2006/10/10, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@au-kbc.org:
be clear on one thing - GPL is not the only license around. FOSS licences range from pure BSD licences - which are the freest and least restrictive to the GPL, which is the most restrictive.
GPL is a copyleft license, it guarantees that all users will get the freedom. You can build a proprietory application using BSD licensed code. It is also Free Software but not copyleft. GPL has restrction so that all users will have freedom.
Apache
Software Foundation does not use the GPL - and you just have to look at their projects to see the huge contribution they have made to the foss world.
Clearly everyone accept that and recognises their work.
And zope/plone, postgresql, python, php ... the list is
endless. And also be clear that even assuming the operating system in what you call GNU/Linux is all GNU and GPL, a machine just running that operating system on that kernel is useless. It needs the applications to be useful. And a very large number of those applications are non-GNU and non-GPL. And they are free - and no one will be able to snatch away their freedom. So the assertion that the GPL is the sole guardian of freedom is false.
It is more than a license issue. GPL is there to guarantee all users will have freedom.
So i feel that you should stop trying to claim parentage of Linux -
linux neither wants or needs it. Far better you concentrate on your own baby - hurd.
GNU project started to develop a completely Free Operating system and since Linux filled the last piece to have a full OS the only motivation for hurd is technical, it tries to improve Unix design while Linux is trying to be like Unix.
Cheers Praveen