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Screwing the GPLScrewing the GPLPosted Aug 19, 2004 16:47 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722)In reply to: Screwing the GPL by rakoch Parent article: IBM files another summary judgment motion
The only right IBM, or anyone else, has to distribute Linux is what is granted under the GPL; more importantly, the only way that IBM gets the benefit of non-IBM development on Linux is that the GPL makes licensing that work to IBM (and everyone else) acceptable to others.
If the GPL were invalid, IBM would be left without a suitable operating system to distribute to many of their customers. If the GPL were unenforceable, IBM would lose 99% of the developers for the projects they ship. Being rid of the GPL would be about as good for IBM as being rid of outsourced hardware production. They already failed to produce all of the necessary software they shipped when they started shipping DOS; the GPL gives them a better deal than third-party proprietary software.
For that matter, IBM doesn't even have its own Linux version that it could make proprietary should the GPL turn out to be unenforceable; they ship Red Hat or SuSE, and contribute the code necessary to make it run on their expensive hardware. They'd need a completely different business model and a mostly different employee set to gain at all.
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