Making Haiku Free Software

41

[quote=commodorejohn]
Has anybody been talking about making Haiku proprietary? I haven’t seen anything to that effect.[/quote]
Earl Colby is obviously against a GPL fork while not having a problem with a proprietary Haiku version:

[quote=Earl Colby Pottinger]
How we are damaged when we still have our original OS and still can modify/extend the original OS is not made clear. But someone making money off Haiku is somehow going to damage us.[/quote]

Which is what I was relating to.

[quote=commodorejohn]
The idea of seeking to comply to FSF guidelines is a concern for me because it would impair usability, in exchange for essentially nothing more than a “True Believer” sticker.[/quote]
Agreed, pretty much what I wrote in my first post in this thread.

Only reason(s) I could think of as to why a licence change could happen would be either the above (third party proprietary Haiku version competing with the original) or that there would be Linux or other GPL licenced code which the devs desperately wanted to use inside or directly linked with the kernel. Neither of these seem anywhere remotely likely to happen.

42

Kia ora koutou

Discussions in these forums seem to produce much more heat than light, so I will carry on this discussion with Ryan and the other core developers, since he comes across as capable of a productive conversation around these issues.

This is my first interaction with an open source user community affiliated to the BSD philosophy. I posted here precisely because I am not an uncritical Linux fanboy, but a strong believer in supporting a diverse range of free code OS projects including GNU, Android/ Replicant, the BSDs, Haiku, illumos (formerly openSolaris), Syllable, and many others. I always thought Stallman exaggerated the difference between the Free Software movement, and the Open Source movement, but some of the comments in these forums help me to understand why he wrote this essay:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

I have to say I’m deeply disappointed by both the sneering tone and the Microsoft-style FUD in many of these comments. I’m totally comfortable with people understanding what I’m saying, but having a different opinion (or preference). What bothers me is the people who muddy the waters by posting without having made the effort to fully understand the issues involved (difference between GNU system and Linux kernel; gratis vs libre definitions of freedom; political dimensions of software development as a form of engineering etc). This indicates to me that these people’s commitment to anti-FSF/ anti-GPL ideology is much stronger than their commitment to truth, understanding and mutual respect. This is both sad, and ironic, given the claims here that the FSF are blinded by ideology.

If the FSF are as ideologically blind as these people claim, why do they encourage users new to Free Software to use free code applications on Windows?
https://www.fsf.org/working-together/moving/windows/

If the FSF are the enemies of the BSD/ MIT communities, why do they understand and respect some people’s preference for the BSD/ MIT license, listing most variants of the BSD/MIT are endorsed as GPL-Comtable Free Software Licenses:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses

The most laughable piece of FUD is that “Linux” is not open to developer participation. That’s not even true of the Linux kernel, although it’s true there is a hierarchy of developers in that community, with Linus at the top. It’s certainly not true of the many modules that go into the average GNU/Linux distribution. Some of the more common ones are listed here:
https://www.fsf.org/working-together/gang/

Commodore John wrote:

Has anybody been talking about making Haiku proprietary? I haven’t seen anything to that effect. <<

According to various comments in these forums, the BSD/MIT license was chosen (over GPL) in case the ability to legally make proprietary forks of Haiku would make it more attractive to commercial vendors.

The idea of seeking to comply to FSF guidelines is a concern for me because it would impair usability, in exchange for essentially nothing more than a “True Believer” sticker. <<

It’s not an either/or. It means having a free code base system which can support essential hardware and user functions, and a user-friendly interface for installing proprietary drivers and applications. This gives the a user like me the choice of which (if any) compromises they want to make with proprietary components, and the freedom to run Haiku as totally free code if we don’t want to make such compromises.

Peace?
Strypey

43

[quote=strypey]
The most laughable piece of FUD is that “Linux” is not open to developer participation. That’s not even true of the Linux kernel, although it’s true there is a hierarchy of developers in that community, with Linus at the top.[/quote]

That is obviously just someone trolling, the Linux kernel is the largest collaborative open source project in existance. Just ignore it.

