“I’m still a bit confused as to the need for FSF endorsement.”
It’s not something anyone needs, but if Haiku did meet the criteria to be added to the FSF’s list, maybe it might help some more people discover the project. I just thought it would be a shame if Haiku had replaced all its proprietary bits, and nobody had bothered to check and update the FSF folks. So, I asked for some clarification in the OP.
Since there is proprietary software in Haiku releases, and the devs have no plans to change that, it’s not going to qualify. No big deal.
“The open source community existed long before the FSF.”
True, the first versions of what became the BSDs were released before the founding of the FSF in 1985. But it wasn’t until 1988 that any part of BSD was released under the BSD license. For the record, all of this happened before phrase “open source” was even created (Christine Peterson coined it in 1998). More info about these historical milestones, with links to primary sources, can be found here: https://www.coactivate.org/projects/disintermedia/free-culture-timeline
This thread seems to have moved on to a discussion about release schedules, so I’ll leave it there. Thanks for your reply.
I think this discussion about release schedules is a very valuable discussion for the Haiku community, far too valuable to be buried at the bottom of this thread on “making Haiku free software”, where interested community members may not find it. Can I suggest forking, and if possible, moving the comment about release schedules to its own thread, under a more pertinent title?
I’d go even further: The Haiku devs should continue the thread “R1/beta1 (finally?)” to hash things out among the people with the knowledge and the power of decision. When the path to the beta has been fixed, inform everyone with a nice crisp blog post.
I’m fairly versed in computer history as well. Everything you said is all well and true. I’m well aware of the origins of community jargon. While it didn’t have the modern name of open source until much later, the concept of sharing source code is about as old as computers. Yes, it even predates the modern BSD lineage you mentioned.
I highly doubt licensing has anything to do with popularity or lack thereof. Even it’s heyday, BeOS was a small niche, known only to a few geeks and used by fewer. And the exact same arguments were used back then as they are now as to why or why not yet another OS is needed.
I think the point is to focus on building the system instead of focusing on the license. A complete, usable system will do far more to increase Haiku’s popularity than the fanciest, dandiest license ever will.
One thing to think about: would having a sudden and sizable influx of new devs really be the best thing for Haiku right now? There is a rather strict set of guidelines for coding the main system. This is a good thing. Would it be a good thing to flood our current devs with getting a metric crap ton of new coders up to speed on project guidelines?
On advertising nightlies: to me this is like giving up any hope on progress towards R1. But if that’s the way most people prefer, let’s go with it. No releases to support, it would be less work for the devs. But it is in contradiction with the “we need a stable platform to attract devs” idea.
As for attracting new devs: yes, it definitely is a good thing. There is way too much work for the current team, taking care of both the OS and many of the applications. And we are quite welcoming to new developers even if we are strict on following the coding guidelines (like any sane probect, I’d say)
Right now I’m in a hardware and social situation where net connectivity is giving me fits where it’s next to impossible to get much done in Haiku or any OS for that matter. I look forward to getting some real work done once I complete my current move. In the meantime, here’s some philosophy. Cheers.
PS. I have submitted a documentation patch recently that fixed a user guide on GRUB, which was swiftly updated. Small and meager, I know. But it’s something other than bare philosophy.
The licenses are important, because they determine whether Haiku is a free code/ open source OS, which can be freely distributed, or a proprietary OS with some free code components (like Windows, MacOS etc), whose distribution can be controlled by the copyright owner(s) of the proprietary components. What’s the point of building yet another proprietary OS? If Haiku wants to compete with GNU-Linux as the pre-eminent free code desktop OS, which I agree would be awesome, it first has to be open source (all of it).
We just ship a binary firmware for wifi cards for user convenience (this is easily removed if you don’t want it) and suddenly we are as bad as Windows or OS X. So our 17 years of effort writing free software are worth nothing?
I’ll stick with the definition of free software as given by the fsf - the 4 freedoms to use, study, modify and share software. I do my best so that the software I write can be given with these freedoms to as much people as possible.
Now if people think free software is something more, I would argue they are using the word for more than what it means, and they should rather find another word.
But if that pleases you I will use the term “open source”, tome it does not make much of a difference
That’s because you don’t understand the point of Free Software. I already said that above or another post, but I will repeat.
Free Software doesn’t only warrant people to receive the 4 freedoms itself, but ensures that people who receive the freedom is obliged to give it to others. In your situation you are surely giving people access to those freedoms, but nothing ensures that those freedoms will be warranted to other people. That’s all.
I think the correct meaning of FS should be respected because this term was created by whom defined it, just like any word.
The definition of free software is very clear and is exactly the four freedoms I described. What you are thinking about is Copyleft, detailed in the same page, and even the FSF uses a different term for it, because they acknowledge the MIT and BSD as free software, but non-copyleft, licences.
And indeed, Haiku is not copyleft, and nor is most software I write, when I have a choice. It is my decision to make my software free, it is not my duty to force other people, including users of my software, to do the same. I also think that advertising free software this way works better in the long term, because people can observe it and see that it works quite well (or sometimes it doesn’t), and then make an informed decision on following with it. I think this is better than trying to force people to respect the freedoms.
Well, personally I would rather like that haiku was gpl licensed, to avoid closed developments as it happens with sony and freebsd, to quote an example. But, beyond my personal preferences, I think this circumstance was already in mind of the core team when they had chosen the mit one. As they considered this license fits with their objectives and development model, I, as user, should respect it, mainly because it keeps the floss nature of Haiku
