this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
108 points (95.0% liked)
Linux
52309 readers
1055 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Sorry but that's besides the point. If improvements to coreutils are not published and upstreamed then the community loses out on potential improvements that trained personnel at a successful company make. Not being dependent on such utils is a different discussion and doesn't solve the core issue.
Yeah I'd like for them to use AGPL but even GPLv3 or it's derivatives are fine as long as they emphasise FOSS
What improvements are you thinking of? I can see that reasoning with something like the Linux kernel where there's a lot of complex and integrated code, but ultimately individual coreutils commands are really simple. There's very little you can do to extend something like
ls... And if you do, you can just make your ownsuperlscommand and not have to deal with any licensing restrictions.With regards to AGPL vs GPL, none of the coreutils programs have network connectivity, so I'm not sure what the network requirement actually adds?
Personally, I don't think the problem is the risk of companies not contributing back... I honestly wouldn't mind if they don't contribute at all and instead they just use the community-developed GPL software as-is, without making any changes to it.
In my mind, the problem is that I cannot trust that a piece of non-copyleft software that's provided by a company actually does what I expect it should do, and does not have extra bits doing things I do not want it to do. Like the changes Google does in their Chrome version of Chromium, for example.
If, for example, MacOS / Microsoft Windows include a copy of OpenSSL with the OS, how can I be sure they are not adding their own sort of malicious spice into it? Can I trust that the keys generated with it will be truly secure? How can I audit it?
At least with the GPL there's some level of legal accountability in that any change that is not openly shared would be illegal. But with MIT there are no legal barriers against malicious code, it's totally legal for companies to force feed me totally legal changes that I wouldn't want and/or that I might not even notice they are there.
Again, it's not about the actual programs being simple. Just because they are simple in usage doesn't mean they should be encouraged to use a license that harms FOSS development. If we allow these "simple" utilities now, it sets the dangerous precedent for companies to push towards more software with such licenses and swipe FOSS advancements without contributing anything back. Corporations which do not contribute back to the FOSS community do not deserve to take anything from the community either.
Unfortunately, I alone am powerless to implement such measures when a large group of software developers decide to not take this into account when writing software.
I selected AGPL because I find it to be a little more strict compared to GPL. Any derivative of GPL is fine as long as it promotes open source development