VanLUG Email Archive
> When you say that Linux is a derived work based on these two, you are making a
> concrete claim that is easily refuted, since it was written from scratch. It is
> an original work, not a derived work.
You'd better look at the source code for some of your userland
network utilities.
> Linux is licensed in such a way that it couldn't become incorporated into
> a work that isn't free.
>
> I see this as a major advantage and a powerful incentive to use and back Linux.
Well, it does drive some developers away from Linux and into the
arms of the BSD folks, so obviously it's not quite so powerful an
incentive as you think.
> If some company were to distribute a much improved work derived from Linux, it
> would steal the wind out of the sails of the mainstream effort, to use a
> hackneyed phrase.
Not to mention a hackneyed assumption in the first place. BSDI is
a much improved work based on 4.4-Lite, among other things, and
certainly hasn't taken the wind out of NetBSD's sales.
The only free project I can think of that really got knocked over
by a competitor was Hurd. In this case the competitor was another
free product.
> The free version could come to be seen as something lesser
> than the version with the proprietary extensions.
It could, I suppose, yes. Historically it hasn't.
cjs
Curt Sampson
Info at http://www.portal.ca/
Internet Portal Services, Inc. Through infinite mist, software reverberates
Vancouver, BC (604) 257-9400 In code possess'd of invisible folly.