8 ms·

Right, just like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Sony, Netflix, Juniper and everyone else who uses BSD software never, ever gives their additions back. Oh wait... th

Right, just like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Sony, Netflix, Juniper and everyone else who uses BSD software never, ever gives their additions back. Oh wait... they do!

quotemstr 7y ago
Tell me where I can download the source to nVidia's LLVM-based shader compiler.
saagarjha 7y ago
Only bits and pieces when they feel like it.
kick 7y ago
Apple throws things over the wall after taking it and hiding it. They don't "give back" in any meaningful sense. I'm still bitter at how they murdered KHTML. (Before someone comments "But KHTML is LGPL!": I know. That's the point. The GPL doesn't have these problems. The LGPL is too weak to be meaningful.)
- duskwuff 7y ago
  > I'm still bitter at how they murdered KHTML. Murdered? Thanks in large part to the work Apple did to transform KHTML into WebKit, WebKit and its derivatives (like Blink) have utterly dominated the browser marketplace. I have a hard time reconciling your characterization of Apple's action with the facts.
  - kick 7y ago
    Murdered. They forked it in a way that couldn't be upstreamed (they waited a year and change before releasing source, when doing so releasing it as undocumented garbage), and made their contributions in a way that allowed it to be closed.
- xeeeeeeeeeeenu 7y ago
  GPL doesn't forbid forking.
  - kick 7y ago
    Safari would have been released as free software if KHTML was GPL.
    - petecox 7y ago
      Apple wouldn't have based a product around it if it were GPL.
      - kick 7y ago
        Which is fine, too! What happened wasn't, though.
        dragonwriter 7y ago
        > Which is fine, too! Yes, we know that a certain subset of Free Software zealots prefer preventing non-Free software to promoting Free software. > What happened wasn't, though. Why exactly is the creation of a set of F/OSS browser engine cores which have essentially completely extinguished the proprietary cores to dominate the space not “fine”?
        kick 7y ago
        There were already multiple good libre browser engines: KHTML, Gecko, and (kind of) the Tcl one. Apple forked one in a hostile fashion, and later used it to release proprietary software. A substantial volume of web browsers, including the largest two (Chrome, Safari), are proprietary software, directly because of this. It made the WWW less free, and hurt users.
        ksec 7y ago
        >A substantial volume of web browsers, including the largest two (Chrome, Safari), are proprietary software I guess you are the 0.0001% of the internet who consider Chrome and Safari to be proprietary software, when it has an Open Source version freely available.
drewg123 7y ago
Netflix kernel guy here... Off the top of my head, we (Netflix) have contributed the following over the last few years to FreeBSD: - async sendfile - rewrite of the pbuf system - unmapped mbufs - kernel TLS - RACK TCP - BBR TCP - TCP high precision timer system (TCP pacer) - various NUMA improvements, which allow us to stream in excess of 200Gb/s of TLS encrypted video traffic from a single server - Metric tons of fixes Contributing stuff back makes it easier to work with other folks, and makes our jobs easier. We merge from upstream FreeBSD-current every few weeks. The smaller the diff we carry forward, the easier our jobs are.
- belorn 7y ago
  If everyone contribute back everything then the distinction between BSD and GPL would be indistinguishable. A zero diff would be easier work, and would make your job easier than a small diff. but since that is not the case there is an evidential balance between contributing back and keeping changes proprietary. It would be nice in this kind of threads if both sides were just honest in presenting how things work. Companies will decide on contributing back BSD code based on competitive advantages of doing so. It is a business decision. They can reducing costs by having the code maintained by upstream and reduce integration costs, or they can get advantage over their competitors by keeping the code proprietary. I see similar discussing when companies talk about paying taxes. The press releases will talk about contributing back to society and being responsible citizen, while at the same time employing lawyers who do "tax management" in order to pay as little tax as possible. It is true that they do contribute back with numbers that looks impressive, and paying some taxes is easier than paying no taxes, but a honest description would call it a calculated business decision that balance benefits and drawbacks between compliance and tax avoidance.
  - mikece 7y ago
    I would say there's a massive difference between contributing back code and paying taxes. Public companies have a FIDUCIARY duty to provide maximum value to shareholders, and that's been the "legal justification" for the FAANGs to engage in the "reverse Irish, Dutch sandwich" scheme to pay zero taxes. Meanwhile, shareholders don't care about code licensing as long as the company isn't giving away the secret sauce under F/OSS terms. Netflix dude above mentioned how much they contribute back; the "enlightened self-interest" of the BSD world encourages these companies to contribute as much as possible back to the project so their diffs in pulling down updates are minimal. If they go asshole and keep everything private they are making their own headache worse when updating or locking themselves in the past.

