> The point is
> if Linux (GNU) has become great and independent has been thanks to its
> development
> model, lots of people making it right because they like it, not because
> they are
> paid and not because they have a pressure to do it (like developers do
> at commercial
> companies).
> As an example, let me point out the actual differences between the KDE
> status and the Gnome status, I don't know, but it seems to me that an
> absolutely independent project (KDE) evolves to get a better result that
> a company leaded project (Gnome, Red Hat) (This is just my opinion).
> Don't misunderstand me, I love Red Hat and their company model. I just
> think that the
> roll of a company in the free software world must be to contribute as
> any other
> organization or individual, never to have the property of a project (Red
> Hat don't
> have the property of the Gnome project)
Hm. Let's remind me history: glibc2 is developed by Cygnus (it is developed
by Cygnus in the same sence as GNOME is developed by RedHat :-). libc5 was
VERY WIDE used by a lot of peoples even before work on glibc2 was close to
usable betas. First versions of glibc2 was incompatible with A LOT OF software,
etc. Still now libc5 is mostly obsoleted and all major distributions are
switched to glibc2 (except of Slackware, but Slackware is dead anyway).
I'm not sure if GNOME will replace KDE the same way as glibc2 relaced libc5
though...
> Anyway, it's possible that this way of thinking is better understood in
> Europe.
> In the other hand, if the development of Linux was dependent on the
> money
> of a few companies, and this was so for years, these companies would
> have
> the capacity of bringing Linux up or down when they want. I don't think
> this was good at all for all of us.
Just now major, ESSENTIONAL components (glibc2 and egcs) development depends
on Cygnus. And no, this is not a problem.If Cygnus will disapper now (or just
make something VERY wrong) then development of egcs and glibc2 will be slowed
for few months then new organisation (commercial like RedHat or not-commercial
like Apache group -- no matter) will head development since sources are
available to hack.
> I ask, Is there at the moment any way of avoid this danger?
Yes. You must use OSS-compatible copyrights (unlike Qt copyright :-)
> I think what Gerard says is not so stupid at all.
> Thanks for reading and best regards to everybody.
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