Re: [Fsfe-france] Anti-GPL advertisement

[Paul Marques Mota]

[ IMHO, french articles have nothing to do on the french FSFE ml. Please
  respect the Reply-To: ]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2003 at 09:20:43AM +0200, Loic Dachary wrote:
> 
>       Hi,
> 
>       I discovered an Anti-GPL based advertisement in a magazine today,
> included in a 8 page article about Free Software.
> 
>       ACM Queue (tomorrow's computing today) Volume 1, Number 5
> 
>       Here is the text of the full page, color advertisement (the
> background image is of no interest):
> 
> --
>       Wasabi Systems:
>       Open Source without the GPL
>       
>       Open Source software has changed the face of embedded
> systems. But Linux's GPL license has caused uncertainty, risks of
> litigation, and exposure of sensitive intellectual property.

In the early 90, the predecessor of NetBSD, the University of Berkeley,
was sued by USL, the predecessor of SCO. Since USL has lost, they
somehow may have a point when they imply that NetBSD cannot be targeted
by silly lawsuits.
But I'm afraid that an authoritative rebuttal will have to wait till the
end of the SCO affair.

> Is there
> a better way?
> 
>       Wasabi's certified version of the NetBSD operating system
> offers all the functionality of open source Unix, but without the
> GPL. With Wasabi's BSD ports and products, OEMs can:
> 

Since Wasabi Systems was founded by key members of the NetBSD project, you
might want to write to a NetBSD mailing-list.

Hum. http://www.netbsd.org/MailingLists/ suggest netbsd-advocacy.

You may also point out that, unless they stop using gcc, binutils, gas and gdb
it is not really free from the GPL.
(A complete listing of all GPL packages without which NetBSD couldn't
exist can be found here: http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/gnu/ )

>       . Keep code, even kernel modifications, proprietary, thanks to the
>         BSD license
> 
>       . Leverage the features of Wasabi Workbench, a full-featured
>         development environment.
> 
>         . Rely on Wasabi's industry-leading BSD expertise
> 
>       . Obtain all the functionality of Linux, on more hardware
>         platforms, and with no GPL
> 
>       Contact us at address@hidden, or visit us on the web
> at www.wasabisystems.com, to learn more about Wasabi's solutions for
> embedded OEMs.
> 
> Wasabi Workbench (TM) . Certified NetBSD OS . Development Services . 
> WasabiSCSI(TM) technology
> 
> Loic Dachary, 12 bd Magenta, 75010 Paris. Tel: 33 1 42 45 07 97      

-- 
        Paul