Re: Effectiveness of GPL vs. BSD (was Re: GPL vs. sweatshops (was Re: Bias))

On Sat, 15 Jun 2002 18:56, Deven T. Corzine wrote:

> On Sat, 15 Jun 2002, Sean C. Farley wrote:
>
> > I was showing that it is hard to compare one license being better
> > than the other when using FreeBSD vs Linux as the example.  FreeBSD
> > was hit hard by the lawsuit.  Many developers avoided it until it
> > was settled.  With such a large factor involved in its development,
> > it makes it hard to compare other factors.
>
> Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention to FreeBSD, or maybe I'm
> just forgetting, but what lawsuit was this again?

Here is a brief history about FreeBSD:
http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/history.html.  Look for "storm clouds".

> > Personally, I believe FreeBSD's style of development (more
> > centralized) gives it a better chance than Linux in the long run.
> > The license will probably play a part to help it.  With two large
> > projects, it is hard to point at only one factor making one project
> > better than the other.
>
> I think there's an open question regarding "bazaar" vs. "cathedral"
> development -- while the bazaar model is clearly more active, the
> cathedral model seems likely to be more consistent in quality, vision
> and coherency.  Bazaar-style development has very high quality in some
> spots and much lower quality in others, because people at all
> different skill levels contribute.  It may also tend more towards a
> "kitchen sink" approach.  But it tends to move forward much faster.
> Which is better, ultimately?

In the long term, I believe cathedral (or close to it) works better than
bazaar.  It is nice to have a man page for almost all drivers.  It is
also nice to have the kernel and standard libraries in-sync with each
other.  When FreeBSD goes in a direction the utilities, libraries,
drivers and man pages surroundiing the kernel go along with it.
Incompatabilities are less frequent than with Linux.

> Of course, I'm not sure Linux is truly a bazaar model -- the respected
> Linux kernel gurus (Linus, Alan, etc.) are in their cathedral making
> their judgements on the code offered by the masses in the bazaar
> below...  (Maybe some sort of hybrid model like this is the best
> approach, though?)

I agree.  I do not see Linux as a bazaar model since Linus does have
strict control over his tree.

FreeBSD is also not a complete cathedral.  Many projects are going on
around it that are not in the main OS.

Sean
--------------
[email protected]