Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] GPL defense issues

[Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>]

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On Sun, 2016-08-28 at 09:47 +0200, Greg KH wrote:
> 
> Some specific examples:
>   - huge SMP support.  Yes, Alan got basic SMP support working in
> Linux,
>     but in order to scale much larger we had to do different
> things.  As
>     SMP hardware was rare, it took companies that had that hardware
> to
>     do the work in the kernel to get things to work better.  Because
> of
>     that we got access to RCU, which without that, we would have
> never
>     been able to work as well as we have.  Look at the BSDs for an
>     example of this, they don't have access to RCU, and they can't
>     scale.

It is worth remembering why XFS, JFS, and RCU were made available
only under the GPL, and not under eg. a BSD license.

Linux got access to that code because of the GPL's obligation
that further improvements be made available to the whole community.

Companies like IBM and SGI started participating in Linux because
they knew no competitor would run off with their code, improve it
slightly, and offer a proprietary product for sale based it.

GPL compliance efforts keep that expectation alive, and may be a
factor for new companies when deciding whether or not they can
afford to release their code under the GPL.

Persistent GPL violations could be a large negative for companies
worried about being undercut by competitors.

-- 

All Rights Reversed.

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