Right, just like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Sony, Netflix, Juniper and everyone else who uses BSD software never, ever gives their additions back. Oh wait... they do!

quotemstr 7y ago

Tell me where I can download the source to nVidia's LLVM-based shader compiler.

saagarjha 7y ago

Only bits and pieces when they feel like it.

kick 7y ago

Apple throws things over the wall after taking it and hiding it. They don't "give back" in any meaningful sense. I'm still bitter at how they murdered KHTML. (Before someone comments "But KHTML is LGPL!": I know. That's the point. The GPL doesn't have these problems. The LGPL is too weak to be meaningful.)

duskwuff 7y ago
> I'm still bitter at how they murdered KHTML. Murdered? Thanks in large part to the work Apple did to transform KHTML into WebKit, WebKit and its derivatives (like Blink) have utterly dominated the browser marketplace. I have a hard time reconciling your characterization of Apple's action with the facts.
- kick 7y ago
  Murdered. They forked it in a way that couldn't be upstreamed (they waited a year and change before releasing source, when doing so releasing it as undocumented garbage), and made their contributions in a way that allowed it to be closed.
xeeeeeeeeeeenu 7y ago
GPL doesn't forbid forking.
- kick 7y ago
  Safari would have been released as free software if KHTML was GPL.
  - petecox 7y ago
    Apple wouldn't have based a product around it if it were GPL.
    - kick 7y ago
      Which is fine, too! What happened wasn't, though.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        > Which is fine, too! Yes, we know that a certain subset of Free Software zealots prefer preventing non-Free software to promoting Free software. > What happened wasn't, though. Why exactly is the creation of a set of F/OSS browser engine cores which have essentially completely extinguished the proprietary cores to dominate the space not “fine”?
        kick 7y ago
        There were already multiple good libre browser engines: KHTML, Gecko, and (kind of) the Tcl one. Apple forked one in a hostile fashion, and later used it to release proprietary software. A substantial volume of web browsers, including the largest two (Chrome, Safari), are proprietary software, directly because of this. It made the WWW less free, and hurt users.
        ksec 7y ago
        >A substantial volume of web browsers, including the largest two (Chrome, Safari), are proprietary software I guess you are the 0.0001% of the internet who consider Chrome and Safari to be proprietary software, when it has an Open Source version freely available.

drewg123 7y ago

Netflix kernel guy here... Off the top of my head, we (Netflix) have contributed the following over the last few years to FreeBSD: - async sendfile - rewrite of the pbuf system - unmapped mbufs - kernel TLS - RACK TCP - BBR TCP - TCP high precision timer system (TCP pacer) - various NUMA improvements, which allow us to stream in excess of 200Gb/s of TLS encrypted video traffic from a single server - Metric tons of fixes Contributing stuff back makes it easier to work with other folks, and makes our jobs easier. We merge from upstream FreeBSD-current every few weeks. The smaller the diff we carry forward, the easier our jobs are.

belorn 7y ago
If everyone contribute back everything then the distinction between BSD and GPL would be indistinguishable. A zero diff would be easier work, and would make your job easier than a small diff. but since that is not the case there is an evidential balance between contributing back and keeping changes proprietary. It would be nice in this kind of threads if both sides were just honest in presenting how things work. Companies will decide on contributing back BSD code based on competitive advantages of doing so. It is a business decision. They can reducing costs by having the code maintained by upstream and reduce integration costs, or they can get advantage over their competitors by keeping the code proprietary. I see similar discussing when companies talk about paying taxes. The press releases will talk about contributing back to society and being responsible citizen, while at the same time employing lawyers who do "tax management" in order to pay as little tax as possible. It is true that they do contribute back with numbers that looks impressive, and paying some taxes is easier than paying no taxes, but a honest description would call it a calculated business decision that balance benefits and drawbacks between compliance and tax avoidance.
- mikece 7y ago
  I would say there's a massive difference between contributing back code and paying taxes. Public companies have a FIDUCIARY duty to provide maximum value to shareholders, and that's been the "legal justification" for the FAANGs to engage in the "reverse Irish, Dutch sandwich" scheme to pay zero taxes. Meanwhile, shareholders don't care about code licensing as long as the company isn't giving away the secret sauce under F/OSS terms. Netflix dude above mentioned how much they contribute back; the "enlightened self-interest" of the BSD world encourages these companies to contribute as much as possible back to the project so their diffs in pulling down updates are minimal. If they go asshole and keep everything private they are making their own headache worse when updating or locking themselves in the past.