It's easy to take things for granted – to assume that the world will always be as it is. And then sometimes you receive a mild jolt: some new information appears that makes you sit up and reconsider your preconceptions.
The small size of GNU in GNU/Linux is a sign of success, not a loss of importance. The free software community has built programs for every purpose. As the number of these programs increase the relative size of the software base and tool chain they all depend on will trend to zero. The whole performs better than non free software and this is a wonderful achievement. Right now, there is no practical reason to use non free software. The GNU mission will be complete when everyone knows why software freedom is important and rejects the injustice of non free software. The growth of free software is a good measure of the success of that mission, people closest to computers have chosen free software licenses, mostly copyleft.
Black Duck studies should not be trusted. The company is founded and run by former Microsoft people.
The small size of GNU in GNU/Linux is a sign of success, not a loss of importance. The free software community has built programs for every purpose. As the number of these programs increase the relative size of the software base and tool chain they all depend on will trend to zero. The whole performs better than non free software and this is a wonderful achievement. Right now, there is no practical reason to use non free software. The GNU mission will be complete when everyone knows why software freedom is important and rejects the injustice of non free software. The growth of free software is a good measure of the success of that mission, people closest to computers have chosen free software licenses, mostly copyleft.
ReplyDeleteBlack Duck studies should not be trusted. The company is founded and run by former Microsoft people.
@twitter: yes, that's a good point about the success of the ecosystem.
ReplyDeleteAs for Black Duck, it was a jumping off point, nothing more...