"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.

Slashdot | We Don't Need the GPL Anymore