[OT] what if...

[dep]

quoth Jerry McBride:

| If placed under the gpl... there'd be at least one fork in the
| source... it would be very successful and probably kill both
| Microsoft and Linux...

in our best imagination of open source efficiency, the code would be 
audited and tightened and modularized such that it would be another 
bunch of choices from whom we could mix and match -- choices that now 
would be far quicker and more efficient. if, however, real world 
experience (mozilla, openoffice) were the direction it would take, the 
steaming pile of code would be scooped up from the pasture and taken to 
where many others would add their smaller steaming piles to it; it 
would get twice as big, half as fast, and on an impressive number of 
machines would not run at all.
-- 
dep

Hippocratic oath: An ethical construct whose initial tenet, "first, do 
no harm," prohibits doctors from treating lawyers.