Here is the main disconnect I've found as a user of both in the past (FreeBSD 3-4 era). Everyone forgets the GNU in GNU/Linux. Everyone forgets the unix philo

Here is the main disconnect I've found as a user of both in the past (FreeBSD 3-4 era). Everyone forgets the GNU in GNU/Linux. Everyone forgets the unix philosophy. So they get on linux, and with no care of licensing, bloat, etc, tend to overutilize the vast package repos without taking a moment to think about their computing strategy. Computing is inherently, a philosophical choice! So for me, only having actually embraced the four computing freedoms as articulated by those such as RMS and Eben Moglen and the FSF, I transitioned into working towards making as much of my compute stack gpl-first, with compat licenses allowed but not preferred, and later, gplv3+ preferred. What I found was that I started gravitating to tools that were often built in GNU-land tools that had been ignored while chasing the latest thing. Emacs probably being the largest game changer for this. But often third party tools written in gpl tend to remember and adopt the unix philosophy of doing one thing and doing it well, and are still a part of my userland. Truly, there is much more behind the oft told joke, GNU is my operating system, Linux is just my (current) kernel. Linux complexity hasnt skyrocketed that much, the available ecosystem around it core has. Thus, when keeping the core pure, I find gnu/linux just as easy to have a mental model of as freebsd. FreeBSD keeps to the unix philosophy by nature, hence the at a glance disparity.