Re: license v license v /license/

[Alan Mackenzie]

In gnu.misc.discuss RJack <user@example.net> wrote:
> 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.

Linux was steadily growing then even without IBM.  I suspect RedHat and
SuSE were more important than IBM.  Why was Linux growing then, but not
BSD?

> The GPL was good at suppressing new commercial competition which
> pleased both IBM and Microsoft.

And Richard Stallman, of course.  I suspect that it was MS rather than
the GPL which suppressed OS competition, as you note above.

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

A niche player in computers, and highly successful with iPods, iPhones
and the like.

> And. . . Boom: Apple Worth More Than Microsoft.
> http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100526/apple-worth-more-than-microsoft/
> 
> 
> Sincerely,
> RJack :)
> 
> Capitalism Always Wins !

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).