this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
85 points (100.0% liked)
Linux
47224 readers
814 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
The key is in the name. Whoever distributes the software to you determines whether it's commercial or community. Where they get it from is irrelevant because they're the ones distributing it to you.
Ubuntu can't be made closed-source because of the licensing of the software they use from upstream. Red Hat is still not closed source, for instance. Everyone who gets it gets access to the source code. But if Ubuntu went away or whatever then downstream distributions would be in a spot of trouble. They could rebase on Debian (which is what Ubuntu is based upon), but how hard that would be varies wildly depending on distro. Linux Mint already have a Debian edition, for instance. No problem there. Pop OS would certainly be able to make it work as well; they're a very professional operation. But take, for example, Endeavour OS. It's Arch with a graphical installer and some nice defaults. Without Arch Linux (which is almost certainly not going anywhere and is a community distro) they'd have some real problems. There's no upstream to Arch to rebase on. They'd have to so fundamentally change everything to accomodate a whole new base and packaging system that they'd basically be making a whole new distro.
Thank you for the explanations! Which are the "most upstream" community-based ones? From what I gather, Arch, Debian, OpenSUSE?
OpenSUSE is corporate- driven
I saw another reply called it a "company" indeed. I had no idea!