🚀 go-pugleaf

   Date: 10 Jan 92 02:32:51 GMT
   From: nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley)

   I think the major complaint that many people have with the GNU license
   is that it's having an adverse affect not on the amount commercial
   software (it's intention) but rather on the amount of unencumbered
   software.  In other words, most GNU software would have been released
   for general use had the GNU license not existed.  It wouldn't have
   been sold.

Do you have any evidence for this?

People are still writing PD software, or software with less
restrictive redistribution conditions than the GPL.  Lots of software.

Then again there's a lot of work that's been done to imporve GCC,
especially for version 2, that various companies would have _loved_ to
keep proprietary.  Instead it's all coming together so that everybody
benefits.

GNU seems to be thriving in both the commercial marketplace and the
marketplace of ideas.  I see no harm in this.