GPL is the big edge of Linux over the BSDs [LWN.net]

GPL is the big edge of Linux over the BSDs

Posted Sep 1, 2006 0:18 UTC (Fri) by cventers (subscriber, #31465)
In reply to: GPL is the big edge of Linux over the BSDs by dwheeler
Parent article: The future of NetBSD

Agreed.

Whenever I come across people mindlessly tarnishing the GPL license, I
ask them to browse linux-kernel for a couple of days and look at the
hostnames posting to the list. You see engineers from IBM, Oracle, Red
Hat, Novell, SGI, Intel, AMD, Google, HP, Nortel, XenSource, VMWare and
others all cooperating on making common APIs and subsystems from which
they all (and all of the many Linux users) can benefit.

There are flame wars. There is disagreement and frustration. Enemies are
made.

But at the end of the day, you've got companies that compete _directly_
with eachother cooperating on one project in good faith. Sprinkle in a
little 2.6 process and you've got the fastest moving, most portable and
feature-filled operating system the world has ever seen.

I cannot believe that the BSD community finds itself so preoccupied with
dissing Linux and its licensing while their own favorite villages burn.
Put out your own fires, folks!

As an aside, I often hear the stability of Linux criticized. There are
two kinds of stability - the kind of stability where you don't crash, and
the kind of stability where you don't move. The latter is good stability
to have and Linux has it. The latter is bad stability and the BSD folks
are ironically correct in pointing out that their systems are stable in
this sense, and then insist on repeating that point, as if it were a
great accomplishment, in reply to a NetBSD founder admitting that his
stable project has stagnated. Sad.

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GPL is the big edge of Linux over the BSDs

Posted Sep 1, 2006 2:31 UTC (Fri) by jhs (subscriber, #12429) [Link]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Solaris kernel has binary kernel module compatibility all the way back to version 2.6, which sounds like "don't move" stability. But there is still good engineering and new stuff going on in that kernel. This isn't a comment to say the Linux system is bad, but only to point out the smart engineering that went into Solaris, too.

GPL is the big edge of Linux over the BSDs

Posted Sep 1, 2006 3:06 UTC (Fri) by cventers (subscriber, #31465) [Link]

Absolutely. Solaris has a good kernel. (I don't actually know enough
about its history to comment on the accuracy of what you are saying, but
I don't doubt it either).

One thing I would propose to consider then is the acceleration and
velocity of engineering, not just the presence of it. I think Linux has
gained more features, faster, than any other operating system kernel ever
has. It's brilliant precisely because it never forked another project;
rather, started out fresh making a UNIX clone. And the established
practices that discourage anything that gets in the way of change (such
as stable interfaces) has done it wonders.