Alan Mackenzie <a...@muc.de> writes: > In gnu.misc.discuss David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org> wrote: >> Alan Mackenzie <a...@muc.de> writes: > >>> Quite simply, that it is the GPL itself which is the main reason for >>> the popularity of Linux amongst the people who write it. > >> Well, that's half of the story. Linux has been written to support a >> preexisting GNU userland. And that userland has a tradition of being >> popular and freely available quite before Linux. > > What is the reason for that popularity (amongst developers), if it's not > the GPL.
Quality. It was "traditional" for UNIX utilities to dump core when fed random garbage. And availability. GNU utilities ran on more than just UNIX systems. > GPL vs. BSD license was one of the few big differences between the > projects way back then. Uh, not even at Linux birthtime (1991) there was a complete freely available BSD system. But there already was a GNU userland under DOS/Windows and some other systems. Life saver. >> And BSD became freely available only some time after GNU/Linux. > > Yet how does that explain why Linux is so much more popular amongst > developers than a BSD kernel? BSD became freely available at a very > early stage of the development of GNU/Linux, early enough to catch up > on its merits. Still not with a GNU userland. >> The GNU userland is unpopular among BSD developers because, well, >> they are BSD developers. And because their kernel of choice already >> comes in one package with a userland. > > The BSDs include some GNU stuff, Not the normal userland. It already has one. > just as GNU/Linux includes some BSD licensed stuff. But there is no preexisting GNU alternative for that which it includes BSD licensed. >> So quite a lot of popularity of GNU/Linux comes from GNU, and not >> necessarily just because GNU is GPLed. > > Would you argue that GNU would have become just as popular (amongst > its developers), had it been licensed under something like the BSD > licence? I would doubt that very much. Speculative history. We won't find out. > Well there's little prospect of that experiment taking place, > thankfully. Yup. -- David Kastrup _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss