Re:GPL vs BSD, a matter of sustainability
by Nursie on Friday February 08, 2013 @10:03AM
(#5188151)
In that specific case you are right.
But in the case of (for instance) the Linksys NSLU2 (or various WRT and WAG models), the whole community around them was possible because the code was available and people could mess around with it. In this case it was to Linksys advantage to use GPL firmware, to the users advantage that more could be done with the device, and to the community's advantage because changes and improvements could be fed back to the general linux ecosystem.
Re:GPL vs BSD, a matter of sustainability
by NateDad on Friday February 08, 2013 @03:28PM
(#5189918)
Linksys sells hardware, not software, it's not a valid comparison. People can copy their software all they want - they still have to buy the hardware to run it on.
But in the case of (for instance) the Linksys NSLU2 (or various WRT and WAG models), the whole community around them was possible because the code was available and people could mess around with it. In this case it was to Linksys advantage to use GPL firmware, to the users advantage that more could be done with the device, and to the community's advantage because changes and improvements could be fed back to the general linux ecosystem.