictions on distribution, they just draw their line in adifferent place than the GNU folk. But the Kerberos experience perhaps teaches a lesson that the FreeSoftware Foundation got this part right. Making free software is indeedonly half the battle, keeping it free is also a challenge the communitymust confront if we are to prevent the Kerberos problem from recurring.While most of the proprietary enhancements to BSD-licensed code (such asBSDI) have been benign, what Microsofthas done to Kerberos is clearly not in the interest of the communityat large. Given that it could happen again, I must say I'm finding theFree Software Foundation approach to the issue ( To FreeBSD leader Jordan Hubbard, it's more a matter of bully tactics thanwhich license was used. "I don't think it has anything to do with licensingat all," he said. "It's just more of the same strong-arm tactics thatMicrosoft is famous for doing because they're Microsoft and big enough toget away with it." I can't agree. To keep to the terms of the GPL,Microsoft would have to publish any changes, leaving the rest of thecommunity to determine whether its changes should become official.Microsoft's influence could not prevent its changes from goingmainstream. Of course, none of this negates the fact that BSD operating systems are ofextremely high quality, and have their own communities of extremelyskilled and dedicated users and developers. Nor does my preference for theFSF approach diminish my belief that Richard Stallman's jealousy (andmisunderstanding) of Linux's success is an ongoing and unwelcomedestabilizing factor. But it certainly looks from here as if, in the(generally) friendly rivalry between the fans of GPL and BSD distributionmodels, the BSD approach has been found wanting in a fairly serious way.BSD's supporters have a significant problem to overcome unless they want tosee an increase of "embrace and extend" attacks. Do you prefer the BSD license model? Let us know in the TalkBack below.
Certainly one could take Microsoft to task for the ethics of taking anopen standard and turning it proprietary. But why it was done, to me, isneither as interesting nor as genuine a source of concern as how it wasdone or how it can be prevented in the future.Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and itsdocumentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted.
In contrast, the GNU PublicLicense, under which Linux and most of its tools are distributed,requires that all modifications must be as open as the original code.
I've heard many an argument in which BSD license fans claim that theirlicense is actually more free than the GPL.
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