On Sun, 20 Feb 2000, Jason Thorpe wrote:

# On Sun, 20 Feb 2000 23:49:31 -0500 (EST) 
#  der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> wrote:
# 
#  > I've seen it said that ego will be the death of *BSD.  And when I
#  > contemplate this question, I fear that may be true, since as far as I
#  > can tell the main reason we don't have more public domain code is that
#  > coders want their names in advertising clauses.  (Whether this is a
#  > good thing in other respects is a question on which the archives
#  > contain much verbiage on both sides.  But in this one respect it does
#  > seem rather directly opposed to the "maximal reuse" goal.)

I say we drop the advert clause requirements; if the credit is present
in the code, that ought to be good enough.  I know that should I ever write
code worthy of publishing into NetBSD (I've done a couple of patches,
but I don't think that counts as well as writing code from scratch),
I don't give a flying parallel fsck whether my name makes it into the
ads -- I can prove beyond doubt to anyone asking what I worked on that
Yes I Worked On This Program Or That Driver For NetBSD as long as the
credit is retained in the code.

I know that somewhere in the annals of that vast form of bit vegetation
you lovingly title The CVS Tree, there are patches to, e.g., mount, umount,
dump and restore with my name attached to the send-prs (yes I'm feeping my
own speaker -- to have had patches accepted into my favorite OS is an
HONOUR, thanks!).  Whether this makes it into the advertising material
is completely moot.

If you're into this for bragging rights or for glory, you're in the wrong
place, from my POV, 'cause it doesn't matter to me WHO has submitted
_which_ chunk of code.  My questions are:

	a)	Does it work?
	b)	Will it work on my configuration?
		i.  If not, why not?
		ii. If not yet, when?
	c)	Could it be improved?
	d)	If it hasn't worked, doesn't work, won't work, is there
		a workaround?

# You can't really claim that BSD has too much ego when Linus (a.k.a.
# "Mr. Humble") is getting his mug on every glossy computer rag in town :-)

But is Linus seeking these opportunities out, or are people coming to _him_?

I *love* this OS -- I've grown up on BSD, and to see it cast by the
wayside or fallen into disrep{ute,air} without a suitable alternative
would be the biggest depression of the 21st century (assuming it doesn't
happen before 2001).

				--*greywolf;
--
NetBSD: Groovy Baby!