"In business, this
translates to not having to reinvent wheels as we go
along. The beauty of [the GPL] model is you put your
code into the public domain.Young uses the term "public domain" incorrectly
here.
Public domain means not protected by copyright.
GPL-protected programs are by definition protected by
copyright.
If you're an independent software vendor and you're
trying to build some application and you need a
modem-dialer, well, why reinvent modem dialers? You can
just steal PPP off of Red Hat Linux and use that as the
core of your modem-dialing tool. If you need a graphic
tool set, you don't have to write your own graphic
library. Just download GTK. Suddenly you have the
ability to reuse the best of what went before. And
suddenly your focus as an application vendor is less on
software management and more on writing the
applications specific to your customer's needs."
Young wasn't the only software executive intrigued by
the business efficiencies of free software. By late
1996, most Unix companies were starting to wake up and
smell the brewing source code.
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