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Okay, so, two things: There are already many similarly licensed and capable OSes, some (e.g. FreeBSD) capable of running Linux executables. Are these hurting h
by spijdar 5y ago
Okay, so, two things:
There are already many similarly licensed and capable OSes, some (e.g. FreeBSD) capable of running Linux executables. Are these hurting humanity? I guess you could argue that they've enabled proprietary OSes on, say, game consoles, which could be a negative on humanity.
The second is it strikes me as absurd that the thing standing in the way of government rootkits is copyleft licensing. The power to enforce GPL style licenses lies in government -- a corrupt government can just ignore it.
You can already ship proprietary kernel components with Linux. It happens all the time. It's why you can't use "normal" kernels on most smartphone devices. And it's easy for entities like the government or Google or Samsung or whoever to run their code in, say, TrustZone, or heck, just run Linux as a guest under a microkernel. So many ways to do it, and creating an evil BSD licensed OS with the primary purpose of furthering the surveillance state just feels ... silly to me. Because they just don't need to.
Tldr; I don't believe anyone who isn't already installed rootkits on our phones is holding out until they can do it "officially" with modules for a BSD licensed kernel.
- choeger 5y agoAs I wrote, the problem is not the license itself (although we see more and more problematic cases with liberally licensed software). The problem is that google does it explicitly to support propietary modules better. If you don't see how removing legal, organizational, and technical obstacles to controlled devices helps this modern policy, I cannot help you. Besides, this is not about surveillance anymore, that battle has long been lost. This is about enforcement.
- coldtea 5y ago>The problem is that google does it explicitly to support propietary modules better. And you don't see far more use cases where "proprietary modules" are meant for, besides the one you've mentioned (which is already possible anyway)? Basically: to allow for a stable ecosystem for proprietary drivers for all kinds of devices (Fuscia will also be a desktop OS eventually)...
- chalst 5y ago> If you don't see how removing legal, organizational, and technical obstacles to controlled devices helps this modern policy, I cannot help you. As spijdar observes, with FreeBSD the legal and technical obstacles were removed long ago. I find the claims of doom to be so overworked in your post that I am not clear as to what organisational obstacles you are talking about: can you calm down and express this point more clearly?
- afiori 5y agoThe argument would apply in the same way FreeBSD if google tried to move android to FreeBSD. The point is not that a kernel with such license exist, but rather that a major platform is moving from a GPL kernel to a non-GPL kernel. This will surely harm linux phones in the future. Whether it is the end of the world is something I do not know, but it is not a net positive for software and hardware freedom on mobile devices.
- fsflover 5y ago> with FreeBSD the legal and technical obstacles were removed long ago One obstacle is still there: it has too low market share.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]