🚀 go-pugleaf

According to vinsci@brando.uwasa.fi (Leonard Norrgard):
>>Unfortunately, I have to use a hoarded X display every day at work.
>>The makers of it won't give us sources so we could fix the bugs
>>ourselves.  Clearly, the X way of distribution is not working...

In article <2B49ED1A.7405@tct.com> chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>If X were a GPL product, it would be in exactly the same (good but not
>great) condition as the publically available X of today.  After all
>those who contribute patches to GPL products usually do not do so out
>of GPL-based coercion; they do so because they like to share.

Well, contrafactuals are always difficult, because we have no way to
rewind the world, make a single, isolated change (e.g. slap the GPL
on X11), crank forward and see what happens.  But the only thing I
can conclude is that both methods (GPL and X-like copyrights) have
their advantages and disadvantages, and the GPL accomplishes more
than you say that it does.

The first version of gcc was for the Vax, followed soon after by a port to
the 68000, if I remember correctly.  These are CISC machines; vendors of
RISC machines and DSP's that have used gcc would not have benefited as
much from gcc's availability if ports to other RISCs and DSPs were not
available in source form, and these ports would not have been available
without the GPL.

Given that, one might argue that if X were GPL'ed, then more X source
would be freely available and that this would assist new ports.  But on
the down side, there would have been considerably less industrial
acceptance of X if it were GPL'ed (and I know, the X bashers will now
say that this is a good thing).

So in answer to Chip's point: those who contribute patches (i.e. small bug
fixes and enhancements) to gcc or X do so because they like to share.
People who contribute major new ports representing > 1 person-year of work
are often doing so because of the GPL (e.g. Motorola's gcc port to the
56000 DSP chip, Analog Devices' gcc-based work on DSP-C, Data General and
OSF's contributions to gcc ports, NeXT's work on Objective-C).  Without
the GPL, none of these would be available to the community in source form.

Followups to gnu.misc.discuss.


--
Joe Buck	jbuck@ohm.berkeley.edu