On Sun, Sep 17, 2017 at 12:57 PM, Kurt H Maier <khm@sciops.net> wrote:

On Sun, Sep 17, 2017 at 02:49:16PM -0400, Chet Ramey wrote:
>
> I remember multiple FSF efforts to solicit volunteers for named projects.
> There were lots of people willing to donate their time and effort. And
> at that time, there were very few non-FSF projects licensed under the GPL,
> so the issue of "absorbtion" was minor to non-existent.

But that time changed, and was replaced by a time where the FSF pushed
hard on copyright assignment to the FSF, and led to a time where we
wound up with GPL, GPL2, GPL3, AGPL, LGPL, ad infinitum, which landed us
in the present day, where half the tech organizations on earth are so
unwilling to step into the morass that BSD/MIT licenses are making a big
comeback.

FreeBSD started out life with lots of GNU/GPL software. After GPLv3 was released, the project made a conscious effort to move away from all GPL'd software in the tree. When FreeBSD 12 comes out next year, there's a really good chance all the GPL'd code will be gone from the tree.

They've spent so much time trying to 'fix' international patent law by
clubbing people with copyright licenses that the company behind the most
popular linux distribution is working on a BSD-licensed kernel.

Fun times, that....

The history of UNIX and its ilk fascinates me, but only half of it is
technology. The other half of it is a bizarre forty-year-long license
war, which the partisans refuse to stop fighting, even after they win.

Yea...

Warner