On Wednesday, 8 November 2017 at 00:09:51 UTC, Ola Fosheim
Grøstad wrote:
But frankly, I don't think many giants would start with a GPL
code base like Linux.
Redhat have demonstrated that it can be done. GPL is not the
obstacle. The obstacle is the desire to control/dominate a
market. There, GPL will do you harm, because you are required to
release your source code changes back to the community - and
hence your competitors.
That's the only reason why there's no Microsoft Linux.
Oracle is another giant with their 'own' rebranded Linux - they
basically took Redhat's stuff... but even then, it was only so
they could tie you into their proprietory solutions.
Microsoft are porting stuff to Linux too, perhaps for the same
reason. (SQL Server for Linux? A few years ago I would have
laughed if someone said that would ever happen).
But giants are starting to see that GPL can actually be utilised
in their desire to dominate after all, because they can insert
their proprietary stuff into it, and so 'domination' is still
apparently attainable - even with GPL. And after all, it saves
them the trouble of having to write/maintain an operating system.
GPL is not a problem. GPL was specifically designed to benefit
'everyone'.
The desire to dominate with proprietory closed source products is
the problem - because it benefits who?
Having said all that, I'm still very much an advocate of the BSD
style licence ;-)
