What if Linus chose a BSD license?
A wondered what if production
Dec. 19th, in the year of our lord 2007
One day when i was surfing around on the interweb, using my Paldo enabled laptop, I was wondering, "What if Linus chose a BSD license, instead of the GPL?"
What would a BSD licensed GNU/Linux look like today?
Purely hypothetical, of course, but I wonder what a BSD licensed linux would look like in today's world. Here are a few theories that I could think of:
There would be more competition for the Linux Kernel.
In a perfect world, people would pull their weight behind one effort to make it great. I guess that has happened in our current Linux environment, as no one really has forked the kernel itself. (before i get backlash, i assume one could fork the kernel, I just don't know why you would).
However, our world is far from perfect, and men being men, we think we can do better then the last guy. So, I would assume someone with bravado and 'piss and vinegar', would fork the kernel and make a new version. I could see someone doing that with 2.4, probably a slackware enthusist.
There would be no such thing as the GNU in GNU/LInux
Captain and Tineal; Steak and Beer; Magnum and his Porn stache... These things just go together. But if there was no Linux Kernel to use with GNU, they may not have taken off as well as what ended up happening. You have nothing without a GNU, but you really have nothing without a Kernel.
It would take a nation of good hearted developers to fork a Kernel and offer it for free to the GNU folks. Since all good developers need to pay the bills, they would end up at the 'Cash as in Money' businesses that would pay greater then a free spare time gig would.
Plus, someone would have had to pay to fork that Kernel in the first place... and would they really 'fork' out all that money, not to return a profit on their investment?
There would be fewer distros, with tighter knitted communities of developers
Since anyone can fork GNU/Linux and create their own distro, but they must relicense any changes or enhancements as GPL as well, we get a lot of distros that just copy someone's hard work and put Cinelerra on it, and call it a Multimedia Distro.
In a world with many kernels in which to learn, people would pick the one that made sense to them. I guess a tribal mentality, in a way, would take over. People tend to gravate to others that think/act similar. The same is true with this whole Open Source thing. (I'm just in it for the women ;-)
Linus would be Cash Rich and comparable to Steve Jobs, minus the slick "cool" guy act.
Linus would have grown tired of going it alone. He'd incorporate Linux and then Linux Inc would look to get into the pay for developing the Kernel game. All development of the Kernel would be made by 'Cash as in money' corporations who want to build proprietary software for their closed source hardware solutions, that would help make their systems infrastructure more secure.
The more obscure an operating system, the less likely a Bank or Stock Exchange, could be hacked into.
But imagaine that he charged for people to fork off the kernel. He'd offer training/support/help to get a businesses Kernel version off the ground and then turn it over to a team of proprietary developers.
Hey, i've read many an interview with Linus... he's a strong personality who doesn't hold punches and calls it like he sees it. Right or wrong, he'll tell you. No one said all men who wear white hats and save the day, can't be a dick. (Just an observation, relax, he knows he's a dick or at least he knows he's a bastard... :-)
Now couple his persona with the amount of wealth he would derive (not that i know his current monetary status, but just pretend here). He could rule his fifedom and make money, all at the same time. LInux Inc., would pay him a couple milldoe a year, just for being a figure head (works for Frank Stronach).
Conclusion
Yes it is just hypothetical, and yes you could drive a truck through the errors in my logic, but it does make for a good story/diversion, wouldn't you say?
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