🚀 go-pugleaf

burley@geech.ai.mit.edu (Craig Burley) writes:
>In article <1686@tharr.UUCP> gtoal@tharr.UUCP (Graham Toal) writes:
>   I think a real free market economy is going to mean that people will start
>   producing software which is *truly* free, in rival to the Gnu project.
>   [...] the Bsd4.3 people went out of their way to avoid Gnu code when
>   shaking off the last AT&T shackles recently)

>If BSD4.3 people went out of their way to avoid GNU code
>for reasons having to do with "freedom", then I suspect it was because
>they ultimately want people to incorporate their code in proprietary
>products (i.e. *not*-free BSD4.3), whether that was a direct motivation
>or, perhaps, a motivation in making their ground rules be to release it in
>the public domain.

The Berkeley CSRG is funded by several industry sources.  It's altogether
possible that their funding would be substantially reduced if they started
writing stuff under the GPL, or even incorporating GNU stuff.  Note that
they do plan on using the GNU compiler, but that is the only GNU program
they plan on using.  Many industrial Unix vendors have replaced the
BSD compiler in the past, so Berkeley including a compiler that they
may need to replace will not be any more inconvenience to industry than it
has been in the past.  But perhaps they are under pressure not to use
GNU stuff anywhere else.

I don't know exactly who funds the CSRG, except that I believe HP is
among among their sponsors.  I doubt whether HP would pressure CSRG
not to use GNU software, since HP is one of *our* major supporters!
I tend to think of HP as being among the good guys.  Things like the
Monterey Bay Aquarium and MBARI lend credence to this viewpoint I think.

I don't know who the other CSRG sponsors may be, nor do I know for sure
that HP is one of them, but note that 4.4bsd will apparently run on HP
machines, and that seems to be the kernel port that is most nearly free.
--
Mike Haertel <mike@stolaf.edu>
"He's a tie with the ambition to become a full-blown suit." -- Jon Westbrock