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Re: Re: Viability of Linux companies



On Sat, Apr 21, 2001 at 11:59:11PM +0530, Atul Chitnis wrote:
> This is exactly what I find strange. GPL *is* the favoured license by the 
> Linux crowd.

Thanks to the advocacy by the GNU people. One could argue that you should
just shut up and write code to push your ideology. But the numbers speak
for themselves.

> I am sure that if there are issues with it, people will figure 
> this out for themselves, starting with Linus.

Sure, Linus is much more of a centrist than many of the people on the list.
He allows people to do binary only value add. But I'm afraid, he doesn't
have the legal authority to change anything. FSF knows this.

> 
> > Could you please ignore my mails on this topic if it doesn't apply to you ?
> 
> But it *does* apply to me, because your comments are always dismissive of 
> Linux ("read too deep into Linux press" is an example).
> 

I'm dismissive of a particular brand of linux advocacy (the brain dead, MS is
satan kind) that I myself used to engage in. A large number of linux sites
do just that. I do acknowledge that there are saner people, who write code,
interesting technical articles and howtos.

> Here in India, things are very different from the situation in the USA. I 
> honestly believe that Linux is appropriate technology for India. It may or 
> may not be for the environment *you* live in. 

If Linux is appropriate, I don't see why BSD is not. Technologically, they 
are indistinguishable.  What about all the money Indian industry stands
to make by productizing BSD ?

> 
> While I understand that there are pros and cons, I also believe in the good 
> far outweighing the bad. Don't misconstrue this as my saying "GPL is bad" - I 
> do not think that either you or I are qualified to make such a judgement. I 
> believe that if there is anything "bad", it will be rectified as if it were a 
> bug.
> 

Yes, I believe in a "mostly free" market economy too.

> If you want to influence change, I'd suggest that it be done where it has the 
> most impact. Even if every Linux developer in India were to switch to the BSD 
> license, it would have zero impact on the way Linux would continue.

At that point Linux becomes irrelevant. Linux, the partially GPL'ed OS 
would be dead. But many of the values that we refer to as "Linux"
will still be alive in whatever the new OS is called.

> However, if Linus or Alan would "see the light", then it *would* make
> a difference. So why not lobby in the places where it would make the
> most difference?

The thing about GPL is, it makes the developer powerless. Even if Linus
and Alan changed their mind, they don't have a GPL free OS that can do
anything meaningful, because they didn't write all the drivers.

> 
> We could really do with some more support here from people like you so that 
> the Linux community here can achieve something here in India rather than 
> being forced to doubt themselves.
> 

Life is a continous learning process.

	-Arun