BSD vs. GPL: But Why Are PEOPLE Fighting???

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2008-02-04 08:40:01 UTC
Modified: 2008-02-04 08:40:01 UTC

Looking for truth...

The BSD and the GPL 'camps' can happily live in harmony and they often do indeed. There is a certain hostility, however, between the OpenBSD folks and the FSF/GNU in particular. This raises questions that will be addressed here; but first -- a little background.

FUD Fight!

Much of this recent tension began with this incident from last year.

Developers of OpenBSD took code from their brethren at Linux, violating the code's licence, the GPL. To the horror of the Linux folk, the OpenBSD licence allows proprietary use.

Then came another incident.

Discussion continues on the Linux Kernel mailing list about the legality and morality of re-licensing BSD/GPL dual-licensed code under only the GPL.

More recently we saw the SFLC stepping in to address those issues which went the other way around (mind this case of reciprocity).

Let me therefore point out one last time that if the threats of litigation and bluster about crime and malpractice--none of which has the slightest basis in fact or law--were withdrawn, we would be able to resume detailed communication with everyone who has a stake in the outcome.

More on this debate here.

To save you from all that tiresome drama, here is a recent thread which is filled with hostility.

GNU Project and Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman posted a message on the OpenBSD -misc mailing list titled, "real men don't attack straw men", suggesting that some comments he had made were being misrepresented.

So that's where things stand. All in all, there are a few angry people. Theo de Raadt and Richard Stallman do not get along, to say the very least. There is more to this story and we will come to this in a moment.

What's the Big Deal Anyway?

Last week we spotted an article (blog) which discusses the impact of the BSD and GPL licences. It explains what they mean to Free software.

Corporations like Microsoft love the BSD-style licenses. Case in point is the Microsoft NT TCP/IP stack, which is basically a binary copy of the BSD TCP/IP stack. With a BSD-Style license, while code can not be stolen, rights of ownership cannot be enforced either.

As pointed out a week ago when Nokia's latest acquisition got announced, a BSD licence for Trolltech's Qt would be good news to Microsoft.

The founder of JBoss addressed a very similar question just a fortnight ago. He talked about dual licences too.

Quickies #5: GPL or BSD?

[...]

At the end of the day the argument is also one of philosophical taste. I say the GPL is great because it enables individual developers to grow businesses fast on dual licensing. Others may prefer the more permissive approach of letting anyone do whatever they please with their code.

In the middle of December, another blog post on this topic earned a fair bit of attention. It described the GPL/BSD dilemma as a question of freedom's sustainability.

So what can we conclude from all this? Both license models make software free, but only GPL software is sustainably free. The BSD gives greater freedom, the GPL gives more freedom. Choose which one you value more.

Why the hostility then?

Looking Beneath the Surface

Based on the above, developers truly have the freedom to choose licences for their free software. There is little or no reason to fight here, so the question to ask is: might someone be fueling unnecessary wars? As far as drivers are concerned, reconciliation appears to have already been reached.

“With BSDs, there is the expectation that many sides will work as a group to achieve the same goals.”So, we have begun studying to see if the BSDs are somehow being used to combat GNU and RMS. The mailing lists may contain evidence, based on something we were told. Explaining what appears like hostility or apologists is hard. Both sides of this debate have communications that are not visible. Transparency is still limited, especially because of E-mail.

Where Microsoft or Apple are concerned, the main difference is that there's no money involved in at least one side, so motives are not easy to interpret. Sometimes we still perceive this as a struggle between commercial interests of one company and 'everybody else', including the innocent consumer. With BSDs, there is the expectation that many sides will work as a group to achieve the same goals. It certainly works for the variety of different GNU/Linux distributions. Moreover, it's worth remembering that similar components like the desktop environments are shared.

Example of Civil Wars

A reader contacted us regarding this older post. The reader states (and yes, permission was granted to publish this):

Ok. Bruce Byfield lost that round but don't let him drag you down. And _don't_ let the MSFTers play you two off against each other. (*)

The head-on style works well, but keep in mind that name calling is a distraction[1] intended to change the subject and keep you from going after the real target. If you go head-on after the distraction, he's got you.

Think of it as the red cape to keep the bull off the matador. Or of the birds that squawk and limp as you get close to their nest: the more they squawk, the closer you are. Or dogs that bark[2] when they are frightened. Let 'em bark. That means you're winning.

In addition to the 'hater' label, you'll also see MSFTers and their fifth-columnists claim 'conspiracy' to try to discredit criticism. So rather than letting them change the subject to a debate about 'hate' or 'conspiracy' pursue instead the points which caused the name calling.

