Re: Re: Free software, proprietary software and Stalin

[Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Mar 01, 2000 at 11:03:03AM +0530, Raj Mathur wrote:
>     Arun> I don't accept that argument. Windows would be superior to
>     Arun> both Linux and BSD going by that criterion. IBM and SGI
>     Arun> would do, by definition, what suits their share holder's
>     Arun> interests - which is making more money.
> 
> I doubt if a technology which is impractical and a hindrance to
> progress would be adopted by both large corporations and individuals
> to help them achieve their goals.

The technology is not the issue. The technology came from 1970s in
Bell labs and later from Berkeley. Linux is just a reimplementation
of the above technology.  IBM already has that technology. So does
SGI. They have made their money using that technology during their
heydays.

In IBM's case, they need to keep MS out of the server market. In
SGI's case, it's the straw they're trying to hang on to on a 
sinking ship. So it serves them to promote Linux. Quite a few
people who work with me are former SGI employees who got laid off. The
(Silicon) valley is full of them.

In other words, the choice (that IBM and SGI made)  has nothing to do
with technology. It has everything to do with market acceptance.

That said, Linux has had better market acceptance than *BSD. But
that's due to completely different reasons. License was not one
of them.

I don't quite agree that market has rejected the BSD license. Apache,
X, python, perl, sendmail, BIND, TCP/IP are all living examples of
BSD license's (or licenses similar in spirit) success. TCP/IP in
particular stands out as a success. Part of the reason for it's acceptance
was a high quality, readily available implmentation that could be
incorporated into a commercial product. Who knows, the internet could
be running NetBUI if the GNU project started a few years early :)

	-Arun