I know from internal sources that the main reason Red Hat Linux is being canned is because it all boils down the the restrictiveness of the GPL/GNU licence. I actully know some people at the very top wished linux had a more "BSD" licencse so they could make a better business model, GPL has strangled them from that.
And thats what it all boils down to.
GPL acts like its the best free and fair thing thats helping the world. But if your truely interested in things such as helping the end user and good software grow, you would NOT be a fraid to hold other potential companies / business models back and you WOULD NOT have such restrive licences such as GPL that are largely based around an alias of Fear and Greed.
PHP is the best example against this.. these the PHP open source side under BSD licence and theres the Zend commercial business model. The reason why PHP is so successful is because they KNOW they can BSD there stuff cos they ARE NOT afraid of any one else cos they are truely good software, and if some one can make a better commercial product then they are welcome to try and and creates great competition thats beneficial to the end user. This is was the true open source spirit should be about, not licence based around fear of competion, and holding back others.
Deep down inside RMS knows this but he knows that GPL is a good seductive licence that can suck in developers, but as many other people have said RMS's goals are a little more sinister and evil then that, but I wont bother going into them.
I have worked at a company (for a short time) who's most of its software was BASED on GPL'ed free open source software, one of their software packages is a CMS based off phpnuke ( http://www.phpnuke.org )
They Make about $35,000 a MONTH from their commercial PHP based CMS system which was just ripped off from phpnuke my boss just paid a out of school programmer to just change it as much as possible. But its suffered from the same security exploits as nuke even after 1 year of selling and working on it..
Interestingly it seems to be bought by people who know there are free ones but want commercial support they want to know they can get help setting it up but of course there are others who just don't like about the free ones such as PHP nuke.
Do I feel sorry for the GPL lovers who create these problems? No there just fools, theres no other way around it, this is what happens , if your not willing to BSD your licence then dont open source it at all because at the end of the day your living in a dream world.
Instead of falling into the foolish trap of so many others why don't you just sell your softare?
Open source grants might work but why do that when you could do things like provide real support and the like.
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And thats what it all boils down to. GPL acts like its the best free and fair thing thats helping the world. But if your truely interested in things such as helping the end user and good software grow, you would NOT be a fraid to hold other potential companies / business models back and you WOULD NOT have such restrive licences such as GPL that are largely based around an alias of Fear and Greed.
PHP is the best example against this.. these the PHP open source side under BSD licence and theres the Zend commercial business model. The reason why PHP is so successful is because they KNOW they can BSD there stuff cos they ARE NOT afraid of any one else cos they are truely good software, and if some one can make a better commercial product then they are welcome to try and and creates great competition thats beneficial to the end user. This is was the true open source spirit should be about, not licence based around fear of competion, and holding back others. Deep down inside RMS knows this but he knows that GPL is a good seductive licence that can suck in developers, but as many other people have said RMS's goals are a little more sinister and evil then that, but I wont bother going into them.
On the GNU linux wouldn't under the true GPL licence such deep modifications to the GNU Linux be a GPL violation?
I have worked at a company (for a short time) who's most of its software was BASED on GPL'ed free open source software, one of their software packages is a CMS based off phpnuke ( http://www.phpnuke.org ) They Make about $35,000 a MONTH from their commercial PHP based CMS system which was just ripped off from phpnuke my boss just paid a out of school programmer to just change it as much as possible. But its suffered from the same security exploits as nuke even after 1 year of selling and working on it.. Interestingly it seems to be bought by people who know there are free ones but want commercial support they want to know they can get help setting it up but of course there are others who just don't like about the free ones such as PHP nuke. Do I feel sorry for the GPL lovers who create these problems? No there just fools, theres no other way around it, this is what happens , if your not willing to BSD your licence then dont open source it at all because at the end of the day your living in a dream world. Instead of falling into the foolish trap of so many others why don't you just sell your softare? Open source grants might work but why do that when you could do things like provide real support and the like.