Linux

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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.

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What's the most obscure distro you can think of (slrpnk.net)

submitted 18 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (2 children)

Wait... they're militant enough about Free Software to refuse to package anything even slightly non-Free, but their "final goal" is to switch the kernel to BSD (i.e. away from copyleft)? WTF?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

but their “final goal” is to switch the kernel to BSD (i.e. away from copyleft)?

HyperbolaBSD is a hard fork, that relicenses the OpenBSD kernel as GPL (as permitted by permissive licenses.)

HyperbolaBSD has already dug into the OpenBSD source tree and discovered numerous licensing issues.

https://git.hyperbola.info:50100/~team/documentation/todo.git/tree/openbsd_kernel-file-list-with-license-issues.md

HyperbolaBSD will be a truly libre distro that takes advantage of copyleft, while moving away from the major issues Linux is stepping into too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Ah, that's different then!

Hmm...

From https://wiki.hyperbola.info/doku.php?id=en:manual:contrib:hyperbolabsd_faq:

HyperbolaBSD is under a progressive migration by replacing all non GPL-compatible code. It will be replaced with new compatible code under Simplified BSD License. We do this in order to incorporate GPL code from other projects such as ReactOS, as well new code from scratch.

It's not clear to me that relicensing the existing code to GPL is what they're planning on doing; it sounds more like they're going to mix in GPL code but not change the existing files to GPL en masse after they finish harmonizing them to two-clause BSD.

Frankly, IMO that's too bad: I'd love to see them make the whole shebang GPLv3-or-later

Related question: is all Linux kernel code required to be licensed GPLv2-only, or are individual contributions allowed to be GPLv2-or-later? I'd be nice to see if that project (and stuff like HURD and ReactOS) could benefit from at least some Linux contributions, even if they can't copy it wholesale.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

It's an ancient divide in parts of the FOSS community that believes copyleft licenses are not "free" because they force you to license contributions under the same license.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Yeah, I know, but I would've expected a distro that describes itself as "GNU/Linux-libre" would fall on the other side of it!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

No one thinks this. Even permissively licensed BSD operating systems package GPL software and accept it as Free Software.