Yes but that was a looong time ago at a time where Beos had just gone bust and the initial Haiku (or rather OpenBeos) developers just wanted Beos to continue on and were thinking that a commercial venture would have the best chance of doing so and thus chose a licence which would allow this to happen.

It didn’t though, and I doubt having a company pick up Haiku and run with it as a proprietary competitor is high on the wish-list amongst the Haiku devs today given that they’ve themselves actually gotten Haiku up to the point and past where Beos was at the time of it’s demise, an amazing feat given how few developers Haiku has.

I’m not sure where you are going with this, maybe I’m just not following your line of thought. Using GPL or having FSF’s endorsement is not a prerequisite for shipping a proprietary free operating system.

I personally find the idea of proprietary drivers appalling, there’s nothing inherently good with something being proprietary and when it comes to drivers it only serves to limit the systems on which you can use the hardware you’ve bought, which in itself is insane.

It’s not a matter of ‘ideology’ for me, proprietary drivers limit the potential of your hardware in that it can only be used in environments the hardware manufacturer saw fit to support, which creates huge hurdles for projects like Haiku. Thus it becomes a practical problem (and that’s ignoring all the problems from the developer-side with black box modules).

There’s nothing in the licencing which prevents proprietary drivers on Haiku, but really I find that discussion pointless as I’m absolutely certain there won’t be any official proprietary driver support for Haiku from a hardware vendor, like ever.

Haiku has gotten this far due to the existance of open source drivers and will continue to do so. Thankfully it seems to me that in overall the hardware spectrum is slowly but deliberatly consolidating, atleast enough so that there is a ‘hardware base’ for which Haiku support is not out of reach which in turn would get Haiku running on a majority of machines.

Now as for the whole GPL/FSF vs BSD thing, I have no problems with either licence, but just like there are people gravitating towards Linux due to it being licenced as GPL there are people gravitating towards Haiku because it’s MIT/BSD licenced. I think it’s sad but that’s how it is.

So when someone like you comes along and starts proposing Haiku conforming to the ideology of FSF or proposing changes to the licencing then you just end up stirring the hornets nest. Just like it would happen should someone go suggest that Linux should change licence to MIT/BSD, it’s simply pointless and totally unproductive, so let’s just move along from this discussion, please!

1 Like
44

[quote=Rox][quote=commodorejohn]
Has anybody been talking about making Haiku proprietary? I haven’t seen anything to that effect.[/quote]
Earl Colby is obviously against a GPL fork while not having a problem with a proprietary Haiku version:[/quote]

I am not against a GPL FORK, I am against the idea that Haiku as it is presently licensed must be changed to GPL. Go ahead and make a GPL version if you want, but it is not the duty of the present developers to create your dream OS, they are busy creating their dream OS. The users do not have duty to use it either. And to date NO-ONE has explained what good FSF’s seal of approval will do for Haiku.

[quote=Rox][quote=Earl Colby Pottinger]
How we are damaged when we still have our original OS and still can modify/extend the original OS is not made clear. But someone making money off Haiku is somehow going to damage us.[/quote]

Which is what I was relating to.[/quote]

And yet to date no-one has ever answered my question about how I would be harmed from a company making money off Haiku.

[quote=Rox][quote=commodorejohn]
The idea of seeking to comply to FSF guidelines is a concern for me because it would impair usability, in exchange for essentially nothing more than a “True Believer” sticker.[/quote]
Agreed, pretty much what I wrote in my first post in this thread.

Only reason(s) I could think of as to why a licence change could happen would be either the above (third party proprietary Haiku version competing with the original) or that there would be Linux or other GPL licenced code which the devs desperately wanted to use inside or directly linked with the kernel. Neither of these seem anywhere remotely likely to happen.[/quote]

As none of the above has happened in the last ten years I don’t expect it to happen in the next ten either. So again what good is the FSF’s approval going to do for Haiku? To get it certain features will have to be disabled without any gain. That will be a waste of a lot of work done so far.

