Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 16th May 2006 22:13 UTC, submitted by adstro
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Secondly, what is clear is that choosing the GPL is the best way to prevent forks. Yes, there are plenty Linux distros, but they all take the Linux kernel from the same codebase, GNU binutils from the same codebase, and so on.
That isn't necessarily true. In fact, I don't see how the GPL prevents forking at all. It seems to encourage it, just look at the hundreds of Linux distributions that exist. Not only are they different in what they package, many of them have different patches applied, etc. They may have the same sources for code, but that doesn't mean anything.
In fact, I'm not sure how the GPL ensures that people will obtain it from the same source, when obviously, the different kernel patches they use often don't come from the same source.
I think the correct thing to say is that the GPL is *one* of many open source licenses that can *encourage* a centralized project. However, I'm not aware of any that would actually *prevent* forking.