Earlier quoted context omitted.
If "being UNIX" hinges on the fucking filesystem structure I honestly am fine with it "not being UNIX"
I suspect you missed the sarcasm in Athas' comment?
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Swapping GNU coreutils for uutils coreutils on Gentoo Linux
61–70 of 134 posts
Re: Swapping GNU coreutils for uutils coreutils on Gentoo Linux
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could say the same thing about LLVM/Clang. Apple and Google only cooperated on that because they really really dont want a restrictive licence like the GPL. But then again, after a while, Clang is a nice alternative... Which makes me think: Why exactly are you indirectly lobbying for a monopoly? Just because there is a GNU version of something can not mean there shouldnt be any other version. It just can not mean…
I wonder what the Venn diagram would like for people opposed to uutils and people that support systemd.
This seems like a rather "baiting" response but I'll bite
I think systemd is a useful evolution in the problem of "Linux plumbing"
Even if it ends up being replaced by something else, for better or worse Lennart sat down and tried something. That's better than 99% of the systemd haters who sit and postulate on reddit and phoronix
Conversely replacing GPL tools with more permissively licensed ones just seems like the "time is a flat circle" idiom
We'll use our GPL'd systems to build BSD/MIT/Apache licensed ones where benevolent mega corporations "allow" our contributions. Until they don't
And then we'll begin the cycle all over again trying to liberate ourselves from corporate controlled software
Re: Swapping GNU coreutils for uutils coreutils on Gentoo Linux
#63Unlike some other commenters, I believe having alternatives to coreutils is beneficial. Since I started using Unix, I've worked with HPUX, IRIX, SunOS, Solaris, *BSD, Linux, Xenix, and probably a few others I've forgotten. This diversity in implementations necessitated standardization. Nowadays, 90% of the systems I use are various Linux distributions, and I often encounter packages that implicitly assume on specific…
In the 90's that balkanization was problematic because everyone was reinventing UNIX but with "our one useful feature" (graphics rendering, networked machines, etc)
Eventually it boiled down to today where we have the BSD's and Linux. Other than helping force compatibility with the BSD's, who else stands to benefit from breaking away from "GNU-isms"? MacOS?
Re: Swapping GNU coreutils for uutils coreutils on Gentoo Linux
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just disrespectful, it's stupid and dangerous. GPL is one of those exceptional things that shaped the world as it is today. These projects are nothing more than an attack to our freedom.
Your freedom is not the least impacted by the MIT or BSD licences. The software distributed is and remains free and open source.
But in the long run freedom could be impacted. Imagine this becoming popular. Then some proprietary fork happens, by some tech giant, which adds some feature that is great. Then lots of people, who did not care for GPL in the first place switch to that proprietary version, because ir is oh so much more convenient. Suddenly distros get pressure to use the new thing. Or people switch to whatever has the proprietary replacement. At some point the majority of the people could be using that, instead of libre software. Perhaps your next employer obligates you to use the proprietary thing, because it is popular and they don't want to deal with people using less common OS.
Whatever the masses do can always have impact on what you can do, or are forced to do. For example quitting your job, because you want to use the libre tool, when your employer tries to force you to use the proprietary tool. "Why can't you be a good employee like eeeeveryone else?"
Re: Swapping GNU coreutils for uutils coreutils on Gentoo Linux
#65It’s a shame to see all this effort going toward replacing core GPL licensed utilities with permissive ones. It seems like a particularly common thing in the Rust community. It feels disrespectful of the intentions of the work that went into the tools that are being cloned.
It's not just disrespectful, it's stupid and dangerous. GPL is one of those exceptional things that shaped the world as it is today. These projects are nothing more than an attack to our freedom.
I don't know why so many people think compelling code to be shared is practical, desirable, or better than leaving it up to choice, but GPL is definitely not more free than BSD license.
Re: Swapping GNU coreutils for uutils coreutils on Gentoo Linux
#66It’s a shame to see all this effort going toward replacing core GPL licensed utilities with permissive ones. It seems like a particularly common thing in the Rust community. It feels disrespectful of the intentions of the work that went into the tools that are being cloned.
The GNU effort was driven by dissatisfaction with the license on the prior implementations, and was probably considered disrespectful by the copyright holders of those too...
It was driven by the desire to ensure everyone in the world has access to free software. I've been fortunate enough to live my entire life in a world with free software, but I don't take it for granted. People who would replace the GPL with permissive licences do. All you have to do is observe the behaviour of corporations. Just a little bit. Just enough to see that at every step a corporation will take as much as they can and give back as little as they can. Free software would not last long with permissive licences.
Re: Swapping GNU coreutils for uutils coreutils on Gentoo Linux
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still wonder how an alternative world, where BSD won instead of Linux, would look like.
We already have a fairly good idea based upon corporate actions today. Look at Mac OS. That's what happens when freedoms don't have to be honoured. Corporations have spent a lot of effort trying to work around the GPL, whether it was via network services or something else. If everyone had gone down the BSD route we would have been there, just a lot quicker. This is why I would never licence any of my work as anything…
It's arguable that macOS going Unix had a halo effect that did more for Linux and open source than if they stayed on a completely propietary stack. There is a ton of cross pollination between mac and Linux software, at least on the command line.
Re: Swapping GNU coreutils for uutils coreutils on Gentoo Linux
#68It’s a shame to see all this effort going toward replacing core GPL licensed utilities with permissive ones. It seems like a particularly common thing in the Rust community. It feels disrespectful of the intentions of the work that went into the tools that are being cloned.
The GNU effort was driven by dissatisfaction with the license on the prior implementations, and was probably considered disrespectful by the copyright holders of those too...
> The GNU effort was driven by dissatisfaction with the license on the prior implementations, and was probably considered disrespectful by the copyright holders of those too...
A bit of a distinction, there.
The goal of the GNU effort was to empower users, hence the pro-user license.
The goal of the Rust coreutils cloning is to spread fast, hence the pro-corporate license.
Whether you prefer GPL or not, attempting to displace a pro-user tool with a pro-corporate tool is more than simply "disrespectful".
Re: Swapping GNU coreutils for uutils coreutils on Gentoo Linux
#69If you read the article, it’s a guy playing around on his system to see if hacking this thing with that thing works.
If you only read the comments, you think Gentoo was switching out core utils and doing it in the worst technical way possible.
Re: Swapping GNU coreutils for uutils coreutils on Gentoo Linux
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just disrespectful, it's stupid and dangerous. GPL is one of those exceptional things that shaped the world as it is today. These projects are nothing more than an attack to our freedom.
Your freedom is not the least impacted by the MIT or BSD licences. The software distributed is and remains free and open source.
> Your freedom is not the least impacted by the MIT or BSD licences. The software distributed is and remains free and open source.
Only the original as delivered by the original dev-team. The derivatives can be, and often are, closed off. That's the opposite of "free and open source".