Re: license v license v /license/

[JEDIDIAH]

On 2011-01-12, David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:
> RJack <user@example.net> writes:
>
>> On 1/11/2011 5:41 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
>>
>>> Why do you think it is that BSD Unix has not held its own in
>>> competition with GNU/Linux?
>>
>> One acronym: IBM.
>>
>> IBM could not successfully compete with Windows NT with their AIX
>> line running on the WinTel PC. Microsoft had screwed over IBM and their
>> OS/2. IBM jumped on the Linux bandwagon big time during the SCO debacle
>> with RCU, JFS, NUMA etc... This stimulated peripheral driver development
>> for PC hardware. The GPL was good at suppressing new commercial
>> competition which pleased both IBM and Microsoft.
>
> So the GPL _did_ please commercial developers, to the degree where IBM

    The GPL is a great equalizer. A large company can appreciate this
as much as some guy in his basement. IBM rightfully realizes that the
efforts they put into Free Software can't be used against them in a 
way they cannot exploit themselves.

[deletia]
>> Apple, for example, went proprietary with the freedom provided by BSD
>> contributions in XNU.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU Look at Apple
>> now:

   BSD is not the Apple interface. Their variant of OpenStep is. So talking
about how their kernel is libre or how the userland that no user ever sees
is libre is a bit meaningless.

   No one at Apple tries to sell Macs or iPhones based on the fact that you
can create shell scripts to get over the limitations of the built in PhoneOS
SMS app.

   Infact, this situation is a great example of why a company like IBM might
be loathe to contribute to something like FreeBSD. A company like Apple can
come along afterwards and use it to the detriment of IBM. IBM could basically
end up giving free labor to the enemy.

[deletia]

-- 
     If it were really about "being good", then Microsoft would       ||| 
have been put out of business by Apple before the first line of      / | \
the Linux kernel was ever written.