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In addition to what others said, Valgrind is GPL-licensed. That conflicts with the OpenBSD copyright policy (https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html https://www.ope
by Someone 4y ago
In addition to what others said, Valgrind is GPL-licensed. That conflicts with the OpenBSD copyright policy (https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html), which says:
“The GNU Public License and licenses modeled on it impose the restriction that source code must be distributed or made available for all works that are derivatives of the GNU copyrighted code.
While this may superficially look like a noble strategy, it is a condition that is typically unacceptable for commercial use of software. So in practice, it usually ends up hindering free sharing and reuse of code and ideas rather than encouraging it. As a consequence, no additional software bound by the GPL terms will be considered for inclusion into the OpenBSD base system.”
As to clang’s Address Sanitizer, that’s under the Apache License v2.0 with LLVM Exceptions (https://github.com/google/sanitizers/blob/master/LICENSE.TXT https://github.com/google/sanitizers/blob/master/LICENSE.TXT), of which the same page says:
“The original Apache license was similar to the Berkeley license, but source code published under version 2 of the Apache license is subject to additional restrictions and cannot be included into OpenBSD. In particular, if you use code under the Apache 2 license, some of your rights will terminate if you claim in court that the code violates a patent.”
- jmclnx 4y agoTrue, but I think having this check in the kernel may work better than valgrind on Linux. With that said, valgrind works great and I like its output, time will tell if I will like the output from this OpenBSD change.
- alberth 4y agoI had no idea that OpenBSD didn't accept Apache 2 code https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html
- asveikau 4y agoThey maintained apache 1.x in base for a long time. For a small number of releases they switched to nginx and then i think they wrote their own.
- whydoyoucare 4y agoYes, httpd. https://man.openbsd.org/httpd.8 https://man.openbsd.org/httpd.8
- maximilianburke 4y agoParent is referring to the Apache 2 license, not version 2 of the Apache HTTPD server.
- nequo 4y agoI think that’s what your parent is saying too. The last non-Apache-2-licensed version of the Apache HTTP server was version 1.3.x, and because the OpenBSD project did not accept the Apache 2 license, they forked the Apache HTTP server’s 1.3.x code base.
- asveikau 4y agoIt's not coincidental. It was early in the Apache 2.0 lifecycle that the Apache License 2.0 came about (google says 2.0.49). OpenBSD's continued maintenance of a 1.x fork from 2004-2011 or so was mainly about licensing.
- notaplumber1 4y agoOpenBSD begrudgingly made an exception for LLVM/Clang, after vocal opposition to the re-licencing. It currently uses LLVM/Clang 13 and has been making progress towards 15. Licensing is not the problem here. Most of the sanitizers are simply not enabled in the version shipped in base, and require runtime libraries that have not been ported to OpenBSD. Valgrind exists in ports, but it is ancient and broken. It does not play well with various security mitigations.
- Someone 4y ago> OpenBSD begrudgingly made an exception for LLVM/Clang […] Licensing is not the problem here If it isn’t a problem, why do you say “begrudgingly”? I think they are pragmatic but also do find it a problem. Why else would they say “source code published under version 2 of the Apache license is subject to additional restrictions and cannot be included into OpenBSD”?
- notaplumber1 4y agoI didn't say it wasn't a problem. I said it was not the problem here. Important distinction. Licensing is not the reason for the sanitizers not being enabled in the default build, a lot of stuff isn't. If it were supported, it would probably be delegated to the ports version, along with the analyzer, additional llvm tools, cross-compiling, etc.
- josephcsible 4y ago> it is a condition that is typically unacceptable for commercial use of software This is entirely untrue, though. Linux is GPL and it gets way more use than any of the pushover-licensed BSDs do.
- NexRebular 4y agoWay more visible use, maybe. BSD is otherwise everywhere (e.g. Sony).
- sbuk 4y agoThey're describing libraries. By 'Linux', I'm assuming that you're referring to the OS distributions and not the kernel on it's own. And please drop the pejoratives.
- ninjin 4y agoThere is seemingly a movement or line of thought that blames the success of “big tech” on permissive licenses. You do not see it as much on Hacker News, but it certainly has spread across IRC and many other forums. What is even odder is that a subset of it uses alt-right terminology to refer to both permissive licenses and their proponents. It is all very weird to experience as someone that entered the FLOSS community in the early 00s. Not to mention having had a personal conversation with rms bemoaning the license schisms and him explicitly expressing gratitude for the BSDs contributing to the larger FLOSS movement.
- sbuk 4y agoI'm beginning to see and hear it more from younger folks--mainly free-speach absolutists. It is indeed a worrying development.
- Someone 4y agoIMO, even if they hadn’t included ’typically’ to weaken their claim, one counterexample doesn’t make that _entirely_ untrue. Also, why use ‘pushover’? OpenBSD has strong principles that they’re willing to give up things for, so implying they’re weak is derogatory and unfair.