Also it's interesting to see them try to play bsd vs gpl(*), two license which have very much in common. These are simply tools with overlapping, but somewhat different, goals. At least for the foreseeable future, one should avoid that distraction as well and when others get dragged in, steer the debate back to the strengths and similarities.

Again, rather than going after the label, go after what the label is trying to hide. That label is used to pull people off topic or to discredit discussion of quality, legality, ethics, economics of software.

[1] http://web.uvic.ca/psyc/skelton/Teaching/General%20Readings/Logical%20Falllacies.htm

[2] [...]

"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog ... ... until you start barking." c.f http://www.epatric.com/funstuff/dog/

Why Attack Stallman?

Further to this, since we are aware of abusive messages getting posted and used against RMS, we wanted to get hold of the headers of some abusive messages that had been sent. Someone whom we contacted said:

I've looked briefly at the official archives, and they had only the web interface which has sanitized the headers. I delete list messages when I'm through with them. On many of these, I was curious enough to check the headers first and lookup who owns the domain. However, any and all of that can easily be forged.

[...]

But if you can get me a tarball of the mailing list archives for OpenBSD Misc, for example, I can extract them for you and do a whois lookup.

I suspect more that Theo is easily manipulated and that he has egregious human relations skills. In a lot of cases, his first move is to call a lot of names. He joined most of the threads very late, if at all. I would not worry about Theo, he's like that, and it was his occasional antics that got him kicked out of NetBSD and caused him to start OpenBSD. (They waited till he went to sleep and removed his access.)

The lists get trolled. Theo and others unwittingly participate, sometimes. Othertimes, the trolls feed themselves until it becomes a problem. RMS handled the whole thing well. Though I hate to see him softening on MS Windows.

The FreeBSD lists are worse, having been infested with MSFTers more thoroughly and for longer. They feed each other a lot of disinformation about GPL and RMS. Sometimes that takes the form of trolls against RMS and Torvalds.

[...]

One aspect of that amounts to a denial of service attack against RMS. If they cannot burn him out, they can drown him out. I notice that many magazines will not touch on any of his topics, but instead go with jibes about his appearance, etc.

Slightly out of context, but more or less the same thing: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/18/documents/cia.ops/

There will be no trail of payments and receipts leading back to Redmond. We currently have the following data to work with, assuming acquisition of the message archives:

+ A) frequency of words, phrases and themes + B) type of argument / fallacy + C) date, time and (purported) hostname of sender + D) clusters of A + C

The attacks on Stallman are no isolated incident. It appears as though many people are subjected to similar treatment, me included. I know for a fact that Pamela Jones gets intolerant messages too.

In USENET, I have my name shoved in the subject lines every day now. All kinds of abusive messages are published. Anonymous people try to poison the Web with names, accompanied by obscene words and negative connotations. A lot of it is slanderous and libelous. The purpose:

Incite people against me
Rob a person's credibility
Make the person emotional to evoke angry writings

Military propaganda had some similar themes, with examples such as false rumours about Napoleon having small penis and Hitler having just one testicle. Connotations and rumours work wonders! Speaking to the reader on this subject he adds:

Take it as a sign you are on the right topics.

However, there is the concrete problem with crapflooding Google and other search engines. Hence my complaints about Google News. Google News itself may be unimportant but letting MSFTers outside or inside Google bury topics is not appropriate.

This latter issue was covered quite recently [1, 2, 3]. It's a separate yet important concern that more people must be aware of. The reader continues:

I'm sure you're busy but would you be able to track down a downloadable tarball of messages against you or RMS? For the latter, I'd suggest Misc OpenBSD Yes, if you can get the raw messages. However, about the only part of the header that has a high probability of accuracy is the date-time stamp. That and everything else are determined by whatever forwards the message.

Perl: the duct tape of the Internet. CPAN: the bailing wire of the Internet.

Nothing on this has been done since the conversation, but it would be an interesting thing to experiment with shall time permit. Lastly, the reader adds in reference to an article that I published last week:

You mentioned Apple and BSD, which reminds me that I was recently reminded of these two items:

http://www.crn.com/networking/204800583; http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/unix/bsd/archives/freebsd-at-cisco-21312

Of the BSD's, ironically, FreeBSD strikes me as least free due to tolerance of proprietary binary objects. That opens the door to a whole world of security problems and vendor- and platform-lock-in. That gripe aside, though, this an excellent move towards opening up. For the most part, it give enormous opportunity and flexibility to the customers.

