We Don't Need the GPL Anymore

jpkunst writes "In a lengthy interview with Eric S. Raymond by Federico Biancuzzi at O'Reilly's onlamp.com, ESR defends his position that 'Open source would be succeeding faster if the GPL didn't make lots of people nervous about adopting it.'" From the article: "I don't think the GPL is the principal reason for Linux's success. Rather, I believe it's because in 1991 Linus was the first person to find the right social architecture for distributed software development. It wasn't possible much before then because it required cheap internet; and after Linux, most people who might otherwise have founded OS projects found that the minimum-energy route to what they wanted was to improve Linux. The GPL helped, but I think mainly as a sort of social signal rather than as a legal document with teeth."

Comments

Re:Oh for Pete's sake!

[llamaluvr]

Your post isn't valid HTML because it did not use the SATIRE tag, or even the now-deprecated SARCASM tag.

Re:Oh for Pete's sake!

[91degrees]

Can't any of you responders recognize satire when you see it?

Of course we can't.

I keep forgetting

[SimianOverlord]

Is ESR the fat one with the beard, or the moustachied one with the flute? I wish submitters would remind us in write up - I'm thinking brackets after the name "ESR (moustache / flute)" would help remind us each time. To many TLAs in Open Sauce.