GPL bad for Linux?

PJ, over at Groklaw, has posted her thoughts on a commentary originally published in BusinessWeek written by Stephen H. Wildstrom entitled, “A Big Fly in the Open-Source Soup”.

In his commentary, Wildstrom attempts to make the case that the GPL is actually hurting the widespread acceptance of Linux on the desktop. “Bright as it is, the future of commercial open source might be considerably brighter if Linux and other programs went to a more commerce-friendly license with fewer complexities and ambiguities than the GPL. There’s plenty of precedent. The BSD license, the Mozilla Foundation license used for browsers, and the Apache license all provide for free distribution of code and source code with fewer restrictions than the GPL. It will be tremendously controversial in the open-source community, where the GPL sometimes seems more like an object of religious veneration than a legal document, but it would be good for all concerned.” PJ counters with, ” All? Good for all? What about the authors of the code? They chose the GPL because they wanted to. And they are the copyright holders on the code. I believe I may speak for the authors of the code when I say that they would just like you to respect their intellectual property, to phrase it in terms you will understand.” Read the story for her full comments and those of her readers.