PS. And the binary blob restriction is also a problem, for one of my programs the binary blob is a special 4MB lookup table. The code to create the blob sucks up 500MB to run and about two and a half minutes runtime. Making that part of the start-up code does not make any sense to me. And in talking to different people it is clear the purpose of the blob is too out in left field for them to understand why it works the way it does. In other words, it like looks like a proprietary blob, acts like a proprietary blob, but it is not a proprietary. It is just a binary blog to speed the startup. A GPL licence will have trouble with my present code and will have me jumping thru hoops to get it approved. MIT/BSD licence just allows it to be just sucked in and the code can start working in less than a second.

45

I do not want a GPL fork, I only found the idea of thinking a proprietary fork of Haiku is ok while thinking a GPL fork is bad totally irrational. Also not even the OP suggested changing Haiku’s licence to GPL, he was suggesting consolidating the licences around BSD, I argued AGAINST that as it has no practical impact anyway.

[quote=Earl Colby Pottinger]
And to date NO-ONE has explained what good FSF’s seal of approval will do for Haiku.[/quote]
Again this is what I’ve written over and over again, Haiku has nothing to gain from getting FSF’s endorsement, what are you arguing about?

Can you read? I’ve already described a hypotetical situation were a company picks up Haiku and creates a proprietary distribution where they continously pick up any enhancements from the open Haiku project while keeping their own enhancements to themselves, thus competing against the original Haiku at an advantage. This is something I certainly believe could be detrimental to the Haiku devs morale, which could trigger either a licence change or simply that the devs find less motivation to work on Haiku.I mentioned a similar thing which happened with Wine.

That said I also wrote that I think it’s extremely unlikely that some company/bunch of devs are going to fork a proprietary Haiku, just as it’s extremely unlikely someone will fork a GPL version of Haiku.

[quote=Earl Colby Pottinger]
As none of the above has happened in the last ten years I don’t expect it to happen in the next ten either.[/quote]
Yes, as you can see in the actual text YOU QUOTED, I said that -‘Neither of these seem anywhere remotely likely to happen.’

What was your point?

[quote=Earl Colby Pottinger]
PS. And the binary blob restriction is also a problem, for one of my programs the binary blob is a special 4MB lookup table. The code to create the blob sucks up 500MB to run and about two and a half minutes runtime. Making that part of the start-up code does not make any sense to me. And in talking to different people it is clear the purpose of the blob is too out in left field for them to understand why it works the way it does. In other words, it like looks like a proprietary blob, acts like a proprietary blob, but it is not a proprietary. It is just a binary blog to speed the startup. A GPL licence will have trouble with my present code and will have me jumping thru hoops to get it approved. MIT/BSD licence just allows it to be just sucked in and the code can start working in less than a second.[/quote]
I don’t know wtf you are babbling about here, can you go into some technical detail as to why you need to use up 500mb to ‘create a blob’ and how that relates to licencing? Perhaps an explanation as to what this blob is supposed to do would be a good start because I can’t make heads or tails of what you’ve written here.

46

I see I am not expressing myself clearly.

Give me a day or two and I will see if I can post a message that is easier to read/understand.

47

That sounds like a neat way to make an application faster. :slight_smile:

I think the FSF would have no problem with your use of a “binary blob”. The FSF decided that the binary blobs that are part of the Linux kernel are not free software because it’s impossible to know what they mean or change them. If you provide comments describing your binary blob in detail or, even better, if the source code that creates the binary blob is open source, then it’s not a problem in the eyes of the FSF and the GPL.

48

I know I said I wouldn’t comment on this thread but hey, I can’t help myself.

First a couple of clarifications:

  1. This is not about relicensing Haiku, all the BSD licenses are Free Software licenses (and all of them are GPL-compatible as they are except the Original 4-Clause BSD License)
  2. This is not about whether or not Haiku can be sold for money. Both GPL and BSD allow that.

Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:

And to date NO-ONE has explained what good FSF’s seal of approval will do for Haiku. <<

I didn’t explain this clearly enough in the original post. In fact the ensuing discussion has forced me to do further research, and helped me understand some of these issues more deeply. Thanks to those who made constructive comments. Some of the potential benefits to Haiku are:

  1. People can use Haiku and re-use Haiku code without any fear that some obscure licensing issue is going to bite them in the ass
  2. Millions of GNU/Linux users might consider using Haiku, and recommending it as a free code alternative to Windows which is more user-friendly for newbies than GNU/Linux
  3. Millions of FSF-aligned developers might consider contributing code to Haiku
  4. As a result of the above, hardware manufacturers might consider shipping hardware with Haiku as the OS
  5. When hardware vendors want to ship computers that meet the criteria for FSF endorsement, Haiku will be a possible candidate as the OS:
    Group:Hardware/Endorsement criteria - LibrePlanet

The Debian Project have announced that they are actively working towards resolving any remaining issues to get endorsed, which could mean a seachange for the many distros (including many of the popular ones like Ubuntu) which are based on Debian.

Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:

And the binary blob restriction is also a problem, for one of my programs the binary blob is a special 4MB lookup table. <<

I’ll admit I may be out of my depth here, but it strikes me that you may have misunderstood what the FSF means by “binary blob”. You seem to be talking about open source code which has been compiled into a binary. All software must be compiled into a binary before it can be run, so obviously the FSF does not object to this.

In the Linux kernel source code, there are some sections which are simply lines of 0s and 1s (“binary blobs”), probably because those pieces of code are proprietary device drivers etc. This is what the FSF is objecting to, and why they endorse distros which use Linux-libre, a fork of the Linux kernel in which those proprietary binary blobs have been removed:
http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/selibre/linux-libre/

Ubuntu and certain other popular Linux distro are not currently FSF-endorsed because they use Linux with the proprietary blobs.

Rox:

I’m not sure where you are going with this, maybe I’m just not following your line of thought. Using GPL or having FSF’s endorsement is not a prerequisite for shipping a proprietary free operating system. <<

Yes, you are quite confused. I wasn’t promoting the idea of using proprietary drivers. Obviously the long term goal is to have free code drivers for any and all hardware people might want to use with Haiku (or any other OS). What I’m suggesting is that if there are any proprietary packages left in Haiku (or “open source” packages using the Original 4-Clause BSD license) - drivers being the most likely culprit - they can be moved to a separate repository, rather than included in the default system. That way, people can choose to use them if they need and want them, but they don’t have to.

As far as I can tell, that’s all that would be required to get FSF endorsement.

Ma te wā
Strypey

49

Personally I have quite the bad impression formed on the FSF and the GPL.
It might be just me , but , I seem to be unable to understand what does the idea of forcing someone to use only your way of thinking have to do with FREEDOM. FREEDOM means being free ! Free to share your code , or free to not share it , free to give it away , or free to make money of it.
Let’s be honest there are many instances in which open-source just isn’t viable , especially when it comes to the financial bit of life.
A BSD type license is perfect. It encourage people/companies to contribute with apps or drivers in accordance to each of their approach , be it open or closed sourced.
Linux is just one huge mess and they continuously discourage any commercial company that want’s to participate in the environment but without being open.
You will never make it as a Desktop Os as long as you put extreme ideology over the needs of users and developers alike. Plus don’t even get me started on no stable API’s or lack of an unified SDK.
If the Linux folks wanted to succeed on the Desktop they would have , but , alas , they don’t . And they never will as long as they don’t get their “shit” together and stop all the day dreaming.
On an ending note , the FSF people remind me of those door to door missionaries … Did you discover Jesus ? No … Oh , let’s shove it down your throat. Just replace Jesus with Open Source.
Just picture Stallman putting his foot in the door when you are about to close.
And this rant comes from someone who loves open source , but , also someone who loves actual FREEDOM even more.

50

I’m sorry, your post is very confusing. :frowning:

[quote=lxstoian]Personally I have quite the bad impression formed on the FSF and the GPL.
It might be just me , but , I seem to be unable to understand what does the idea of forcing someone to use only your way of thinking have to do with FREEDOM.[/quote]
What “way of thinking” does the FSF force? In what way do they force it? I don’t think the FSF forces anyone to do anything.

