Paul Schmidt" wrote:

> Not entirely, let me put something radical here, realise that Oracle
> could in fact GPL their engine, but keep closed some shared
> libraries used by the client to access it, and charge the same fees
> to use the clients.

They wouldn't do that because it only has potential to make
problems for them. Developers could write their own client
libraries, for instance, and start to damage Oracle's iron-fist
control.

> > FreeBSD is better? Also the fact that Apple is heavily into
> > proprietary systems, as every turn of their convoluted history has
> > clearly shown. It is virtually certain that Apple wants to turn BSD
> > into their own proprietary system in order to lock in their users.
> > This is just the way Apple has always done business. They wouldn't be
> > able to do that with Linux because of the GPL. Hence, they did not
> > choose Linux.
>
> I never said that FreeBSD was better (never used it, so I have no

I was merely suggesting that FreeBSD being better than Linux
could be an answer to your question. I, too, have never used it,
but there is no reason to suppose that it is inferior to Linux.

> However a large number of "free" projects, died, because nobody
> wanted to invest the $100,000 into a project where the only
> guaranteed return was "thanks".

Can you name half a dozen of those?

> Hopefully the new C++ tree fixes a lot of this, because in order to
> guarantee it's future, we have to make either make the code easier
> to understand, or guarantee that Claudio has a very happy, long,
> healthy life....

Object-oriented C++ code can be a devil to understand, too!

At least a new code-base could break free of the restrictive IPL!
(Assuming it doesn't use any code from the old sources.)


David Trudgett