Re: US DoD? "We don't use that German ****!"?

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On Monday 18 August 2003 03:33, Timothy R. Butler wrote:
> The YaST License fails the criterion of
> both the Free Software Foundation and OSI. In other words, its a non-Free
> license... indeed, it is somewhere between Microsoft Shared Source (tm) and
> Free Software in nature, but definately leans on the MSS side of things.

yes, the YAST license, while highly understandable coming from the era of a 
few years ago, is also highly unfortunate. i really hope SuSE "sees the 
light" on that one. 

i wouldn't go so far as to say that it leans on the MSS side of things, 
however, unless i completely didn't understand how MSS worked. =P see, with 
MSS you have to be a special customer, then you can only look and not change 
(let alone distribute the changes), MS picks and chooses which bits of the 
code you see and you have to sign NDAs.

with YAST anyone can look, anyone can change, you can even distribute those 
modifications around with some limitations. you just can't label your 
modifications as SuSE's and you can't sell YAST (or sell it as part of your 
product) yourself.

this is nowhere near as good as an OSI approved license as you note. but it 
isn't anywhere near MSS, either.

>    The second point, I would say, is that preferably I think a military
> should use its own country's resources. Being dependent on any other
> country is silly if the country's own products would suffice (or an

agreed

>    1.) RHN functionality makes updates easier to deploy, best I can tell,
> than YaST YOU.

have you used YOU? it's trivial to use, can be run automatically, works 
flawlessly and doesn't cost a dime (unlike RHN). what did you base your 
statement on here exactly?

>    2.) Red Hat is speeding towards becoming a completely open development
> cycle, leading to transparency and even the ability for the DoD to directly
> influence areas of the distribution it finds weak.

well, sort of. they'll still control the advanced server product, have final 
say in what goes into the distro, and likely continue their behind-the-scenes 
devel that we all witnessed with their packaging of KDE in RH8.

the benefits of the open packaging model for the "retail" level product (which 
is really what it is) have yet to be seen....

> SuSE is uses an ultra 
> closed development model similar to that of proprietary software.

except they use Free Software and pay a lot of people to work openly on it. 
how is this like proprietary software again? how does it mean they don't 
respond and move with their customer's needs? and how is it wrong, bad or 
evil?

>    3.) Red Hat, unlike what I noted about SuSE a moment ago, is GPL
> friendly, releasing everything as GPL.

yes, Red Hat is very GPL friendly. but you then intimate that SuSE isn't GPL 
friendly because it keeps one piece of software under a non-Free license. i 
suppose you can conveniently ignore all their work in gcc, KDE and other Free 
Software projects that use the GPL. you also ignore their work in XFree86, 
where for a long time they were pretty much the sole distro contributor, and 
many other projects. i think you're giving SuSE the short end of the stick 
here.

>    4.) Red Hat has a political lobby in Washington, which can help appease
> the politicians and keep them from bothering the DoD deployments. :-)

yes, indeed.... but i feel about as happy political lobbyist groups as i do 
software patents.

>    Ideal alternate solution: DoD pays to get the proper certifications for
> Debian GNU/Linux.

i don't know if Debian is perceived to be reliable enough as an organization 
IMHO. the government will likely want to deal with a commercial entity.

in any case, i agree with many of your sentiments, Tim... i just think that 
you went way overboard in (mis-)emphasizing and misinterpreting realities; 
fairness is a virtue, especially when it comes to making observations about 
someone who has been a strong member of the Free Software community.

- -- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43
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