Both the FSF and the GPL provide all of these freedoms. The only exception being is “free to not share it”. IF you download source code licensed under the GPL and IF you make changes to it and IF you release those changes as a new software application, then yes, you are obligated to release the source code changes you made as well.

[quote]Let’s be honest there are many instances in which open-source just isn’t viable , especially when it comes to the financial bit of life.
A BSD type license is perfect. It encourage people/companies to contribute with apps or drivers in accordance to each of their approach , be it open or closed sourced.[/quote]
Neither the MIT nor the GPL licenses prohibit writing closed source applications and drivers to work with an open source operating system and other open source applications.

[quote]Linux is just one huge mess and they continuously discourage any commercial company that want’s to participate in the environment but without being open. You will never make it as a Desktop Os as long as you put extreme ideology over the needs of users and developers alike. Plus don’t even get me started on no stable API’s or lack of an unified SDK.
If the Linux folks wanted to succeed on the Desktop they would have , but , alas , they don’t . And they never will as long as they don’t get their “shit” together and stop all the day dreaming.[/quote]
This paragraph is all over the place! O_O I will summarize my response as this: Linux is extremely successful at it’s goals. It is currently the most popular server OS and the most popular mobile OS. It is perfectly usable as a desktop OS.

Richard Stallman and the FSF do not “love open source” software. They instead promote the ideals of free software. Are you saying this is… bad? Why?

And is a rand from Richard Stallman about free software worse than the rant you posted here? :wink:

51

Have to admit I did go off on a bit of a crazy rant there. Just have a big personal dislike towards Stallman.

What I meant is the fact that to the FSF the only kind of code that exist is open code. There is no middle path. They consider that there is no excuse in using closed source code.
Steam just announced it’s coming to Linux and all that Stallman is talking about is the damage it will cause. If Adobe would announce Photoshop for Linux , their response would be the same.
As a consumer I really don’t give a damm about whether my software is closed or open source as long as I get my work done. I do prefer open source , but in the end what matters is having a tool that answers my needs.
Look at the interview with Stallman on the Linux Action show , this man won’t accept that a developer has to make closed source software to be able to feed his family (and two goats ).

And I’m sorry , it might make me sound like a dick , but Linux being perfectly usable as a desktop Os just makes me giggle .

And no I’m not against promoting Free software , quite the opposite. What I’m against is the idea that if I don’t use or make only free software I’m the Devil.

52

[quote=lxstoian]What I meant is the fact that to the FSF the only kind of code that exist is open code. There is no middle path. They consider that there is no excuse in using closed source code.
Steam just announced it’s coming to Linux and all that Stallman is talking about is the damage it will cause. If Adobe would announce Photoshop for Linux , their response would be the same.[/quote]
Of course you still have the freedom to use non-free software, even on a free software operating system. The only thing the FSF will do is teach you that by doing so you are giving up other (possibly more important) freedoms.

You said you prefer to use open source software instead of closed source software. Please remember that the amount of quality open source software that we have today would not exist without the efforts of Richard Stallman, the person you dislike. :wink:

In the past 10 years, the only operating system I’ve had installed on my personal computer (besides Haiku) is Linux. Therefore, Linux is perfectly usable as a desktop OS. Why is that funny?

…Also, I apologize if the phrase “perfectly usable” is confusing. I meant the definition (from the wiktionary): “sufficient to satisfy a requirement”. Linux is sufficient to satisfy my requirement as a desktop OS. :slight_smile:

