[LINK] GPL, BSD, and NetBSD - why the GPL rocketed Linux to success

[Kim Holburn]

Interesting article on why the GPL has made linux so successful.

http://www.dwheeler.com/blog/2006/09/01/#gpl-bsd

> I think there is one primary reason Linux-based systems completely  
> dominate the *BSDs' market share - Linux uses the protective GPL  
> license, and the *BSDs use the permissive ("BSD-style") licenses.  
> The BSD license has been a lot of trouble for all the *BSDs, even  
> though they keep protesting that it's good for them. But look what  
> happens. Every few years, for many years, someone has said, "Let's  
> start a company based on this BSD code!" BSD/OS in particular comes  
> to mind, but Sun (SunOS) and others have done the same. They pull  
> the *BSD code in, and some of the best BSD developers, and write a  
> proprietary derivative. But as a proprietary vendor, their fork  
> becomes expensive to self-maintain, and eventually the company  
> founders or loses interest in that codebase (BSD/OS is gone; Sun  
> switched to Solaris). All that company work is then lost forever,  
> and good developers were sucked away during that period. Repeat,  
> repeat, repeat. That's enough by itself to explain why the BSDs  
> don't maintain the pace of Linux kernel development. But wait - it  
> gets worse.
>
> In contrast, the GPL has enforced a consortia-like arrangement on  
> any major commercial companies that want to use it. Red Hat,  
> Novell, IBM, and many others are all contributing as a result, and  
> they feel safe in doing so because the others are legally required  
> to do the same. Just look at the domain names on the Linux kernel  
> mailing list - big companies, actively paying for people to  
> contribute. In July 2004, Andrew Morton addressed a forum held by  
> U.S. Senators, and reported that most Linux kernel code was  
> generated by corporate programmers (37,000 of the last 38,000  
> changes were contributed by those paid by companies to do so; see  
> my report on OSS/FS numbers for more information). BSD license  
> advocates claim that the BSD is more "business friendly", but if  
> you look at actual practice, that argument doesn't wash. The GPL  
> has created a "safe" zone of cooperation among companies, without  
> anyone having to sign complicated legal documents. A company can't  
> feel safe contributing code to the BSDs, because its competitors  
> might simply copy the code without reciprocating. There's much more  
> corporate cooperation in the GPL'ed kernel code than with the BSD'd  
> kernel code. Which means that in practice, it's actually been the  
> GPL that's most "business-friendly".
>
> So while the BSDs have lost energy every time a company gets  
> involved, the GPL'ed programs gain every time a company gets  
> involved. And that explains it all.
>
> That's not the only issue, of course. Linus Torvalds makes  
> mistakes, but in general he's a good leader; leadership issues are  
> clearly an issue for some of the BSDs. And Linux's ability early on  
> to support dual-boot computers turned out to be critical years ago.  
> Some people worried about the legal threats that the BSDs were  
> under early on, though I don't think it had that strong an effect.  
> But the early Linux kernel had a number of problems (nonstandard  
> threads, its early network stack was terrible, etc.), which makes  
> it harder to argue that it was "better" at first. And the Linux  
> kernel came AFTER the *BSDs - the BSDs had a head start, and a lot  
> of really smart people. Yet the Linux kernel, and operating systems  
> based on it, jumped quickly past all of them. I believe that's in  
> large part because Linux didn't suffer the endless draining of  
> people and effort caused by the BSD license.
>
> Clearly, some really excellent projects can work well on BSD-style  
> licenses; witness Apache, for example. It would be a mistake to  
> think that BSD licenses are "bad" licenses, or that the GPL is  
> always the "best" license. But others, like Linux, gcc, etc., have  
> done better with copylefting / "protective" licenses. And some  
> projects, like Wine, have switched to a protective (copylefting)  
> license to stem the tide of loss from the project. Again, it's not  
> as simple as "BSD license bad" - I don't think we fully understand  
> exactly when each license's effects truly have the most effect. But  
> clearly the license matters; this as close to an experiment in  
> competing licenses as you're likely to get.

--
Kim Holburn
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