Re: license v license v /license/

[David Kastrup]

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
chose to "jump on the Linux bandwagon".  As far as I can tell, the
points you mention (RCU, JFS, NUMA etc) concern just the Linux kernel
and not the GNU userland.  So it is really the (GPLed) Linux kernel and
not the GNU project that is the focus of IBM according to you.  How does
this jibe with the GPL supposedly scaring commercial developers?

> Apple, for example, went proprietary with the freedom provided by BSD
> contributions in XNU.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU Look at Apple
> now:
>
> And. . . Boom: Apple Worth More Than Microsoft.
> http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100526/apple-worth-more-than-microsoft/

Uh, Microsoft is not really somebody promoting GNU or GPLed software.
Apple is earning most of its income via gadgets with embedded operating
systems (certainly not via MacOS).

And IBM is doing better than ever.

> Capitalism Always Wins !

A loaded gun also always wins.

-- 
David Kastrup