53

I know that Stallman gave so much to the community. But things just drifted off into the extreme , it’s almost like he is obsessed with an Utopian view on software , refusing to accept reality. His comments lately have made him seem quite crazy to be honest. And if the big guy of the open source world looks like a nut people will tend to judge the community according to that.
I for one dual boot Linux , and I do this because I love the idea of using an open source os , but to be honest 90% of my time is still spent on Win7.
Linux just doesn’t cut it on the desktop. With every new release I try giving it a chance. Just that with every new release comes with the same old problems and ironically with new bugs too. It became very frustrating over the years. It kinda feels like not a single developer even cares about Linux on the desktop. Sure it’s amazing on servers and embedded devices , but the desktop is a hole nother thing.
Except Canonical who else cares about Linux on the desktop ? And even Canonical for some damm reason thinks it’s a good idea to have a new release way too fast , who cares about fixing bugs when you have a deadline. Is it so hard to get that you can’t properly develop an os in 6 months , heck even a year seems short.
As you said Linux on the desktop is sufficient , you can live with some issues , but they do get on your nerves. Especially when you know you are just one Win install from everything working 100%. The desktop experience of Linux feels just so amateurish , inconsistent. How come Haiku with far less resources can accomplish so much more. That’s why I stand by the idea that Linux devs just don’t give a crap about the Desktop.
I’m actually looking forward to Gnome Os. At least they got the hole idea of having stable API’s and a SDK.

54

Mint, Mageia, Fedora, openSUSE, Debian, Arch, PCLinuxOS, and so on. All of these distribtions have a goal to make (among other things) a Linux desktop operating system. Do we have different definitions of “Linux on the desktop”?

No, they don’t get on my nerves, and no, the thought of being able to purchase, install, and use Microsoft Windows does does not make using Linux harder for me. I use Linux because it is the best operating system for what I want to do, and has the software applications that I want to use.

[quote]The desktop experience of Linux feels just so amateurish , inconsistent. How come Haiku with far less resources can accomplish so much more. That’s why I stand by the idea that Linux devs just don’t give a crap about the Desktop.
[/quote]
Oh. My opinion is different. There’s a lot about Microsoft Windows that I find amateurish and inconsistent.

Anyway, I agree that the Haiku developers certainly have accomplished a lot. I think the relatively small number of developers plus having a unified goal (“recreate the BeOS”) has helped very much.

55

Well I guess we both have our different views on what a desktop os has to be.
But hey at least we both agree that HAIKU bloody rocks.

56

[quote=lxstoian]Well I guess we both have our different views on what a desktop os has to be.
But hey at least we both agree that HAIKU bloody rocks.[/quote]
high five

57

high five

58

I also agree that Haiku rocks. However, I’m sad to say this flame war has answered very few of the questions I asked when I started this thread.

I guess the most pertinent question is this: is anyone else interested in the idea of a distro of Haiku that meets the software freedom criteria set by the FSF? No judgement on anyone who doesn’t think this is a worthwhile goal. Just asking.

59

[quote=strypey]I also agree that Haiku rocks. However, I’m sad to say this flame war has answered very few of the questions I asked when I started this thread.

I guess the most pertinent question is this: is anyone else interested in the idea of a distro of Haiku that meets the software freedom criteria set by the FSF? No judgement on anyone who doesn’t think this is a worthwhile goal. Just asking.[/quote]

Why would they? Haiku is doing fine without the approval of anyone who thinks he’s in charge of free software.

60

[quote=DioGen][quote=strypey]I also agree that Haiku rocks. However, I’m sad to say this flame war has answered very few of the questions I asked when I started this thread.

I guess the most pertinent question is this: is anyone else interested in the idea of a distro of Haiku that meets the software freedom criteria set by the FSF? No judgement on anyone who doesn’t think this is a worthwhile goal. Just asking.[/quote]

Why would they? Haiku is doing fine without the approval of anyone who thinks he’s in charge of free software.[/quote]

I think the ultimate point is that the goals of the Haiku developers overlaps somewhat with the FSF, but not entirely. The main point of Haiku being open-source is to prevent it dying as BeOS did. At the same time, I’m pretty happy with BSD licenses and, for that matter, the FreeBSD philosophy, as opposed to the GNU/Linux way of doing things. A large part of the Haiku design is about simplicity, consistency, and good user-design. Making Haiku “distributions” doesn’t even make much sense compared to Linux distros. And forks at this point would merely divide and minimize scarce programmer and developer resources.