4 ms·

If one were to replace coreutils in a GNU+Linux system with this, which is MIT licensed, would it be fair to call it MIT+Linux?

wiz21c 5y ago
Yeah, I see the pun. But leaving the GPL license is a very bad idea in my opinion. If we have to rest son shoulder of giant, I'd prefer them being made of concrete, not dust. Coreutils are really a common and should be protected against appropriation. Depending on how much a rewrite it is, GNU's intellectual property may be enforced at some point. But that's a tricky question for a lawyer. If it were me, I'd have asked GNU first.
- mustache_kimono 5y ago
  Um, GNU coreutils is a reimplementation of various AT&T UNIX utilities. It's irresponsible to say GNU has IP rights to this implementation, especially where GNU has done a similar reimplementation(!), and where EFF, etc., has made contrary arguments, as amici, in cases like Oracle v. Google.
  - wiz21c 5y ago
    Agreed, I was completely off on this one :-/
- nickysielicki 5y ago
  Nobody is going to steal a coreutils implementation, make a bunch of internal contributions to it, and yield a competitive advantage through that. The whole point of coreutils is that it’s old and stable and coreish. In the real world, corporate engineering middle managers do not understand the GPL and do not understand how it does and doesn’t restrict them. They avoid it rather than taking the time to learn it.
codeflo 5y ago
I also think “GNU+Linux” is a terrible name and a worse marketing move, but you might misunderstand what it’s about. There’s no “GNU license”, and nobody ever proposed calling the system “GPL+Linux”. GNU sees itself as a project to replace the entirety Unix (hence the name, GNU’s Not Unix). A kernel is one part of the full OS, so if you combine the Linux kernel with the rest of GNU’s OS, according to this logic you get GNU+Linux. (Or maybe it should be GNU-Hurd+Linux, or GNU=~s/Hurd/Linux/... it's terrible.)
- loeg 5y ago
  Sure, it’s not “MIT+”, but coreutils is one of the main GNU things. If you replace it with a non-GNU version, a non-GNU libc (musl), non-GNU binutils (llvm), etc, you could imagine a usable Linux distribution that would be inaccurate to call “GNU/Linux.”
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    For sure that’s why don’t call Android GNU/Linux since it only uses bash and almost no other GNU utils
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      Android doesn't use bash, though? (I agree with your point in general, just pointing out that Android uses, IIRC, mksh)
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    No need to imagine; Alpine Linux exists today and IMO isn't GNU/Linux (I don't know what their default compiler chain is, but Alpine is musl libc and busybox for coreutils, so you can easily have an Alpine system without GNU components).

wiz21c 5y ago

Yeah, I see the pun. But leaving the GPL license is a very bad idea in my opinion. If we have to rest son shoulder of giant, I'd prefer them being made of concrete, not dust. Coreutils are really a common and should be protected against appropriation. Depending on how much a rewrite it is, GNU's intellectual property may be enforced at some point. But that's a tricky question for a lawyer. If it were me, I'd have asked GNU first.

mustache_kimono 5y ago
Um, GNU coreutils is a reimplementation of various AT&T UNIX utilities. It's irresponsible to say GNU has IP rights to this implementation, especially where GNU has done a similar reimplementation(!), and where EFF, etc., has made contrary arguments, as amici, in cases like Oracle v. Google.
- wiz21c 5y ago
  Agreed, I was completely off on this one :-/
nickysielicki 5y ago
Nobody is going to steal a coreutils implementation, make a bunch of internal contributions to it, and yield a competitive advantage through that. The whole point of coreutils is that it’s old and stable and coreish. In the real world, corporate engineering middle managers do not understand the GPL and do not understand how it does and doesn’t restrict them. They avoid it rather than taking the time to learn it.

codeflo 5y ago

I also think “GNU+Linux” is a terrible name and a worse marketing move, but you might misunderstand what it’s about. There’s no “GNU license”, and nobody ever proposed calling the system “GPL+Linux”. GNU sees itself as a project to replace the entirety Unix (hence the name, GNU’s Not Unix). A kernel is one part of the full OS, so if you combine the Linux kernel with the rest of GNU’s OS, according to this logic you get GNU+Linux. (Or maybe it should be GNU-Hurd+Linux, or GNU=~s/Hurd/Linux/... it's terrible.)

loeg 5y ago
Sure, it’s not “MIT+”, but coreutils is one of the main GNU things. If you replace it with a non-GNU version, a non-GNU libc (musl), non-GNU binutils (llvm), etc, you could imagine a usable Linux distribution that would be inaccurate to call “GNU/Linux.”
- edgyquant 5y ago
  For sure that’s why don’t call Android GNU/Linux since it only uses bash and almost no other GNU utils
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    Android doesn't use bash, though? (I agree with your point in general, just pointing out that Android uses, IIRC, mksh)
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  No need to imagine; Alpine Linux exists today and IMO isn't GNU/Linux (I don't know what their default compiler chain is, but Alpine is musl libc and busybox for coreutils, so you can easily have an Alpine system without GNU components).