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this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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This. Licenses are so that trust is not needed and being a good FOSS citizen is expected. That means publishing your code if you fork, giving proper attibution and granting your users the same rights as the original project did.
Something very normal.
Agreed!
Okay, but if the developers of uutils do not care about these things, and they would be the ones most hurt because they would not get access to the changes that others are making... why should the rest of us make a big deal over it?
Because we are users, contributors, packagers, distributors... and if the project is unsustainable and suddenly becomes proprietary that is bad.
Or if the project is included in proprietary systems. Nobody will have the right to get source code then, or in case of GPLv3 even the right to install other software.
Copyleft and GPLv3 grant users the rights to prevent e-waste or replace shitty proprietary software on useful hardware with better one.
Copyleft licenses spread these rights, while permissive ones do nothing apart from handing out software for nothing in return.
So, in your opinion, should these developers simply stop their work on this project of they are not willing to use the GPL?
No, but as they do great work it is a shame that they dont protect it and thereby reduce the protection of every distro shipping them
Fair enough. I do actually get the concern, though I think that the threat is being exaggerated. However, I would argue that, if the goal is not to try and get these developers to abandon their efforts, then it does not make sense for every single discussion to get flooded with the same complaints about the license to the point that not much else seems to get talked about.