Non-linux servers

[Bill McGonigle]

On Dec 12, 2005, at 08:54, Paul Lussier wrote:

> I'm not sure what you mean by the GPL comment.  If Solaris were
> released under license which qualified as "truly Free", I probably
> wouldn't care which license that was.

OK, fair point.  I just don't accept a reality where Sun would do such 
a thing. :)

> Personally, I like the BSD
> license better, since, technically, it's *more* free than the GPL is,
> but that's not the point.

You're right it is more free - but you asked what the advantage of 
Linux was.  The GPL advantage is that it requires disclosure which 
spurs innovation and grows the community code base at a much faster 
rate than the BSD license - this helps Open Source compete.  For 
instance, if Linksys had used a BSD in its WRT54G my neighborhood 
network would be flakier and harder to manage.  The features and 
bugfixes 3rd parties have added wouldn't have happened, or if they did 
the rate would have been much slower.  As it is out network runs on 
linux with great iptables rules, QoS and is being monitored by MRTG.

A great counterexample is Bizgres - a version of PostgreSQL that can 
distribute subqueries among a cluster of "cheap" machines and seems to 
beat the pants off of Oracle RAC and similar products.  And they get 
~$80K for it.  But PostgreSQL has a BSD-ish license so they're not 
giving back those enhancements therefore the open PostgreSQL community 
is slowly reinventing that wheel.  By time they're done, Oracle will be 
another step ahead.  If PostgreSQL was GPL'ed we'd have a FLOSS product 
that could compete with Oracle today (assuming they would have gone 
into the business of selling support for the product - I think they 
would have).

> And wouldn't it be hysterical to see
> Solaris under a BSD license (in an ironical sort of way).

Of Pendulums and Penguins...

-Bill

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