Also, QNX recently tooks some big steps in the same direction: 2000 (no source code, but free of charge and source code for drivers and apps): http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3407445841.html

2007: (even the kernel's source code, though not yet an open source license) http://www.qnx.com/news/pr_2471_1.html

There you have 2007 as a major tipping point even if the media refuse to cover anything except one vendor and that vendor's interests.

[...]

If one turns focus to just the BSDs for a bit, the three main ones have kind of a three-way development engine going:

http://www.keveney.com/Wankel.html

http://www.citroenet.org.uk/miscellaneous/wankel/wankel1.html

There are no real answers here, but stay tuned as we are likely to publish more about this in the future. ⬆

“A couple of years ago this guy called Ken Brown wrote a book saying that Linus stole Linux from me... It later came out that Microsoft had paid him to do this...”

--Andrew S Tanenbaum, father on MINIX

Comments

Darrin Chandler

2008-02-04 17:50:53

The title including "BSD vs. GPL" sets the tone here for a misunderstanding. Most of the arguments above did not revolve around BSD vs. GPL, and if that was brought up on the mailing lists it was off topic.

When GPL code was brought into the OpenBSD repository it was done as a convenience. The intention was to keep it there are reference while new code was developed. Obviously this was not correct since the main repo can surely be considered as "distributing" the code. But it was a mistake. There was never an intention to relicense GPL code under an incompatible license. So... this was not a BSD vs. GPL argument. More of confusion about what counts as "distribution".

When the MadWifi guys took BSD licensed code and relicensed it to GPL, it seems they did so under the mistaken impression that it was legal. The original parties involved got things straightened out fairly quickly. I don't think any of the devs really wanted a pissing match. So... this was not a BSD vs. GPL argument. More of confusion about what's legal (and ethical/friendly).

The RMS flamewar was about RMS saying misleading (or outright wrong) things about OpenBSD. It was not about BSD vs. GPL at all.

Two out of the three things about did involve license issues, but they were not about some holy war of BSD vs. GPL.

Apart from the actual licenses themselves, I do see issues with the communities surrounding them. BSD people want to make good code and give it away. That's all, really. The GNU/Linux/GPL camp seems to have some idea about "winning". Winning meaning beat MSFT/Apple/etc. Winning meaning watch closely to see if you can sue someone for GPL violations. Winning meaning an "us vs. them" mentality. From my perspective this is messed up. I really don't care if people continue to use Windows. I just don't want to use it myself (though at work I still must), and I don't want people to automatically assume I'm using Windows (i.e., don't send me a Word attachment). What happens if GNU/Linux ever DOES beat Microsoft? Where does all the hate go then? Infighting? Probably.
Miles

2008-02-04 18:58:32

There's already infighting and Linux hasn't even "won" yet - it seems to be gaining ground but it hasn't beaten Microsoft by a long shot.

I actually really respect the BSD developers and their mentality, and as you've said - it seems to me that they aren't interested in "winning" anything, they just want to write good code.

I think that Linux started off very much the same way, but now that it has gone "corporate", it's losing site of its roots and trying too hard to gain market share.
Natalia

2008-02-04 19:52:18

You sir should never discuss this matter ever again, since you understand nothing of the subject.
Roy Schestowitz

2008-02-04 21:44:43

Natalia,

Care to be specific or elaborate please?
Yuri

2008-02-04 23:48:44

Mr. Chandler, you claim that RMS stated something misleading or wrong about OpenBSD?

What was it? I have seen this claim repeated over and over, but have yet to find anything to back it up.

It seems that he was asked whether he would recommend OpenBSD, to which he answered no, since it is not against the policy of the project to recommend non-free software, and, indeed, the project does make such recommendations. That was the main issue. Where is the error?
Darrin Chandler

2008-02-05 01:08:35

Yuri!

Here is the original thing that started the RMS flamefest: http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/2007/10/bsdtalk132-richard-stallman.html , where you can listen to RMS. If you do not care to listen, on the above page is RMS's clarification about what he meant.
Roy Schestowitz

2008-02-05 01:28:26

Darrin, I've edited your comment to add a whitespace that mends the broken URL.

As for RMS making statements that may be wrong, well, to err is human. When I interviewed Stallman he later asked me to make a correction. He needs to have someone recheck the facts exactly for this reason. People often nitpick and use his words (even if he's very careful) against him. I've seen CompTIA, a Microsoft lobbying arm, doing that quite recently to carry on with the smear campaign against him.

