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submitted 3 weeks ago by ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

I ask this because I think of the recent switch of Ubuntu to the Rust recode of the GNU core utils, which use an MIT license. There are many Rust recodes of GPL software that re-license it as a pushover MIT or Apache licenses. I worry these relicensing efforts this will significantly harm the FOSS ecosystem. Is this reason to start worrying or is it not that bad?

IMO, if the FOSS world makes something public, with extensive liberties, then the only thing that should be asked in return is that people preserve these liberties, like the GPL successfully enforces. These pushover licenses preserve nothing.

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[-] jerkface@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

You're taking an incredibly slanted position. There is a whole world of vibrant, viable, meaningful FOSS outside copyleft licenses. Even when one philosophically and politically prefers copyleft licenses, sometimes there are cases where the humanitarian or practical argument favours permissive licensing. But there are many who simply don't share your interpretation of the philosophy and politics.

[-] jaypatelani@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 weeks ago

One side community wants total GPL take over and one side they don't support total GPLv3 licenced Operating system like

https://codeberg.org/Ironclad/Gloire

https://ironclad-os.org/

https://ghostkernel.org/

[-] LeFantome@programming.dev 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Most Open Source software is written by corporations. The Open Source licenses are an advantage to them.

The biggest source of GPL software is probably Red Hat (IBM). They maintain most of what people think of when they think of GNU software and they wrote many of the newer GPL projects that everybody uses (like systemd).

The trend has been towards permissive licenses for a long time. The have led to more Open Source software, not less.

Look at Clang vs GCC. Clang attracts a greater diversity of corporate contribution and generates greater Open Source diversity. Zig and Rust appeared on LLVM for a reason.

What we should be worried about is the cloud. It allows big companies to outsell the little companies writing Open Source software. Neither permissive nor copyleft licenses prevent this.

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 weeks ago

It is concerning, yeah. I usually license my own software with MIT, but, not all of it, and I think GPL is very important for Linux.

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this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2025
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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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