I haven't gotten very deep into the GNU licence, and I haven't thought this all through. But I'm quite confident that if someone really wants, it's possible to release a Linux distro with a vital component, which is closed.
It depends on your meaning of vital. The only thing you can do is release a Linux distro with some *added* component that is closed. Vendors do that all the time: they call it "value added" products. There are some people who fall to this trap and buy into it, there are some people who see this "freedom substracted" products as what it is and ignore it. Either way, it's not *Linux* that is being closed, it's that specific componant.
You don't close the source of the kernel. You close one small crucial component of it by rewriting it. This means, that every time a new kernel is released, you take its source, make a patch, compile, and remove your own little component's source. And distribute.
Does this violate the GPL? I mean, everything that came free is released free, and the kernel comes along withonly one small binary file. We've *added* something, which isn't free...
This is exactly what the GPL is built to make impossible or at least non economical to do. It has been tried numerous times and up till now they all failed.
But we don't have to go as far as the kernel: You can release a link library in closed form.
And we can ignore it just like we ignore any other closed library - or not, it's up to us.
Assume that Microsoft released some link library in closed form. Then they released Office for this special Linux edition, and made sure they use this special library. Now they can sell Linux like any other operating system. No, they are not selling the OS, they are only selling their own link library. Which means that they can take any open distro, put their library on, and resell it, with copyright restricted on this tiny library only.
This has already happened - M$ released Office that depends on a closed source library - their Win32 API. Two things has happened - we got both implmentation of office suits which do not require that "closed library" (OpenOffice, KWork, ABiWord etc. etc) and free implmentation of the closed source "library" - Wine.
What's your point?
Microsoft has the powers to convince other software vendors to rely on their link library as well, so you end up with one Linux edition, which can run common applications, and the open one, which can't.
Again, you're describing Win32 - all of this HAS happened and we're winning against it. What is your point?
They won't, of course, be able to control the open version of Linux, but they will control the *standard* edition, which will soon enough divert more and more from the open one.
Only if you and I will be dumb enough to buy their so called standart version. But if we were we would have bought Windows to begin with. We didn't (at least I didn't) so we wont. End of story.
Some of us, of course, still believe that Linux being a better OS has nothing to do with it being free and open. That's OK. Some children are slower then other in learning, they'll catch up in due time... :-)))
And then go tell everyone that you were there first...
Eli's jump from making the system user friendly to making it proprietary is not clear to me.
The jump is not from user-friendly to proprietary, but from being #1 to proprietary. All I'm saying is that when something becomes popular, there are many sharks around.
You describe exactly what happend with the UNIX system in the 70s. The GPL & GNU were created and designed to circumvent this happening again and it's working. Go read some history - context is a wonderful thing.
Gilad.
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