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NetBSD (April 1993) and FreeBSD (December 1993) started from the previous development of BSD – the history is described on the chart (at the bottom) on the following NetBSD website: http://www.netbsd.org/about/history.html

At the time when Linux was only a child, BSD systems were deployed to the largest servers in the world including Yahoo (FreeBSD) – search isaca.org for the following keywords: “The Other Open Source Unix”. You will learn that Microsoft, after their acquisition of the popular Hotmail service, retained the original FreeBSD system, because the company was not able to quickly secure the same matching performance (of FreeBSD) with their technologies.

What Is OpenBSD?

Theo de Raadt, one of the co-founders of NetBSD, had to leave the NetBSD core team allegedly for his “abusive behavior”. Theo de Raadt, who contributed a lot to NetBSD, was asked to leave the NetBSD core team (December 1994). He started a separate project – OpenBSD.

Several years ago, emotions between the free-software activist, Richard Stallman, and the founder of OpenBSD, Theo de Raadt, made the blood of controversy circulate even quicker because Stallman said that OpenBSD contained “non-free” software and decided not to include this OS in the list of systems that he would recommend. Theo de Raadt replied that this was not true as the ports tree is only “a scaffold of Makefiles containing URLs”.

I think that the “fact” that some free-software activists consider “intellectual property” to be a “crime” is in a strong opposition with almost any to-date known behavior of society. An exception is only a Kibutz; however, Kibutz or communities of this type seldom freely share only a software, but also accommodation, bread, milk – that is, everything. Free software activists hardly ever criticize all social levels where we all have to pay for telephone bills, hot water, land, etc. Perhaps I am wrong but you will certainly agree with me that the term “free software” became much more popular than “free medical service” or “free bread”.

BSD vs GPL

On the official FreeBSD website about licenses it is said that, “no license can guarantee future software availability”. The word “availability” is a frequent GPL advocacy weapon. Furthermore, the above website (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/bsdl-gpl/article.html) says that, “a less publicized and unintended use of the GPL is that it is very favorable to large companies that want to undercut software companies. In other words, the GPL is well suited for use as a marketing weapon, potentially reducing overall economic benefit and contributing to monopolistic behavior. The GPL can present a real problem for those wishing to commercialize and profit from software. For example, the GPL adds to the difficulty a graduate student will have in directly forming a company to commercialize his research results, or the difficulty a student will have in joining a company on the assumption that a promising research project will be commercialized.”

BSD people say that large hardware platform manufacturers support Linux and that the GPL movement has become an unpaid and big workforce for these companies – that is why Linux is more visible.

I believe that the reader has obtained at least some little information that Open Source is not just the GPL and that freedom cannot be forced. What is free for you or me may not be free for Mr. Stallman. In other words, if the pressure is organized, beyond it is a tendency to monopolize either freedom or non-freedom and any pressure pushes you to a direction that is not free – of course, unless you want it. If you do not like pressure, sell software, collect money and go to the Amazon.

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