[OT] mobile rising

[codephantom]

On Wednesday, 8 November 2017 at 00:09:51 UTC, Ola Fosheim 
Grøstad wrote:
> But frankly, I don't think many giants would start with a GPL 
> code base like Linux.

Redhat have demonstrated that it can be done. GPL is not the 
obstacle. The obstacle is the desire to control/dominate a 
market. There, GPL will do you harm, because you are required to 
release your source code changes back to the community - and 
hence your competitors.

That's the only reason why there's no Microsoft Linux.

Oracle is another giant with their 'own' rebranded Linux - they 
basically took Redhat's stuff... but even then, it was only so 
they could tie you into their proprietory solutions.

Microsoft are porting stuff to Linux too, perhaps for the same 
reason. (SQL Server for Linux? A few years ago I would have 
laughed if someone said that would ever happen).

But giants are starting to see that GPL can actually be utilised 
in their desire to dominate after all, because they can insert 
their proprietary stuff into it, and so 'domination' is still 
apparently attainable - even with GPL. And after all, it saves 
them the trouble of having to write/maintain an operating system.

GPL is not a problem. GPL was specifically designed to benefit 
'everyone'.

The desire to dominate with proprietory closed source products is 
the problem - because it benefits who?

Having said all that, I'm still very much an advocate of the BSD 
style licence ;-)