"Open source would be succeeding faster if the GPL didn't make lots of people nervous about adopting it." From the article: "I don't think the GPL is the principal reason for Linux's success. Rather, I believe it's because in 1991 Linus was the first person to find the right social architecture for distributed software development."

Eric Raymond has said a lot of things that I strongly disagree with. This time, however, I think he is exactly right. There have been sparse few who've contributed to open source projects because they had to, and none of that "had to" code has been fundamental to the success of the system. On the other hand, the GPL has held projects back.

"Open source would be succeeding faster if the GPL didn't make lots of people nervous about adopting it." From the article: "I don't think the GPL is the principal reason for Linux's success. Rather, I believe it's because in 1991 Linus was the first person to find the right social architecture for distributed software development."

In fact, it's political considerations that kept me quiet for a while. For a long time, I judged that any harm the GPL might be doing was outweighed by the good. For some time after I stopped believing that, I didn't see quite enough reason to fight with the GPL zealots. I'm speaking up now because a couple of curves have intersected. It has become more apparent how much of an economic advantage open source development has, and my judgment of the utility of the GPL has fallen.

ESR argues that the social model surrounding Open Source Software has proven powerful enough to enforce good practices even without some of the stronger elements of the GPL.

I tend to agree with him, but I don't expect any paradigm shift in licensing strategies. Five more years, we may be using much more liberal licensing, but I don't think its going to happen fast. People are going to be very conservative about this. The "walk the walk if you are going to talk the talk" style of logic ESR uses here can be bent both ways.

Do we need the GPL to keep companies honest when it comes to giving back to open source projects?