Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?

[Rjack]

7 wrote:

> Go study Linux. Great lectures available in google video and
> www.youtube.com While there search for terms like Ubuntu, Compiz
> and Beryl to see how superior Linux has become of its own accord 
> by contibutions from around the world.
The Court in Wallace v. IBM, demonstrated it's superior grasp of the
software market. It called Linux an "imperfect substitute" for a
proprietary operating system. The Court also understood that
Microsoft is not a monopoly threat to competition for operating
systems since the market is "growing". This fact keeps the Justice
Department off Microsoft's back.

http://www.internetcases.com/library/cases/2006-11-09_wallace_v_ibm.pdf

To wit:
"People willingly pay for quality software even when they can get
free (but imperfect) substitutes. Open Office is a free, open-source
suite of word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software, but
the proprietary Microsoft Office has many more users. Gimp is a
free, open-source image editor, but the proprietary Adobe Photoshop
enjoys the lion’s share of the market. . .

And so it is with operating systems. Many more people use Microsoft
Windows, Apple OS X, or Sun Solaris than use Linux. IBM, which
includes Linux with servers, sells mainframes and supercomputers
that run proprietary operating systems. The number of proprietary
operating systems is growing, not shrinking, so competition in this
market continues quite apart from the fact that the GPL ensures the
future availability of Linux and other Unix offshoots."

We should be grateful for the Wallace v. IBM decision.

Sincerely,
Rjack :)