It isn’t the Open License hurts BSD it is the BSD license is not open enough. The GPL and making any modifications MUST be shared is a better model for an OS than the BSD where you don’t have to share any modifications you do make.
Are you aware of a major vendor that withholds their modifications to one of the BSDs, which it would have been required to release under GPL?
On the contrary, Netflix seems to be doing just fine — they’ve even been employing full time one of the FreeBSD guys through Nginx, Inc. to specifically hack on nginx and FreeBSD, and my understanding is that they seem to be releasing all the FreeBSD parts rather promptly.
Even Oracle, the evil overlord of all evil overlords, has been releasing patches to pf(4) for quite a number of months now, even before it was noticed and reported by Peter.
Also on the contrary, during it’s useful-to-me life time, I still haven’t received any source code for my ZyXEL NBG4615, no matter how many times I’ve emailed ZyXEL, or even followed their official contact form, specifically for source code requests. Their general counsel seems to have provided a dropbox link or whatever, but it wasn’t convenient to me, and I haven’t heard from them since.
“More open” is a matter of perspective, just like “more free”. It’s a give-and-take with openness and freedom. Non-copyleft licenses being more open/free for proprietary developers means that the resulting software can be less open/free for users. Where one group gains freedom, another loses it.
It’s difficult to really pinpoint why Linux has all of the device drivers and OpenBSD doesn’t. It may be due to the GPL, but then again, Linux has decided to not enforce the GPL for nvidia drivers, and I don’t know of instances in which Linux’s copyleft convinced companies to provide drivers they would not have otherwise given.
The alternative explanation may be due to how OpenBSD refuses to accept drivers under NDAs and that Linux got popular during the initial years when the BSDs were fighting a lawsuit against AT&T. I don’t think anyone is making OpenBSD drivers whose source they refuse to disclose, other than perhaps nvidia.
It’s difficult to really pinpoint why Linux has all of the device drivers and OpenBSD doesn’t.
Not really. Look at how many of the Linux drivers are written and maintained by the companies that produce the hardware. Intel, Broadcom, Nvidia, etc. have Linux developers in their employ. There is code in the Linux kernel to support new Intel hardware before the hardware is even commercially available. Companies like RedHat make lots of money selling Linux, so they can afford to pay developers to work on Linux all day. Certainly Android being based off of Linux helped a lot, since those hardware vendors had to start developing Linux drivers.
There are not many companies making money off of OpenBSD (or at least, not making enough to hire developers to dedicate to it) so most of the work is done by volunteers. It’s a much smaller group of developers, which means less support and advocacy, which means less users, which turn into fewer developers, and so on.
Yes, I meant, it’s difficult to really pinpoint why this happened for Linux and not for some BSD kernel. Why did everyone start writing drivers for Linux? It’s clear many are doing it now, but how did the whole thing snowball?
I am not a fan of BSD license for operating systems. I think the license difference over the years has always held back the project.
Having used BSD with my NAS I find it a great and stable OS and I liked the file structure of the system.
I still prefer Linux’s ecco-system. I have options to be as open sourced or pragmatic as I want with much more resources.
Why do you feel that a more open license hurts a software project, specifically an operating system?
It isn’t the Open License hurts BSD it is the BSD license is not open enough. The GPL and making any modifications MUST be shared is a better model for an OS than the BSD where you don’t have to share any modifications you do make.
Are you aware of a major vendor that withholds their modifications to one of the BSDs, which it would have been required to release under GPL?
On the contrary, Netflix seems to be doing just fine — they’ve even been employing full time one of the FreeBSD guys through Nginx, Inc. to specifically hack on nginx and FreeBSD, and my understanding is that they seem to be releasing all the FreeBSD parts rather promptly.
Even Oracle, the evil overlord of all evil overlords, has been releasing patches to pf(4) for quite a number of months now, even before it was noticed and reported by Peter.
Also on the contrary, during it’s useful-to-me life time, I still haven’t received any source code for my ZyXEL NBG4615, no matter how many times I’ve emailed ZyXEL, or even followed their official contact form, specifically for source code requests. Their general counsel seems to have provided a dropbox link or whatever, but it wasn’t convenient to me, and I haven’t heard from them since.
Apple.
They release some chunks under the Darwin project. But it’s certainly not complete. I challenge you to try building it and running it.
Yeah, Darwin is essentially dead. There’s no Darwin OS anymore. Apple killed it quietly.
“More open” is a matter of perspective, just like “more free”. It’s a give-and-take with openness and freedom. Non-copyleft licenses being more open/free for proprietary developers means that the resulting software can be less open/free for users. Where one group gains freedom, another loses it.
It’s difficult to really pinpoint why Linux has all of the device drivers and OpenBSD doesn’t. It may be due to the GPL, but then again, Linux has decided to not enforce the GPL for nvidia drivers, and I don’t know of instances in which Linux’s copyleft convinced companies to provide drivers they would not have otherwise given.
The alternative explanation may be due to how OpenBSD refuses to accept drivers under NDAs and that Linux got popular during the initial years when the BSDs were fighting a lawsuit against AT&T. I don’t think anyone is making OpenBSD drivers whose source they refuse to disclose, other than perhaps nvidia.
Not really. Look at how many of the Linux drivers are written and maintained by the companies that produce the hardware. Intel, Broadcom, Nvidia, etc. have Linux developers in their employ. There is code in the Linux kernel to support new Intel hardware before the hardware is even commercially available. Companies like RedHat make lots of money selling Linux, so they can afford to pay developers to work on Linux all day. Certainly Android being based off of Linux helped a lot, since those hardware vendors had to start developing Linux drivers.
There are not many companies making money off of OpenBSD (or at least, not making enough to hire developers to dedicate to it) so most of the work is done by volunteers. It’s a much smaller group of developers, which means less support and advocacy, which means less users, which turn into fewer developers, and so on.
Yes, I meant, it’s difficult to really pinpoint why this happened for Linux and not for some BSD kernel. Why did everyone start writing drivers for Linux? It’s clear many are doing it now, but how did the whole thing snowball?
Legal issues with the BSDs at the time, and GNU/Linux users are fairly zealous.