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Comment by josephcsible | Hacker News Reader

I find this claim hard to believe since Linux is GPL, and it's used commercially way more than OpenBSD is.

Linux is something of a special case, as the vast majority of the users can "use it" without thinking about the implications of the GPL. Because, for example, there's a specific exception for software that uses Linux syscalls, and that glibc is licensed LGPL.

That's not true for most uses of other GPL licensed libraries and software, where the license makes your code a "derivative work".

If you're just using Linux on your own servers, or writing userland software for it, then sure, the GPL is easy to comply with. But if you distribute hardware with Linux preinstalled on it, then you do have to provide all the source code. How is this meaningfully different from basic userland tools?

Not that I'm agreeing with them, but many companies are wary of sharing their code because it opens up a path to replicate their services without paying for them. Vendors that distribute devices with Linux, though, are able to avoid that because the hardware is often still proprietary. Binary blobs still exist despite the Linux GPL license too. Even in projects that seem lauded by the "open source" community, like the Rpi.

I just don't think Linux is a great example to explain to a company why they should be fine with licensing their software under the GPL. It's not a good direct comparison in most cases.

Of course, Linux is special case, KHTML/WebKit/Blink is special case, Android is special case, etc. Blame special cases.

? Android is, AFAIK, completely permissively licensed except for the kernel, and KHTML/WebKit/Blink are BSD/LGPL; what would be special about them in this context?

KHTML/Webkit/Blink are all LGPL and/or BSD, which is specifically not restrictive for linking to.

Many people assume all of Linux is GPL. I say "special case" because not everyone knows the most-linked-to stuff isn't.

> used commercially way more

Depends by what metric and the definition of "commercially". I'm not sure this is the case for (physical) devices sold with software pre-installed.

I mainly see BSD licensed binaries on network appliances (routers, firewalls and other security appliances), apple hardware, automotive headunits, ...

There are some that are Linux based. F5 load balancers is a good example. I don't know what strategy they use to avoid it, but as far as I know, you can't replicate your own F5 with whatever GPL compliance code releases they do.

But, for some manufacturers, you can. Synology is a good example...see Xpenology.

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