The GPL self-destruct mechanism that is killing Linux | Hacker News Reader

The GPL self-destruct mechanism that is killing Linux

theregister.co.uk

11 pointsiProject12 comments

I am no lover of Linux (BSD for me) and I am no lover of the GPL (MIT or 3BSD for me) but I have no idea what this article is actually trying to say.

The proliferation of user space apps doesn't kill an OS. You could argue the GPL helps it but again, that's not the OS. Windows also has many duplicate apps that are not very good. No GPL there.

The ".. pile of old festering hacks, endlessly copied and pasted by a clueless generation of IT 'professionals' who wouldn't recognise sound IT architecture if you hit them over the head with it.." is true in all spheres and isn't fostered by the GPL.

Am I missing something?

Tech journalism in 2012 :

- Find some quotes (preferably rants) from random sources, vaguely related to your subject

- Add vague historical references

- Choose a provocative title

- Post on aggregators

- Collect comments and go back to step 1

It is worrying how many comments a bad article can attract merely telling people how bad the article is. Presumably comment count is used as a measure of quality, even if the comments are negative?

This article is emblematic of what I would call "dark patterns of online journalism". It's not the first time (search "Apple's poisonous Touch silently kills the GNOMEs of Linux Forest" for the latest example ), and it's not just a bad article. There is no added value in this article, it's a deliberate attempt to manipulate people's gut feelings, with a cost effective strategy in order to increase pageviews, and it needs to be denounced.

Easily accessible gpl code leads to bad IT professionals just like cheap bricks lead to badly build houses. We need to raise brick prices or else anyone can built their poor quality houses.

I read it.. I still don't actually see any argument that the GPL is causing a problem?

The "Linus doesn't scale" bit is an old (2002) issue that was solved when they switched development process.

It looks like they just took negative things about Linux/GPL and thrown them together. There's no meat.

Yeah, Linux is just dying. Absolutely no one uses it any more. Android doesn't exist. Ignorance is strength.

To be fair...Android is not desktop linux.

Is this the follow up to "Computer Generated Math Paper makes it into Peer Reviewed Journal"? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4676837

The whole article contradicts itself. Just start with the title: "The GPL self-destruct mechanism" vs. "This is why Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been declared the licence "viral"." A spreading virus that does harm by... killing itself?

Conventional narratives about Darwinian competition among OS's in the run up to Black Tuesday always fail to mention the "Neanderthal" in the room - Lisp machines. Conceived before the Win-Tel revolution allowed plebeians to compute and developed in the military industrial culture of secrets around Boston, Lisp machines contained the "evils" which caused Stallman to act.

TL;DR: ""

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