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Linux 7.0 Officially Concluding The Rust Experiment
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this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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GPL enforces that all derivatives are FOSS and GPL as well. With permissive licenses, like MIT and Apache, a company is free to take the code, change/develop it further (or leave it as is) and make it closed-sourced without sharing anything with anyone. Regarding Rust, I am with you. Hence my question.
I see. That makes sense.
So if the kernel were written in a language licensed under GPL, for instance, Ubuntu would either have to ditch their proprietary blobs or make their own kernel?
If I had to guess, the only reason Rust might be controversial to some people is probably because they're used to C and likely set in their ways. Someone who's been programming since the 80s and doesn't want to learn a new language cause maybe they'll feel like a newbie again and can't be smug about knowing every possible command in C anymore. Just a guess...
The kernel is licensed under GPL, specifically only version 2. And it can't be relicensed, since it contains code from many people. The poster above is complaining about command-line utilities that are being rewritten in Rust.
Binary-only modules can be used with the kernel, because ~~they don't use the kernel's source, only the API or~~ a GPL middleware is made that is compiled with kernel header files, but provides an intermediary API for the binaries. I'm not quite versed in what exactly is allowed and prohibited by GPL.
Edit: Linux-syscall-note explicitly places the boundary of 'derivative works' at syscalls — so userspace programs aren't considered derivative and don't have to be licensed under GPL, but kernel modules are.
I'm pretty sure that code written in any language can be licensed under the GPL. That's why I cannot understand the backlash against Rush for the Kernel.
I don't understand the backlash against using an MIT/Apache licence at all. Those licenses are far more permissive than GPL but completely compatible.
The only downside is that someone could fork the code and close source it, but the original code still remains available and that's where the community will stay.
It's pretty much undeniable that the GPL has been a massive driving force behind companies giving back to projects, and it's similarly undeniable that MIT-licensed projects have fewer comparable contributions.
Sure, the community can stay on the open version, but it will still be companies mostly taking without giving back.
A lot of things can go wrong. A company can take the free code, change it slightly to work only with a proprietary file type and then use their resources to promote their version and make their proprietary filetype and proprietary program the industry standard. Unfortunately this sounds too familiar. There are even cases that the filetype is an open standard but obfuscated to make it impossible for anyone (including the original FOSS) to open/save it.
Iirc GPL is how we have OpenWRT. Because a company used Linux in their routers, but forgot to release the code initially until sued by FSF or whomever.
Imagine, for example, that your phone has forks of Linux utilities with mysterious closed-source functionality added here and there. And you'd need to reverse-engineer that functionality to have LineageOS and such, instead of just taking the source-code.
Proprietary apps are prone to enshittification, and permissive licenses allow vendors to build their proprietary software on open-source software without giving anything in return.