On Sun, 14 Sep 2003, Levi Bard wrote:
> Speaking of Hurd, in this apocalyptic situation we're discussing (the
> Linux kernel goes away), I'd switch to Hurd before I went to a BSD. At
> least that way I would continue to know my efforts and those of others
> aren't (legally) going into some corporate juggernaut's proprietary
> software.
The GPL doesn't seem to have been much of a barrier to Linksys, et al
(although that particular company acknowledged their error to some
extent). I have second-hand knowledge of a very large software company
that has distributed modified versions of GCC in binary form without
providing source for those modifications, and when asked for the source,
flatly refused to provide it.
Personally, I prefer the BSD license, which is more "free" by any
objective standard than the GPL. From a security and reliability
perspective, we're all better off if more "corporate juggernauts"
assimilate good open source code rather than writing their own (crappy)
version. I'm certainly thankful my Linksys AP runs Linux rather than
whatever was thrown together by the offshore programmers last week.
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