In some mail from J.C. Roberts, sie said:
[...]
> If he really believes his software and ideas are so great, he should
> have the guts to put them under the BSD license and let the public
> decide whether or not his way is the best way doing things.

Actually, I think the problem is fairly easy to understand.

What he's effectively saying is that if you download djbdns he wants you
to know that it is _the_ djbdns and not some modified version of djbdns
which may have a security bug introduced by someone else.

In essence, he's realises that the software he writes has value because of
his name being associated with it (or it being thought of as his) and wants
to ensure the integrity of all such packages he makes available. The only
method he has available is to prevent any action which might put that
integrity at risk - hence the "no modify" licence.

His concern isn't about making software others can package but about writing
secure software which others can use. A different modus operandi to what
OpenBSD is about.

The problem is when you build up a brand name and make it worth something,
there is very little you can do to protect it, in free software, a rather
annoying conundrum. If RedHat were to include a modified djbdns in its
distribution, would you have the same confidence as the one from his web
site? What if it were OpenBSD and not RedHat (and lets pretend the user
knows who djb is but not that openbsd is cool)?

It's almost like he can provide a warranty the way his stuff is currently
distributed - something which would be null and void in any OpenBSD distro
- and he wants it to stay that way. Who knows? Maybe someone should ask
him and see what he says, if anything. He's an intelligent person so I'm
sure he has good reasons to do things, we've just got to respect that.

This is just my _own_ opinion and may be a load of horse shit.

Darren

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