"There are a lot of reasons why people make their code open source. I believe that one of the strongest original motivations has often been overlooked. Our hagiography tells the tale of how it all started with the quest for software freedom. But contemporaneous with Richard Stallman's story, other people were taking the same path (releasing source code) for a very different reason: the architecture of Unix."
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Member since:2005-07-07
RMS didn't create open source, he created the GPL but the GPL was not the first open source license.
I didn't say the he created open source in general but his contributions have made open source what it is today. I don't think we would have the landscape we have today without him. Take away all the GPL software and see what you are left with.
Indeed, and we can credit RMS for a lot of things but creating open source isn't one of them.
It bothers me that so many people equals open source with the GPL.
It bothers me when people want to lump the GPL in with everything else like it is some kind of minor development just because it wasn't the first OSS license. It has made a much bigger impact than any of the other licenses.
Member since:2006-02-15
I didn't say the he created open source in general but his contributions have made open source what it is today. I don't think we would have the landscape we have today without him. Take away all the GPL software and see what you are left with.
Probably very little difference. One of the other C compilers would have been the basis of the common tool chain. A lot of other projects would be BSD licensed but pretty much in the same place as they are now. RedHat and Novell would be selling distros based on BSD instead of GNU. Apache would still be under the Apache license. Larry Wall would have still written and made PERL available, leading to Ruby and Python. et, cetera
It bothers me when people want to lump the GPL in with everything else like it is some kind of minor development just because it wasn't the first OSS license. It has made a much bigger impact than any of the other licenses.
It bothers me when people make the impact claim, since if there hadn't been a BSD there wouldn't have been a base for Stallman to start from so there wouldn't have been a platform for all that GNUware to have been developed on.
You can make a better case that the most important aspect of the current open software landscape is the delay in the UCB/AT&T settlement, since Linus says he wouldn't have started on Linux if that had been settled earlier. Without a Linux kernel, there'd be no GNU platform and all of that energy would have gone into BSD instead.
Member since:2005-07-07
Probably very little difference. One of the other C compilers would have been the basis of the common tool chain. A lot of other projects would be BSD licensed but pretty much in the same place as they are now. RedHat and Novell would be selling distros based on BSD instead of GNU. Apache would still be under the Apache license. Larry Wall would have still written and made PERL available, leading to Ruby and Python. et, cetera
That entire paragraph is full of assumptions. If BSD could have created the kind of free software landscape that we have today then why isn't it nearly as big as Linux is today? After all, BSD has been around longer.
It bothers me when people make the impact claim, since if there hadn't been a BSD there wouldn't have been a base for Stallman to start from so there wouldn't have been a platform for all that GNUware to have been developed on.
You could say the same thing about anything involving computers. They are evolutionary, so without having an OS to target obviously you couldn't create free software to run on it. That's not a real argument. My argument is that RMS is responsible for the free software environment that we have today more than anyone here is giving him credit for.
You can make a better case that the most important aspect of the current open software landscape is the delay in the UCB/AT&T settlement, since Linus says he wouldn't have started on Linux if that had been settled earlier. Without a Linux kernel, there'd be no GNU platform and all of that energy would have gone into BSD instead.
That's a commonly held belief with pretty much no merit. At worst we would be using GNU with a BSD kernel.
Why does no one want to admit that the GPL license itself had quite an effect on shaping the open source landscape? The GPL forces all software vendors to share code. Code development progresses much more rapidly than BSD licensed code because most vendors don't want to share code and they won't if they don't have to.
Member since:
2005-08-18
"We didn't end up with OSS because it had been done before, we ended up with OSS because someone, namely RMS, made it happen."
RMS didn't create open source, he created the GPL but the GPL was not the first open source license.
"Credit where credit is due."
Indeed, and we can credit RMS for a lot of things but creating open source isn't one of them.
It bothers me that so many people equals open source with the GPL.