It would not be deep trouble--there would simply be a split, with a Linux
branch of glibc developing under LGPL. The Linux branch would probably
become the dominant one on most platforms. Considering Red Hat's
interest in having all the major libraries *not* be GPL'ed, I suspect
the interval between any announcement that a future glibc was going to
be GPL'ed instead of LGPL'ed, and the announcement that Red Hat has
hired some top developers to maintain and extend the LGPL'ed glibc
would be about a nanosecond.
Linux is no longer small and poor. There are a lot of developers behind
it, and a lot of money. If the developers/maintainers of any major part
of Linux start going in a direction incompatible with Linux, they can
be replaced. The nature of the free software licenses most of the components
are under means that when someone changes their terms for future versions,
they can't withdraw the old versions, so it is not like we would have to
start from scratch and write a new library, or a new compiler, or a new
windowing system, or a new whatever--we'd get to start with whatever
version was current at the time of the licensing change.
--Tim Smith
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