There was a cultural change when Bell was broken up and UNIX became less  laissez-faire, a paradigm shift. Software became valuable and not just bundled with hardware.<p>Stallman saw it coming early enough that he had completed his GNU Free toolchain in time for Torvalds to use it.<p>A developer community is less likely to arise when your modifications can be closed and you cannot fork. If your business runs in someone elses walled garden it can be taken away.<p>Without the GPL&#x27;s four freedoms we would not have the rich public domain of code we have today - a legally protected commons.<p>Before the GPL the public domain suffered from the tradgedy of the commons, a fantastic legal hack.