Always ask yourself if the person later made a correction or apologised. We can't be judged for every single word we utter, especially when it comes to public speaking where quick fact-checking and proofreading isn't possible.
Sam

2008-02-05 01:50:18

A person can and sould be juded by wat tey say Roy, especially wen tey speak of sometin as tou tey ave absolute atourity on te subject. If someone speaks out teir ass, tey deserve to be slapped around for it, since tey were spreadin FUD temselves.

Ricard earned te bile bein spit at im many times over, tat snip aainst OpenBSD was not te first time e stirred up sit for no reason.

I apoloize for te unusual text, te keyboard I am usin is broken, so many letters dont exist.
Roy Schestowitz

2008-02-05 02:03:58

Yes, I can see that the "G" and "H" are definitely broken. I don't know about past examples of alleged OpenBSD FUD. If these exist, seeing the reaction would be interesting also. The BSDs are hardly a threat to GNU or Linux and this probably goes both ways. Could something be interpreted as FUD although it was not deliberate?

At times, the greater threat to GNU/Linux is Apple (compared to BSD), but it helps a great deal if it can diversify the market and open some doors.
Darrin Chandler

2008-02-05 03:25:53

Roy,

What's all this "threat" stuff? You're back into the "winning" thing again. Linux isn't going away, and neither are GNU or BSD. It's not productive to think in terms of threats, since this is not a zero-sum game here. Linux does not need to "win" against Apple or Microsoft or BSD to be worthwhile. Or maybe it does. You tell me.

In any case, my comment above noted that a clarification was there on the page along with the original podcast. Of course people make mistakes, and I expect that from Stallman too. But it seems awfully common with RMS. It's hard to continue to take him seriously when he backpedals quite often with his corrections and clarifications, and his reliance on others to tell him what's going on in the world. Perhaps that's the problem: he's hearing everything secondhand and then spouting sutff as if he really knew. Of course you'll have to make corrections...
Roy Schestowitz

2008-02-05 03:40:44

What’s all this “threat” stuff? You’re back into the “winning” thing again. Linux isn’t going away, and neither are GNU or BSD.

An online friend of mine who like BSD (he used to be using Linux) realises that technology like Silverlight and software patents are a 'threat' not only to GNU/Linux, but to BSDs also (he said so). By "threat", let us say that we speak about the threat of losing the freedom of software or the threat of being locked out of some Web sites.

Linux does not need to “win” against Apple or Microsoft or BSD to be worthwhile.

True. Linux does, however, need to gain acceptance so that it is properly supported. Sadly, in reality, many decisions are made whose purpose it to exclude and to actively punish rivals (c/f Java, Netscape). That's one of the things this Web site keeps an eye on.

Perhaps that’s the problem: he’s hearing everything secondhand and then spouting sutff as if he really knew. Of course you’ll have to make corrections…

I too make mistakes. Everyone does. Admitting them is the harder part. I don't know the incidents which you refer to, but I take your word for it.

All I can tell you at the end of the day is that Stallman is misunderstood and the character assassination against him does not help. Even at the moment (started a few hours ago), there's a ~40-posts thread in Slashdot whose subject/title bears my name (someone Slashdotted my new article). People who attack me in USENET and Digg are using slander against me also in Slashdot (anonymously, as usual). I haven't the capacity to rebut this (it's like a DDOS attack). I guess what I'm trying to say is that I know the position Stallman must be in. People misquote him and single out some damaging phrases and then spread the damage quicker than he can mitigate it. That's just not fair.
Yuri

2008-02-05 03:42:34

Darrin, thanks for the link.

So what's the big deal? After all, he believes that making it easy to install non-free sw is ethically equivalent to distributing non-free sw. I have yet to see an interesting debate on that point.

Where are the mistakes or misleading statements? E.g., is OpenBSD stricter than say, Debian, about not recommending non-free sw? I know that RMS does not recommend Debian either and that he would certainly be interested if OpenBSD were indeed stricter on that point. Is it?
Roy Schestowitz

2008-02-05 03:51:44

By the way, here are some of new those attacks in Slashdot.

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=441432&cid=22295922

Look at this one!

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=441432&cid=22296098

Again, people put lies right inside my mouth. They try to incite people against me using lies. And some weeks ago people stole my identity and attacked Bruce Byfield 'under my name', which made him extremely angry.

And on top of this I have daily attacks and slander elsewhere. Who is behind these smears? It's getting rather obnoxious. It's libelous.
Yuri

2008-02-05 04:08:43

I think RMS made no notable mistakes here. I also think that his opponents tend to substitute character assasination for viable arguments supporting non-free software production.

