Re: Primary ncurses maintainer

       "I'll distribute ncurses BSD like"

People tend to speak of "BSD-style distribution terms" when they
really mean to say, "distribution terms that contain essentially no
restrictions."

But the actual BSD distribution terms contain an unnecessary and
troublesome restriction--one which is not found in the GNU GPL. I
speak of the obnoxious advertising requirement. As this is imitated
by others who release free software, it leads to untenable situation
for any advertisements about free software.

If you are looking for distributions terms which really are entirely
permissive and have minimal requirements, you can find them in X11.

So please, everyone, don't use "BSD distribution terms" as your way of
saying entirely nonrestrictive terms. Say "X11 distribution terms"
instead.

This simple effort to speak one way instead of another can make a real
difference. If your usage leads one new free software dveloper to
copy the distribution terms from X11 instead of from BSD, that will be
a good thing.
Received on Thu Jun 05 1997 - 01:41:07 EDT