I don’t know which Indian anecdote you’re referring but it’s really not germane to this discussion because it has nothing to do with the GPL. Alas, it’s as hard to pin down which anecdote the advocates are using any given week as pinning down the real cost differences between using Windows and Linux in enterprise (no, Linux is NOT a zero cost solution — maybe in your bedroom but sure as hell not across a corporate network).

But let’s entertain your digression anyway. Perhaps you mean the anecdote in which India made positive Linux statements as a means of extorting favor from Bill Gates (see below). Perhaps you mean the state of Goa, in which one government official staked a pro-Linux position before walking out of government (also mentioned in the following link).
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6389

Maybe Kerala? Well they’re not 100% Linux, either.
http://www.centralchronicle.com/20080827/2708303.htm

Maybe Gujarat? I like this guy’s response: “We in Gujarat have a clear dictum for governance. The cost of Microsoft’s Windows Office Platform is around Rs 6,000 and we buy computers with pre-installed Windows, which costs around Rs 17,000, so the total amounts to Rs 23,000. Though the cost benefits are indeed there with FOSS, we still go for the Windows platform because of its compatibility with the file format, standardisation of database and after sales service provided by Microsoft…. The comparison with other states is also not justified as our computer penetration is far greater than theirs. Look at the way our State Wide Area Network (SWAN) has been functioning for years as compared to theirs… But if we get the same customer support for GNU/Linux as we get for Windows and the issues of compatibility and standardisation are resolved, then we will definitely switch over to FOSS.”
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Higher-Secondary-Board-to-catch-up-with-FOSS-revolution/351961/

Hardly a ringing endorsement since that kind and level of customer support tends to come from companies like Red Hat, Novell, and local companies specializing in enterprise Linux. Microsoft’s dominance in that area, where customer service is a requirement, has NOTHING to do with monopoly but rather with having an infrastructure based on an understanding of what large businesses and government wants and/or requires. Those users don’t give a rat’s ass about GPL or the bullshit near-religious views of the Free Software Foundation. They only demand that it work easily within a certain skill level and that they have someone to call if it gets screwed up.

Most users of open source likewise don’t give a shit about GPL. They use it because it’s free as in beer. They can work their ways around missing features, they have time to report bugs. And they have time to intentionally misspell Windows, as though that makes them good and decent people.

Back to the issue at hand. Some companies choose to comply with GPL. For some of them, like TiVo, it doesn’t matter that they play by the rules because the rulemakers (FSF) move the goalposts and have a very anti-capitalist bias. That does nothing to increase adoption of open source but only ensures developers and innovators continue to lock down their specs and make them difficult for interoperability. The GPL, thus, is a barrier to interoperability rather than a facilitator (as BSD and MIT/X licenses are). That’s by design, because GPL was drafted by people who don’t want to play by the rules of the real world but rather seek to craft their own counterculture.

There’s a time where something that’s counterculture gains acceptance by the mainstream, and is adopted into the mainstream in some limited measure. But not in whole. That’s where Linux and open source is today. The question isn’t how much longer it’ll take before Linux has enough momentum to damage Microsoft, it’s how long Linux/open source can be relevant before the world walks away from it. As long as Linux and open source is guided by doctrinaire extremists like Stallman, the sooner the mainstream will ditch the counterculture. Open source can have more staying power and be a bigger part of the mainstream if the barriers — including goofy restrictive licenses like GPL — aren’t too offputting.

The success of Firefox isn’t because it’s an inherently better, safer browser than IE. Most users are still content with IE despite its shortcomings. Many users would gladly ditch Firefox if they felt IE was more secure, better, had certain features, etc. They don’t use Firefox because its source is available, they only care that it’s free as in beer. Put a price tag on it and they’ll stick with IE in greater numbers even if they think it lacks features, is insecure, etc.

The most important point, though, is users never got on board with Firefox because of its license. Just its cost. Cost is the reason for at least 80% of open source adoption. Not license, not source, not for sets of included or missing features.

These FSF/SFLC lawsuits do nothing to increase adoption of open source. They only give manufacturers less reason to mess with it.

1. Berkeley’s own code was always “free,” AT&T’s wasn’t. Specifically, the networking stack was freely available so it could be incorporated by anyone without regard for release of code.
2. The BSD license has more to do with the fact that those professors working on BSD were public employees. They didn’t think it would be appropriate to tie up code the taxpayers paid for.
3. You and I have very different notions of ethics.

Let’s tie these things together. BSD included a robust networking stack. It was available for anyone to use as anyone saw fit. That includes within a proprietary product. As a result, there was no need for anyone to come up with their own networking standards which wouldn’t work with myriad other operating systems’ networking stacks. That free code enabled Microsoft to play in the same world as Unix and Apple and anyone else. It became the standard. Was anyone harmed by Microsoft’s and Apple’s inclusion of this code? No. How was it unethical for those companies to include it in their operating systems, even if it required or included additional tweaks so it would work adequately in their own code bases? TCP/IP was available to all without any strings.

