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EU study recommends OpenBSD

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Re: EU study recommends OpenBSD

#41

Post by weland »

jkyle wrote: post #4
s_dev wrote: post #2

Theo De Raadt always complained that many of the institutions that run and use OpenBSD don't contribute back. Good to see the EU at least acknowledging that its something that they should explore. They probably use it and its features more than they realise. I suspect there is a strong political motive as well behind being "technologically independent" after the NSA mass surveillance revelations. I like the sound of…

> Theo De Raadt always complained that many of the institutions that run and use OpenBSD don't contribute back. Sounds like he needs a different license then.

More often than not, he wasn't referring to contributions in the FSF sense (i.e. people modifying code that they don't send back to the original authors). He simply meant that many of the institutions that run and use OpenBSD, which is available entirely for free, don't give anything in return - be it in the form of code, money, documentation or promotion. Another free license solves only a small proportion of this problem.

Re: EU study recommends OpenBSD

#42

Post by k-mcgrady »

brudgers wrote: post #7

Link to Part 1 of the study (wherein the recommendation lies): http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/52740... Part 2 of the study recommends government funding of Open Source Projects: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/52741... Potential and actual conflicts of interest between governments and citizens in regard to privacy are not addressed.

They don't address conflicts of interest but it seems like they're fine with privacy:

"[...] the use of open source computer operating systems and applications reduces the risk of privacy intrusion by mass surveillance.

They seem to be touting that as a benefit, not a drawback.

Re: EU study recommends OpenBSD

#43

Post by icebraining »

Someone1234 wrote: post #27
tbrownaw wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any of the free/open licenses require users to contribute to the parent project. I don't think any even require that people distributing modified versions, send those modifications back upstream.

The GPL kinda-sorta does. I guess it depends on your definition of "contribute back." People that derive from GPL source have to release those changes to the public, which could just be a zip archive on their web-site rather than a git pull request. I guess what I mean is, the company can try to be as unhelpful as possible (e.g. strip comments, place all code into a giant .cpp file, etc) but it does technically have…

People that derive from GPL source have to release those changes to the public

No, only to the people who have received binaries of those derivations.

Re: EU study recommends OpenBSD

#44

Post by belorn »

s_dev wrote: post #16
belorn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"said the great problem we would face is that companies would take our BSD code, modify it, and not give back. − Nope. We have many companies giving us code back, all the time." - Theo De Raadt

You could have easily taken the full quote -- it's not quite the contradiction you're trying to make: "GPL fans said the great problem we would face is that companies would take our BSD code, modify it, and not give back. Nope—the great problem we face is that people would wrap the GPL around our code, and lock us out in the same way that these supposed companies would lock us out. Just like the Linux community, we h…

I responded to the statement that Theo De Raadt is always complained about people not contributing back. The rest of the quote, including the "GPL fan" and "we cannot get it back" is only leading to the regular flame wars and do not contribute to the question: Do Theo De Raadt always complain about contributions? Yes, No?

I dislike labeling like BSD fanatics, BSD fans, GPL fan, and GPL fanatics. Neither contribute to clam and reasonable discussion. Thus I did not include it.

I also find the implied statement that proprietary licensed software can be relicensed by anyone to BSD to be very misleading and wrong. If a author who license something under a proprietary license later decides to relicense part of it under BSD, then a author of GPL licensed software can equally do so to part of their code. The BSD author has as little entitlement to proprietary changes as to GPL changes.

Re: EU study recommends OpenBSD

#45

Post by nayden »

dimitar wrote: post #14
belorn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"said the great problem we would face is that companies would take our BSD code, modify it, and not give back. − Nope. We have many companies giving us code back, all the time." - Theo De Raadt

If so, then the issue is they don't contribute money?

That used to be a case for a very long time but it is _slowly_ changing. We still mostly rely on contributions by individuals.

Re: EU study recommends OpenBSD

#46

Post by nitramafve »

cwyers wrote: post #36
Someone1234 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GPL kinda-sorta does. I guess it depends on your definition of "contribute back." People that derive from GPL source have to release those changes to the public, which could just be a zip archive on their web-site rather than a git pull request. I guess what I mean is, the company can try to be as unhelpful as possible (e.g. strip comments, place all code into a giant .cpp file, etc) but it does technically have…

The GPL requires you to distribute source code in addition to binaries. If you don't distribute binaries (i.e. if you're running the code on your server farm only), then you don't have to distribute anything.

That is why some choose to license their work under AGPL.

Re: EU study recommends OpenBSD

#47

Post by belorn »

Someone1234 wrote: post #31
nnq wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> once the code is GPL'd, we cannot get it back I don't get it. Can't you retain copyright to code you yourself release under GPL and also use it under a different license or as part of closes source software? As far as I know, you can...

Let me rephrase the quote for you: "once the code is GPL'd, we cannot get the modifications back" That's what he meant. Look at the full context.

And you can from proprietary licensed modifications?

FSF recommendation is that you use the same license as the project which you are contributing to. If you use a BSD project, contribute your patches under BSD. If its GPL, contribute under GPL. If you combine work under BSD and GPL and write modifications, contribute back the modifications based on what code you are doing modification for.

The proprietary way is to release modification only if its make a business sense to do so, and I don't know if OpenBSD actually has a official recommendation in this aspect. If they do, its not something I have ever seen.

Re: EU study recommends OpenBSD

#48

Post by gillianseed »

s_dev wrote: post #40
gillianseed wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nope—the great problem we face is that people would wrap the GPL around our code, and lock us out in the same way that these supposed companies would lock us out. Does he offer any examples of this happening ?

The point I think Theo is trying to make is in the open source world you simply have to expect that people will take code - put it under a different licence and modify it - restricting their ability to take back the modified code into OpenBSD. Typically OSS licences allow and tolerate "selfish" behaviour. I don't think I or he needs to back up this claim with examples.

>that people will take code - put it under a different licence and modify it

Ok, although the 'take code and put it under a different license' is untrue, you can't re-license code unless you are the copyright owner, I gather that he means someone making modifications/enhancements and placing them under a license which OpenBSD can't use while remaining fully BSD licensed.

Re: EU study recommends OpenBSD

#49

Post by dijit »

I love openBSD, it's implementation of certain things is slower (like networking), but it's so clean and well implemented.

even if it doesnt' get to play with all the toys (like ZFS) it's what I'd love to default to for application servers/bastion server/firewalls etc;

my only qualm with it currently is it's reliance of X11 for ports to work- I don't like install X11 libs on my servers wherever I can avoid it. :\

Re: EU study recommends OpenBSD

#50

Post by andrewstuart2 »

cbd1984 wrote: post #22
andrewstuart2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course that's true. I'm just not convinced that OpenBSD : Linux :: Armored truck : Pinto. In fact, the point of a good portion of the second study [1], p.17-25 is pointing out the flaws that have occurred in the Linux operating system and other existing technologies. [1] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/52740...

I never claimed Linux was a Pinto. My point is, some things are just built well, and even if they're not used very often we can expect a certain level of quality, as opposed to saying that the only reason we don't see them stolen is because so few people drive them. Especially if they're used all the damn time, just not in places people see a lot. So some bugs will be found in OpenBSD. That's a given. However, it isn…

Yeah, I agree 100% :-)

I guess what I'm saying is that it would make more sense to me if OpenBSD and Linux were both on the list. As you also mentioned, flaws existing in programs is inevitable, so unless the defect rate, normalized for usage, is significantly higher in one case, it's not good evidence for the quality or security of one over another.

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