On May 8, 11:36 pm, Paul Rubin <no.em...@nospam.invalid> wrote: > a...@pythoncraft.com (Aahz) writes: > > What does your argument claim about Apache? > > No idea. I don't have the impression the developer communities are > really similar, and Apache httpd doesn't have all that many developers > compared with something like Linux (I don't know what happens if you add > all the sister projects like Lucene). > > I do know that the GPL has gotten companies to release major GCC > improvements that they would have preferred to make proprietary if > they'd had the option. That includes G++.
Absolutely, and as Aahz acknowledges, RMS was a pioneer in introducing people to the concept of free software. But fast forward to today, and as ESR points out, the FOSS development model is so superior for many classes of software that proprietary companies contribute to free software even when they don't have to, and are working hard to support hybrid models that the GPL doesn't support. See, for example, Apple's support of BSD, Webkit, and LLVM. Apple is not a "do no evil" corporation, and their contributions back to these packages are driven far more by hard-nosed business decisions than by any expectation of community goodwill. Regards, Pat -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
