🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <FsLHeB13w164w@mantis.co.uk>, mathew@mantis.co.uk (en font terrible) writes:
|> jbuck@forney.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck) writes:
|> > Just about everyone who's brought out a RISC chip lately has ported
|> > gcc to it; in many cases it's the only compiler available for the chip.
|> > gcc was originally written for the Vax and the 68000; the feedback provided
|> > by the porters, TOGETHER WITH THEIR SOURCE, made it far easier to port gcc
|> > to each additional chip and architecture.  Without the GPL, each vendor would
|> > have started with gcc anyway (why not?  It's a high quality piece of work
|> > they could get free), but not sent their own sources back to FSF.  Result:
|> > lots of people very expensively reinventing the wheel.  Instead, gcc has
|> > become easier and easier to port.
|> 
|> How, then, do you explain MINIX?  It's under a commercial license.  Source
|> is made available.  Many people have sent patches and improvements to MINIX
|> back to the authors, and they have been included in subsequent releases.
|> The system has become more and more portable; there are now PC, ST, Amiga,
|> and Mac versions, with an Archimedes (RISC) version expected soon.

MINIX isn't a contradiction to what I said; it's a confirmation!  Because
of the licensing of MINIX, people couldn't do a little bit of work on
MINIX and sell the port to, say, the Amiga as if it were their own property
(as you can do with the "freed BSD sources", for example); their only real
alternative is to either just use the patches themselves or send them back
to the MINIX owner.  Just the same is true for GPL'd sources.

What you've pointed out by this example is that there are other ways besides the
GPL to get the same benefits; MINIX is one example of such an alternative.
In both cases, sources were made available to lots of people, enabling them
to improve the sources and to cooperate with other MINIX users; this allows
users to form a community and share their improvements with each other.

-- 
Joe Buck	jbuck@ohm.berkeley.edu
"If we face a recession, we should not lay off employees; the company should
sacrifice a profit.  It's management's risk and management's responsibility.
Employees are not guilty." -- Akio Morita, chairman of Sony