and (partly) as a result of that it's been growing less relevant over time; to the point where I would no longer describe FreeBSD as having a healthy community.
I'll freely admit that I'm no expert on the BSD world, since I'm a Linux user myself. But I'd question whether or not there's any real research that demonstrates that the BSD community is less "healthy" (depending on how you define that) than the Linux community, because of the license. Heck, I'm not even 100% sure I believe that the BSD community is less healthy, but even if that were shown conclusively, how do we know it's the license and not some other factor(s)? I mean, the BSD community has had different challenges and issues, and a different culture, going back at least to the days of the AT&T (USL) lawsuit[1].
I'll freely admit that I'm no expert on the BSD world, since I'm a Linux user myself. But I'd question whether or not there's any real research that demonstrates that the BSD community is less "healthy" (depending on how you define that) than the Linux community, because of the license. Heck, I'm not even 100% sure I believe that the BSD community is less healthy, but even if that were shown conclusively, how do we know it's the license and not some other factor(s)? I mean, the BSD community has had different challenges and issues, and a different culture, going back at least to the days of the AT&T (USL) lawsuit[1].
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USL_v._BSDi