Re: Unhappy campers Linux Inside
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Re: Unhappy campers

 In article <12667@star.cs.vu.nl> ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes:
 >While most people can talk rationally about kernel design and portability,
 >the issue of free-ness is 100% emotional.  You wouldn't believe how much
 >[expletive deleted] I have gotten lately about MINIX not being free.  MINIX
 >costs $169, but the license allows making two backup copies, so the effective 
 >price can be under $60.  Furthermore, professors may make UNLIMITED copies 
 >for their students. Coherent is $99. FSF charges >$100 for the tape its "free" 
 >software comes on if you don't have Internet access, and I have never heard 
 >anyone complain.  4.4 BSD is $800.  I don't really believe money is the issue.
 >Besides, probably most of the people reading this group already have it.
 
 The distribution cost is not the problem.  As you've noted, nobody complains
 about the FSF's distribution fee being too high.  The problem, as I see it,
 is that there is only one legal source for for the software for people that
 simply want a working release.  And from watching the minix group since
 minix first became available, my impression is that nobody enjoys dealing
 with PH for a whole host of reasons.
 
 >I think the real issue is something else. I've been repeatedly offered virtual
 >memory, paging, symbolic links, window systems, and all manner of features. I 
 >have usually declined because I am still trying to keep the system simple 
 >enough for students to understand.  You can put all this stuff in your version,
 >but I won't put it in mine. I think it is this point which irks the people who
 >say "MINIX is not free," not the $60.
 
 If PH was not granted a monopoly on distribution, it would have been possible
 for all of the interested minix hackers to organize and set up a group that
 was dedicated to producing enhanced-minix.  This aim of this group could have
 been to produce a single, supported version of minix with all of the commonly
 requested enhancements.  This would have allowed minix to evolve in much the
 same way that gcc has evolved over the last few years.  Sure there are variant
 versions of gcc, but most of the really good enhancements, bug fixes, etc
 are eventually folded back into a master source base that future distributions
 derive from.  Thus you would have been left in peace to continue your tight
 control over the educational version of minix, and everyone else that wanted
 more than an educational tool could put their energies into enhanced-minx.
 
 The primary reason I've never gotten into using minix, after the initial
 excitement of hearing about it's availability way back when, is that I have
 no interest in trying to apply random patches from all over the place, sort
 out the problems, and eventually end up with a system that does what I want
 it to, but which I can't pass on to anyone else.
 
 >The
 >test comes when a sizable group of people want to evolve LINUX in a way Linus 
 >does not want.  Until that actually happens the point is moot, however.
 
 Where is the sizeable group of people that want to evolve gcc in a way that
 rms/FSF does not approve of?
 
 Where is the sizeable group of people that want to evolve emacs in a way that
 rms/FSF doesn't approve of?
 
 I'd say that if the primary maintainers of a large piece of useful, freely
 redistributable, software are at all responsive to incorporating useful
 enhancements and acting as the central repository and clearing house for
 the software, then these splinter groups simply do not have sufficient
 motivation to form.  Having a single source for the software, and having
 the primary maintainer(s) be unresponsive to the desires of a large group
 of users, is the catalyst that causes these sorts of pressures; not the
 freedom of the software.
 
 -Fred
 -- 
 |\/ o\  Fred Fish, 1835 E. Belmont Drive, Tempe, AZ 85284,  USA
 |/\__/  1-602-491-0048 {asuvax,mcdphx,cygint,amix}!fishpond!fnf