4 ms·

You're right, there are no certain answers. In fact, sometimes it seems that community and company participation is kind of arbitrary. It is because of that u

by tsally 17y ago

You're right, there are no certain answers. In fact, sometimes it seems that community and company participation is kind of arbitrary. It is because of that uncertainty that I believe in the GPL. The GPL licsenses provide legal incentive and wont stop any altruistic individuals from contributing as well. As for companies, you'll see from my example below that license may not actually matter at all. If you look at some of the more prominant examples, getting companies to contribute actually doesn't have anything to do with the license, and everything to do with popularity. nVidia provides both 32 bit and 64 bit blobs for Linux, but only a 32 bit blob for FreeBSD. This is only because Linux is widespread, and the blobs are neither GPLed or under a BSD license.

davidw 17y ago
I'm talking more about "library" style code. BSD means companies can integrate it, and potentially contribute back. And this does happen. GPL may mean they simply do not use it, and thus the project loses out on potential contributions.
- prodigal_erik 17y ago
  Despite BSD's large head start, Linux has received substantially more contributed work. This is evidence that "this is useful, let's follow the license" tends to outweigh "this is scary, let's avoid the project".
  - davidw 17y ago
    Linux is not, by and large, used as a library that people link to. It is, outside of embedded work, more or less a "stand alone" application. You can base proprietary stuff all you want without getting mixed up in the GPL - it's only if you compile it in that you have problems, and that's only the embedded market that cares about that. I'm not a zealot either way, I'm simply saying that if you have a library that people cannot use in their stuff that is proprietary, then they won't use it, and will never contribute anything back. Once again: the key point is "library", not Linux vs BSD kernels, where you're right that people are happily using Linux despite the more restrictive license.

by tsally 17y ago

davidw 17y ago

I'm talking more about "library" style code. BSD means companies can integrate it, and potentially contribute back. And this does happen. GPL may mean they simply do not use it, and thus the project loses out on potential contributions.

prodigal_erik 17y ago
Despite BSD's large head start, Linux has received substantially more contributed work. This is evidence that "this is useful, let's follow the license" tends to outweigh "this is scary, let's avoid the project".
- davidw 17y ago
  Linux is not, by and large, used as a library that people link to. It is, outside of embedded work, more or less a "stand alone" application. You can base proprietary stuff all you want without getting mixed up in the GPL - it's only if you compile it in that you have problems, and that's only the embedded market that cares about that. I'm not a zealot either way, I'm simply saying that if you have a library that people cannot use in their stuff that is proprietary, then they won't use it, and will never contribute anything back. Once again: the key point is "library", not Linux vs BSD kernels, where you're right that people are happily using Linux despite the more restrictive license.