4 ms·

> Plenty of companies create, use and release open source software using permissive open source licenses. Typically, these big-corporation permissively license

> Plenty of companies create, use and release open source software using permissive open source licenses. Typically, these big-corporation permissively licensed projects are loss leaders and some other part of the company is making the profit; think Android (funded by Google's ad revenue) or LLVM (funded by Apple's iOS hardware sales, and again Google's ad revenue). If you look at companies that have successful business models where the income actually comes from the open source software itself (Red Hat/SuSE), you'll find a lot of critical copyleft GPL projects (GCC, Linux, glibc, systemd, Samba, ...).

stephenr 8y ago
That’s kinda my point. And I think it’s disingenuous to claim gcc, Linux or glibc are somehow “from” RedHat or suse. Sure they contributions but it’s not like they’re company projects that were open sourced.
- the_why_of_y 8y ago
  The fact that GCC/Linux/glibc/etc were pre-existing projects that multiple corporations chose to contribute to without gaining any real "ownership" or control makes them less relevant examples for you? >> Complaining about a lack of business involvement in RMS-approved “free software” ...
  - stephenr 8y ago
    > The fact that GCC/Linux/glibc/etc were pre-existing projects that multiple corporations chose to contribute to without gaining any real "ownership" or control makes them less relevant examples for you? The comment I replied to says > If you look at companies that have successful business models where the income actually comes from the open source software itself (Red Hat/SuSE), you'll find a lot of critical copyleft GPL projects (GCC, Linux, glibc, systemd, Samba, ...). My point is that nobody is paying for RedHat so they can use GCC or the Linux Kernel or glibc, and none of them would "die" without RedHat. Also, I imagine practically no one pays for RHEL just to get RHEL. They want the certiciation/support/training from RH (some of which they used to provide as a service for their free product). RedHat is essentially selling a service (support), and to provide that RedHat has a Linux distribution they control completely.

stephenr 8y ago

That’s kinda my point. And I think it’s disingenuous to claim gcc, Linux or glibc are somehow “from” RedHat or suse. Sure they contributions but it’s not like they’re company projects that were open sourced.

the_why_of_y 8y ago
The fact that GCC/Linux/glibc/etc were pre-existing projects that multiple corporations chose to contribute to without gaining any real "ownership" or control makes them less relevant examples for you? >> Complaining about a lack of business involvement in RMS-approved “free software” ...
- stephenr 8y ago
  > The fact that GCC/Linux/glibc/etc were pre-existing projects that multiple corporations chose to contribute to without gaining any real "ownership" or control makes them less relevant examples for you? The comment I replied to says > If you look at companies that have successful business models where the income actually comes from the open source software itself (Red Hat/SuSE), you'll find a lot of critical copyleft GPL projects (GCC, Linux, glibc, systemd, Samba, ...). My point is that nobody is paying for RedHat so they can use GCC or the Linux Kernel or glibc, and none of them would "die" without RedHat. Also, I imagine practically no one pays for RHEL just to get RHEL. They want the certiciation/support/training from RH (some of which they used to provide as a service for their free product). RedHat is essentially selling a service (support), and to provide that RedHat has a Linux distribution they control completely.