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Comment by bcg1 | Hacker News Reader

Linus is not a god, and his proclamations are not gospel.

He can crow all he likes about how he wishes he never used the GPL and how he is not political... but the truth is, no one knows what would have happened if he didn't use the GNU license or distribute GNU software. Its theoretically possible that his project would have died on the vine without members of the community who cared about those things and made considerable contributions. Nobody knows, not even Linus.

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> He can crow all he likes about how he wishes he never used the GPL

Torvalds seems to like v2 and not v3[1]. I can't find a source of him saying he wishes he hadn't used the GPL at all - do you have one? It seems that v2 does exactly what he wants - get code back.

[1] "I still think version 2 is a great license": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU - in fact, in this talk, he says v3 is fine as a license (though not for his needs), but his problems with it were the way that the FSF was trying to submarine it into all existing v2 licenses, and misleading people about how it worked.

> He can crow all he likes about how he wishes he never used the GPL

Wikipedia [1] has this quote:

> Torvalds has described licensing Linux under the GPL as the "best thing I ever did."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel#Licensing_terms

That quotation is from 1997.

He didn't reverse course as late as 2007 [1]. Where's the article/quote where he "wishes he never used the GPL"?

[1] http://www.informationweek.com/the-torvalds-transcript-why-i...?

Has Linus said he wishes he'd never used the GPL? That's news to me. I guess it'd have to have been after he wrote Git?

Linux would have never been as successful if someone like rms would have called the shots. People still tinker with the GNU Hurd microkernel and it's less usable than Minix. Linus is also no god for me, but he is delightfully pragmatic, someone companies can work with, not against.

This explains the failure of gcc, glibc and gnu utils/userland to completely fail to gain traction too! /sarcasm

(Although the egcc split was painful, and at long last there are some viable alternatives - it took decades for them to rise up. So it's a little odd that the FSF/RMS would never have successfully been able to develop a project? Obviously the need for a (new) GPL licensed [kernel] is less when there exists a decent GPL licensed kernel (Linux)).

gcc was largely ignored until UNIX vendors started to sell the development tools instead of bundling them with the OS.

The majority of FOSS users are actually people that don't want to pay for software and never give anything back to the community.

I don't think the issue is that they don't want to pay, but that they don't realize they can. Often, when a open source solution lacks some required feature, a proprietary one is chosen. Paying the developer to implement that feature is just not something that comes to mind.

> The majority of FOSS users are actually people that don't want to pay for software and never give anything back to the community.

That's two pretty bold (perhaps even inflammatory) statements.

[Perhaps contigent on a) the number of users of commmercial software that either do not pay, or do pay, but do not want to pay - and b) the definition of "giving back to the community" (Is paying for a Windows license "giving back to the community"?) and to wich extent most users of (any-license) software ever give anything back to the community.]

It is based on my experience on how most companies I ever had any sort of contact, work with FOSS.

Also how the majority of everyone that I know, that isn't a technical user, deals with FOSS. They don't care if it is pirated or FOSS, just that they didn't pay for it.

Why do you think there is hardly any money to be done for desktop FOSS software, which usually isn't subjected to trainings or consulting fees?

gcc is already beginning to lose traction to llvm.

My point was that "already", means "it took a long time". See also: embedded development.

I've heard this unsubstantiated claim for years now. It certainly depends on your metric. LLVM still lacks behind in generated code quality on most mainstream platforms [my own unpublished benchmarks]. LLVM appears to attract more mind-share from people leveraging the infrastructure, including writing new front- and back-ends; I'm guessing the code is easier to understand and better documented.

A few years ago I had expected LLVM to have caught up to GCC by now, but I hadn't anticipated the accelerated pace of GCC improvements. I don't know if the competition from LLVM had anything to do with this, but GCC is showing no signs of slowing down.

could you elaborate ?

"Linux would have never been as successful if someone like rms would have called the shots."

I'm not sure how you can think that when GNU, which is the operating system for just about every single server running Linux, was started by RMS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU

A lot of userland-stuff is GNU, Linux is the kernel. Kernel + Userland is OS!

So saying "GNU ... is the operating system for just about every single server running Linux" does not make sense.

Don't start that again. The "GNU/Linux" vs. "GNU" vs. "Linux" argument has been going on long enough without resolution that it's pointless to rehash it.

I vote for LiGNUx. (Always add one more option when there is already a lot of confusion).

I've seen some of RMS's early work in relation to LMI, TI, and open source in the early days, before Linux. RMS has never been anti-business. Just anti the idea that closed-source software licensing is a sustainable business model. Very few people in any part of any flavor of FOSS are actively anti-business.

The problem with that statement is that the vast majority of the software business world interprets anti-proprietary software as being anti-business. And, not entirely without reason given that it's extremely difficult (almost impossible) to build a large software business without licensing. If you're RMS then you point to things like contracting for changes, but much of the software industry would be unsustainable on that footing. For a bad analogy - it's like watching two people speaking variants of English - they're using roughly the right words but both come away confused.

You say "but much of the software industry would be unsustainable on that footing." That's what you call a tautology: It's very difficult to charge a unit license for open source software. Sure, but is taht relevant anymore?

Android is the most widely used OS on the planet, and it became so faster than anyone expected. What advantage do closed-source vendors actually derive from a fetish for secrecy? Do their customers believe they've got some secret advantage? Does anyone believe Windows has some secret sauce in it that makes it better than other OSs?

Much of the software industry today sustains itself on indirect revenue. Even Microsoft admits it must pivot to ecosystem revenue and away from unit licensing revenue.

To ne fair, if many hackers hadnt embraced linux in the 90s, they might have worked on hurd, there is only a finite amount of hackerness.

I agree but the opposite is also true. For many developers who may or may not know very much about the FSF and RMS, Linux represents the "free as in libre" operating system. They compare it to Apple and Microsoft and see it favorably.

Without the GPL and GNU, Linux would not have the same brand. The GPL is part of Linux's public image and a public image is what drives usage.

    Let me ask you one question
    Is your money that good
    Will it buy you forgiveness
    Do you think that it could

    I think you will find
    When your death takes its toll
    All the money you made
    Will never buy back your soul

1. Attribute that quote.

2. This has nothing to do with Linus, and from what I can tell, parent did not deserve it either.

Linus hasn't made a fortune off Linux. He could have, but he didn't.

1. http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/masters-war

2. To clarify, I wasn't referring to Linus

However, if there is no forgiveness and no soul, money is a useful (but not the only) metric.

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