I was reading Savio's review of GPL licensing in Linux (Actually, his topic is much broader than that, and worth a read), and then stumbled across Dave Wheeler's "Make Your Open Source Software GPL-compatible...or Else" page, and was reminded of just how prevalent the GPL is: it powers 77% of the software on Sourceforge.net.
Now, one of two things is happening.
- The development community has won, and freedom really does trump "intellectual property." Or
- The commercial community has won, and is starting to figure out that the GPL is software capitalism's best friend. (If you're not convinced by me, try reading Eben Moglen's keynote at last year's Red Hat Summit. Or, better yet, watch it. An absolute masterpiece.)
It's not about evil. It's about what works. It's about making money with free/open source as your ally, and not a weak alibi.
Posted by Matt Asay on February 14, 2007 09:15 AM
