this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2024
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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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XNU is the kernel in Darwin, XNU is an Apple product derived from BSD and Mach. Darwin has a lot of FreeBSD in it.
Apple shares that code though. It’s on GitHub. There used to be Darwin distributions.
Your Android example doesn’t make very much sense either. The largest Android issues are typically hardware lockdown. Nothing about the GPL prevents someone building an ad platform that spies on you, it just makes them share the source code for it. Google’s licensing choices means they don’t share the source code for the Google pieces they put on top of AOSP, the entire project means people can build the alternatives though.
The lawsuits were about AT&Ts proprietary license. BSD and similar licenses are not that.
BSD licence allowed to work with the AT&T licence which at the end generated all the drama. Unix wars.
Again BSD is great if you don't care about what will happen with your code.
Yeah the Android point doesn't have any sense, that's right.
Apple shares the code of the parts they want. Since it's not a copyleft licence, then they can still ship you a version of Darwin + privative code as your macOs without sharing the entire code. So you end running kind of Frankenstein program with parts you don't know what they do.
AOSP is not a great licence because it allows Google benefit from contributions, but then it has tons of privative software on top. So basically contributing to the AOSP means that you improve the code that later it's used in combination with privative one.
My point is that libre source code should enforce that derivations of it stay libre. Otherwise you are working for free for companies that don't care about the users.
Hey for companies is a good point. The best system for them is open source. It makes sense for them to use it. And open source is much better than just privative.
From the point of view of the individual user and developer is not that great. It kind of hooks you in because it has open source parts, but you are probably unaware of all the closed source stuff that runs in combination with it.
I get the open source point, but I don't find it fair at the long term for the individual developer and user.