Re: Re: Viability of Linux companies

[Arun Sharma <arun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Apr 22, 2001 at 11:51:45PM +0530, Arun wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 22, 2001 at 09:54:00AM -0700, Arun Sharma wrote:
> > > 
> > > 	Well, I don't think so. IMHO the source code was available only
> > > for a price. Maybe free for some universities but not for all.
> > > 
> > 
> > And where did you learn that from ? Some linux tabloid ? :) (g, d & r)
> > 
> > http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/kirkmck.html
> 
> 	Didnt you see this ?

Good that you want to dig deeper into this.

> 	
> Could you pls tell when the first free version of *BSD came ? 1989 or 1994 ? 
> ie with out the problem of AT&T source licenses.
> 

I would claim that all the Berkeley code was free from day 1. Right when
Bill Joy et al wrote it. The code that was not free was the one that AT&T
wrote. Since then BSD folks have worked to rewrite all that code with a
BSD license, just like the GNU project rewrote it with GPL for user code
and Linus Torvalds et al for the kernel code.

This has been the BSD line of thinking. Keep your source code free and
don't worry about what others do with your source. Your source code
is free and that's what matters.

Now this sub thread is not very directly related to Linux. Shall we get
back on track about how Linux companies are going to make money and how
that'd affect the Indian economy ?

	-Arun

Personal info: I've worked with the people who were on the "evil" side
of that lawsuit. They all work for Caldera Linux now.