I.e., they lack such confidence in their own argument base on ideas, that they can only attack the man himself. How pathetic.
Darrin Chandler

2008-02-05 04:24:27

Yuri,

RMS said "all the BSD systems ... they all include some non-free programs" and that is not true. That is the statement that he corrected later. When he said it in the interview, questions were asked on the OpenBSD list asking if this were true. Of course it is NOT true, and that was said on the list. OpenBSD does not contain any non-free software. RMS came to the OpenBSD list and then the fireworks began.

If you have a lot of time on your hands, do not listen to others... go read the actual thread for yourself:

http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=119730630513821&w=2
Roy Schestowitz

2008-02-05 04:45:27

Yuri,

I've done some further exploration to see what those latest smears are all about. Have a look at this leaked document from Microsoft:

http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03096.pdf

From the memo/presentation/document: "Gathering intelligence on enemy activities is critical to the success of the Slog. We need to know who their allies are and what differences exist between them and their allies (there are always sources of tension between allies), so that we can find ways to split ‘em apart Reading the trade press, lurking on newsgroups, attending conferences, and (above all) talking to ISVs is essential to gathering this intelligence."

I hope that you see what is happening here. Microsoft wants to create civil wars. It tries to turn its rivals against one another and it even sends 'agents' to forums (it has been caught doing this many times since the OS/2 days).

So, Microsoft wants to go to newsgroups, subscribe to mailing lists (mind the remarks in this post where we wish to analyse tarballs) and it also goes to Web sites such as Slashdot and Digg (I get harassed there by anonymous and very systematic characters).

That leaked memo is very telling. In case you wish to read some of it, there's this new page also.
Yuri

2008-02-05 05:04:45

Roy, thanks for the links, reminding me about Microsoft and about how to put some of these conflicts in better perspective.

Indeed, you quoted Slashdot comments earlier, and the Microsoft (whether it's merely individuals or more coordinated) presence on that site has been growing for years. That coincides with my declining attention to Slashdot.

Some of the attacks against you betray some angry feelings. Rather than worry one iota over the slanderers, Roy, just keep Gandhi's wisdom in mind. Nothing worth losing a second of sleep over!
Roy Schestowitz

2008-02-05 05:47:23

Indeed, you quoted Slashdot comments earlier, and the Microsoft (whether it’s merely individuals or more coordinated) presence on that site has been growing for years. That coincides with my declining attention to Slashdot.

The same rule applies to pretty much any publication out there. For starters, consider the fact that Microsoft and the Gates Foundation own some media companies (affiliations and influence aside). Analysts are usually the same in that regard. They are funded by companies.

If one was to ask where objective news can be read, an answer would be hard to give. Speaking for myself, my only affiliation is Manchester University, I suppose, but that's not a company and it's not run by a company. Mind the fact that Microsoft's influence in France has it 'buying' universities now. It's most astounding that the press ignores many of these severe issues. The 'global village' devolves and becomes one person's property and puppet show. Murdoch comes to mind here, not to mention Bilderberg and other groups.
Cory Sublimation

2008-02-05 06:33:16

Stallman pointing fingers? He's a frigging iconoclast. He and his "saint" impressions can go straight to hell. He is the archtype of the adult child. While he thinks his saint parody might be a big joke, other people think it is offensive and patently intolerant. Of course, leave to someone like Stallman to pick on a revered and departed Christian. Stallman is the most robust hypocrite on the planet. Go blow your little flute Stallman. "From each according to his ability, to Stallman according to his ego."
Roy Schestowitz

2008-02-05 07:19:42

Cory,

A parody is a parody and like many parodies and satires it can be seen as offensive to some. I see a lot of the stereotypical accusations in this messages, which conveys hate. That's just what I mean when I speak about personal attacks and your name surely is fake with a surname like "Sublimation".
Victor Soliz

2008-02-05 11:56:21

Mind the fact that Microsoft’s influence in France has it ‘buying’ universities now.
I dunno if France is alone.

I am a Bolivian student, 2~3 years ago my university used to teach C++ and Java, right now I am noticing that the beginners are proficient at C#, it looks like some time they suddenly decided to teach C# and a lot of focus is moving into .net, .
Roy Schestowitz

2008-02-05 12:14:35

There's usually some influence somewhere. Speaking from experience, these things get political sometimes and universities can become Microsoft workshops rather than provide generic skills. This isn't a coincidence. Companies want universities to instill (even shove) some specific skills into people's mind for the same reason that the US military wants children to play various violent computer games and a certain administration loves 'intelligent' design.