Date: Wed, 03 Feb 93 13:09:16 -0800
   From: tiemann@cygnus.com

       The only difference
       (that I can see) between BSDI and GPL software is that you can't give
       it out to people who haven't paid their dues.  This goes against the
       anarcho-socialist principles that seem to motivate Free Software but
       both models are pretty similar in practice.

   I see another difference: BSDI will never be a "standard", where as
   GPL, for all the anarcho versions that it spawns, will always be a
   standard.  Since the value of standards is so prevelent in today's
   business climate, I believe that BSDI software is doomed to fail while
   GPL code (or other free software) will continue to flourish.

I disagree.  If BSDI supports POSIX 1003.XX and whatever the ABI du
jour is (SysV ABI this week?), that should cover most of the standards
that business might care about.  It seems to me that the trend is
toward standard API's and standard binary interfaces.  The software
that implements these interfaces (BSDI, Mach, NT) will be irrelevant.