A GNU version, under the ridiculous terms of the GPL, would make demands on those companies that choose to lock up their code that those companies may not care to assume. So if TCP/IP had been GPL’ed, it would be used by fewer operating systems rather than be universal. And you’d have Windows functioning with its own closed stack, Apple with theirs, and everyone scrambling to make their stacks operate with either or both. In a Windows world, it does matter. It would mean you wouldn’t have the ease of networking that you have today because the solutions would be kludges like those used to operate in areas where Microsoft hasn’t opened specs for interoperability. Not for document formatting, but for something as basic as networking.

Moreover, freedom is a two way street. The GPL ignores this. It sets requirements for use and distribution, just like EULAs do. The BSD license allows those who want to use it to use it as they see fit. There’s nothing unethical about taking *free* (as opposed to restricted) code and using it. Nothing at all. It wasn’t unethical for Microsoft to use the BSD TCP/IP stack. It was laudable! It was desirable! It meant all those freaking Windows computers could network with any other operating system. GPL isn’t about freedom, it’s about restriction. BSD is about freedom. Period.

I think your concerns about BSD code being locked up have been disproven in the real world. Many who use code from FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD feed back their in-house patches. It saves them from having to go through and manually patch when new updates and releases are made. I don’t think BSD developers whine nearly as much or as often or as loudly as Linux developers do about this “unethical” problem. They get plenty of patches to review. It’s not take-take, it’s give and take. And, unlike in the GPL universe, it’s done without any coercion or any pressure or any bullshit about ethics.

HURD isn’t a functional, robust operating system. It works only on a restricted set of hardware. It’s pre-alpha, it’s experimental. After a quarter century. Heh.

Stallman didn’t come up with the idea of free software. He didn’t create the first free system. He tried to supplant that, to reinvent a wheel. He failed. Get over it.

http://lwn.net/Articles/262396/

And although the limitations of the GLP, we can look at the example of the government of India, that recently decided to migrate its systems from Windows to GNU/Linux.

Another point is that if you don’t want to use GPL, of course you have other several options, but this is a matter of opinion, not an absolutely imposition to opt for this or that license .

Actually, in 1991, the GNU’s kernel was in development (the GNU Hurd), but Richard Stallman decided to put this project aside because of Linux. Ok, that was because of historical reasons, but it doesn’t mean that GNU wasn’t able to be finished. The important thing now is to support the improvement of the GNU/Linux distributions.

It is also important to stress that there is a version of GNU/Hurd available to prove. It is not completely usabe (it is in alpha state), but remember that GNU/Linux was in the same situation some years ago.
The link is: http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/index.en.html

About BSD: ok, this is an elder operating system than GNU, and also I know that it was a variant of the original Unix operating system; but its license was propietary in the 80s. When the early 90s come, its license changed to a free one (BSD license) and the BSD developers actually did this because of the example of the GNU project. Besides this, BSD developers didn’t had the difficulties that the GNU project had to complete a free operating system: BSD was an university project, and also had AT&T facilities to take the Unix’s source code; GNU only had the support of many volunteers and some financial support through the FSF. What’s more, the GNU’s kernel wasn’t being finished in 1991 because it was very complicated to build (it consisted of many services, that would be coordinated by a microkernel). I know that Linux Torvalds was able to finish by itself a first release of a monolithic kernel, but note that it is very different to build a monolithic kernel that a collection of services coordinated by a microkernel (this is more complicated to build, but when finished, its more efficient).

Again, I don’t believe that the free software world would de the same without the GNU Project. It represented the first effort against propietary issues. I know that the GPL license has its own limitations, but the reason of that is about preserve free software, free, i.e. its objective is not only to make programs free, but to preserve those liberties into modified versions. If you release a program onto a BSD license, another person or organization can take your program, modify it, and release their new version onto a privative license. That could be good in terms of functionality, but it’s not good in terms of ethics (ethics are which really matters when we talk about free software, not only functionality).

Whatever, the FSF has provided another kind of license that is less restrictive in that terms (LGLP).

The GPL wasn’t the start of free (as in freedom/as in speech) software. GPL is a restrictive, not free, license. BSD preceded GNU. BSD preceded Linux. BSD had a larger base than GNU because BSD was (is) Unix (GNU’s *Not* Unix). Most importantly, BSD actually worked. It took a third party — Linus Torvalds — to write a working and functional kernel that GNU could use. And Stallman (and some of his friends) weren’t all onboard with that at first. Regardless, Linux made GNU usable. Linux made GNU work.

GNU = GNU’s Not Usable. A quarter of a century after Stallman notified the world of GNU, it STILL doesn’t work. One of my points above is that GNU’s not as necessary to Linux as Linux is to GNU. GNU is almost entirely irrelevant to Linux. It’s certainly irrelevant to the notion of free software — e.g., the BSDs and plenty of other free software under less restrictive licenses.

Stallman and his merry band of zealots chose to not use or support BSD but rather to come up with their own more restrictive license and their own non-functional replacement for Unix. Linus said that he probably wouldn’t have started his kernel had BSD not been tied up in court in the AT&T suit. That would’ve left GNU where it is today: without its own kernel and with a bunch of blowhards like Stallman stupidly pontificating about bullshit rather than writing a working, functional, usable kernel.

There would still be free software without FSF/GNU. It might actually be better without the impediments of the GPL and without the baggage of the anti-capitalist hippies at FSF.

Also, I added this to stumbleupon. Keep up the good work!