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An update on rust-coreutils in Ubuntu
(discourse.ubuntu.com)
~~Rust based~~ MIT licensed coreutils
Yes! I mean, don't divert the hate of permissive license to Rust. Those are unrelated but now more people hate Rust because of this.
They’re not unrelated. Lauded projects to rewrite some gpled c thing in rust are almost universally mit licensed.
Attempts to get those licenses changed are almost universally met with a line in the sand.
There are a lot less GPL projects in your system than you might think. Your core system is already filled with liberally licensed libraries and programs. Case in point, since you talked about rust rewrites, original sudo is not GPL software.
Oh no, a non gpl package on my computer? How did you find out about my one weakness! I’m melting, melting! Oh, what a world, what a cruel, cruel world!
If you're posting from Desktop Linux, your comment utilized at least 10 liberally licensed libraries. And that's before it got into the wire. GPL packages are a MINORITY, not a majority with exceptions.
Oh no, with so few gpl packages how will i maintain an unkempt beard and bald ponytail?! How will my ketchup stained Grateful Dead tee hold together at this critical low level of gpl? At this rate my bare feet will stop stinking up the break room!
How does copyleft benefit you?
It establishes and defends intellectual property held in common by all of humanity.
N.B. held in common, not public domain. The property and right of all people for all time.
Our new present and its future requires the defense of ideas for all.
Of course, if you want to feel smug and know you’re on the winning team then be assured we are going to be losing copyleft soon.
Our new present and its future requires the defense of ideas for all.
And MIT is lacking because it doesn't force commercial users to lie about what they do behind closed doors? Trust me, if they are so inclined, they already do plenty of that. Next, with LLM assistance, all your copyleft code is freely available for word-salad-surgery remix and rebrand with whatever license anybody wants - as it always has been, LLMs just cut the labor required to do so by a huge margin.
Yes. MIT is literally lacking that protection because it doesn’t force corporate users to lie or do their own work.
Should the fact that the powerful act with impunity when not challenged be an argument against challenging them? That’s a little facile…
Again, if you just want to feel good that the things I care about are going away, rest assured that llm output is going to remove the concept of copyleft in advance of a multipolar world where secrets and incompatibility are suddenly the order of the day.
Yeah...
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(33 replies)
TLDR:
Current status for 26.04 LTS
We shipped rust-coreutils as the default in Ubuntu 25.10 to maximise real-world testing ahead of the LTS. Based on the audit findings and remediation progress, here is where we stand for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.
We have included the latest upstream release 0.8.0 in Ubuntu 26.04, which incorporates the bulk of the security fixes.
cp, mv, and rm continue to be provided by GNU coreutils in 26.04. These utilities have remaining open TOCTOU (time-of-check to time-of-use) issues (8 as of Apr 22, 2026) that need to be resolved before we are confident shipping them.
Our plan is to address the remaining issues as soon as possible and target Ubuntu 26.10 with 100% rust-coreutils.
The "reported upstream" link is broken (fixed link).
The amount of issues is scary
A significant number are slight differences from GNU behavior that likely wouldn't impact users or just random miscellaneous project tasks like "this is inefficient" or "clean up this thing." Not saying there aren't problems to be addressed, just that the number looks more concerning than it actually is. Wouldn't be surprised if some are outdated as well.
There is the odd (genuine) security issue tbf. But they are more of the variant:
"If an attacker is close enough to sneak that on me, then I'm probably already screwed."
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this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2026
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