7 ms·

FreeBSD, Linux, and I

42 points by fearedbliss 4y ago

gjvc 4y ago
warning: link referencing James Gosling is to a Lex Fridman podcast
- soupbowl 4y ago
  Is Lex Fridman considered fringe now?
  - gjvc 4y ago
    considered annoying and fake AF
- mlambie 4y ago
class4behavior 4y ago
>There was a time when I was younger when I really liked the GPL (v2), but as I got older I realized that even though I am a strong supporter of Open Source (...), and I strive to use only Open Source components, I've always been perfectly fine with some applications that are proprietary. Whenever I hear someone start to reason with "as I got older", I interpret it as: I've gone back to the fridge more than a dozen times by now so I've lowered my standards far enough to not care anymore.
- blablabla123 4y ago
  Generally I agree although in case of the GPL there's a lot to criticize especially about the whole GNU project in my opinion. It's hard to identify with it these days and at the same time seeing how so many projects with less restrictive licenses flourish. Also working at a day job with GPL isn't exactly inspiring
  - class4behavior 4y ago
    Neither the culture of some particular working group nor the well-known inherent challenges of GPL licensing itself - many of which others licensing models certainly share - are legitimate arguments against the method itself. This kind of line of reasoning is like supporting fossil fuels because they work, are well-understood, employ a lot of people, and the run the global economy while the future of green energy is still uncertain, a lot of tech not even invented, and no infrastructure established.
  - alerighi 4y ago
    I think that the GPL philosophy is correct: if you modify an open source software you have to release the work you did back to the community. Without it Linux wouldn't be the thing that is today, rather there would be a ton of proprietary Linux variations, or at least a ton of proprietary Linux kernel modules, that the user cannot modify or inspect. If we talk about FreeBSD, the reason why FreeBSD is not successful as Linux is... the fact that is not GPL licensed. Multiple companies (including Apple for OSX, Sony for the PlayStation OS, and many others) user FreeBSD in their products, but since the license allows them they do not release their improvement to the public. Meaning that the project evolves very slowly, or doesn't evolve at all.
    - einherjae 4y ago
      Doesn’t the fact that Sony and Apple put FreeBSD-derivatives into more end users hands than Linux ever reached (depending on how you view Android) count as being successful?
      - tadfisher 4y ago
        Sony and Apple don't benefit from each other's changes, and neither do users of FreeBSD. I like that you brought up Android, because the experience in shipping kernels to billions of devices has led to numerous upstream improvements, as well as an ecosystem of devices that support other Linux-based operating systems. Sony and Apple don't enable this by forking FreeBSD.
- Macha 4y ago
  It's funny as I've gone the other direction. Particularly motivated by all the companies that have gone from permissive to source available citing their need for a reward while ignoring that they themselves were the beneficiary of permissive licenses has soured me on licensing any of my own stuff permissively and left me considering the GPL or AGPL specifically so such companies would have to drop any of my libraries to make such a move.
nix23 4y ago
True words...i had the same way behind me, but from arch to freebsd ~10 years ago ;) But really this Post speaks greatly out of my heart.
LastTrain 4y ago
"I dislike the GPL, and the stigmatization of proprietary software for any reason, and the notion that it's inherently evil and unethical." Wow that is a wildly extreme characterization of GPL and people who support it. GPL uses laws to restrict how one's work product is distributed and used, just like proprietary software does. WTF?
- yakubin 4y ago
  After a couple seconds on GNU's homepage[1]: > With proprietary software, there is always some entity, the developer or “owner” of the program, that controls the program—and through it, exercises power over its users. A nonfree program is a yoke, an instrument of unjust power. [2]: > To release a nonfree program is always ethically tainted I've read enough of passages like these from GNU in the past to say that your quote is not a mischaracterisation. [1]: <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-impor...> [2]: <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html>
  - LastTrain 4y ago
    Yes. Even though RMS is the founder of the movement, I think it is fair to say most people who contribute to GPL code have a more pragmatic view. Linus Tovalds springs to mind and is the 'owner' of the particular OS the article's author was writing about. I would argue the author has a similarly silly attitude which is the GPL is so bad he won't even taint his machine with it.
    - nix23 4y ago
      >Linus Tovalds springs to mind and is the 'owner' of the particular OS the article's author was writing about. Linux is just a Kernel, and Linus is the copyright-owner (of Linux (the brand)), not the 'owner' of code mostly others made. >I would argue the author has a similarly silly attitude which is the GPL is so bad he won't even taint his machine with it. Please read the article again, it's not against GPL but against those extreme RMS-mind's in the FSF community.
kmbfjr 4y ago
Over the past four years, I have come to avoid using Linux for anything not needing Docker or not run as a supported image in the cloud. The divergent distributions and design philosophies are nice when they produce positive change (systemd is just fine as an init). But more often than not, it produces four different equally bad ways to configure an ethernet device, still no real third party installation mechanism and depreciation of tools because someone at RedHat needed an epic.
alerighi 4y ago
I don't get the argument about the separation between /usr/bin and /usr/local that FreeBSD does: why there should be a separation of concerns about the core system and the rest of the packages? In Linux distributions everything is installed by the package manager, and while it may be in different repositories (for example in ArchLinux you have core and extra) the packages are exactly the same, and the package manager maintains a database of all installed files. Do you want to remove all the "non core" stuff? You can easily do that with a command. Meanwhile /usr/local is retained for stuff that is not installed by the package manager of the distro, and thus it's not registered in its database. This will include for example binaries and libraries installed with other package manager such as pip, npm, etc, or things that you install with `make install`, that are not upgraded automatically. It generates a lot of confusion, for example some files are in /etc, some others are in /usr/local/etc, some other files are in both locations and you have to know which is the correct one. And who decides that is core and what is extra anyway? There is not a clear distinct definition, for example do you define as core only the software necessary to boot? Do you include system utilities? Compilers? Of which language? It's a mess!
- kjellsbells 4y ago
  Sounds like OP's assertion is that with 3rd party packages installing into /usr/bin, things are mingled to an extent that upgrades (even with a package manager) cannot be cleanly completed, and (perhaps?) disk partitioning can't be done effectively (eg in the case where your 3P app is an absolute disk hog). I personally accept the second claim more than the first. UNIX used to have stronger standards here (eg /opt, /opt/etc, /usr/local, and so on) but I'm not sure if Linux ever followed such standards. And disk partitioning seems to have gone the way of the dodo these days.
  - alerighi 4y ago
    If everything is managed by the package manager, there is a database of files that are installed, and assuming the package manager works correctly it shouldn't create any problems. I use installations made 10 years ago and they are perfectly fine! Different is for software that is not installed by the package manager, that in Linux is typically installed in /usr/local (if we talk about stuff that is compiled, or installed by another package manager such as pip or npm) or to /opt (for proprietary applications distributed as a binary).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deafpolygon 4y ago
> I dislike the GPL, and the stigmatization of proprietary software for any reason, and the notion that it's inherently evil and unethical. A flaw in OP's assertion is that I feel that most of what we have today wouldn't exist if it weren't for the GPL licensing. Edit: Despite RMS's unique bent on things, he hasn't been wholly wrong about the nature of free/nonfree software. If the Linux kernel, or the GNU software suite hadn't been GPL'd in the first place - we wouldn't be using it today. Instead, it would have died out or we'd be using some proprietary fork. I think, in the long term, GPL software benefits everyone because we can fork and share modifications. It fosters a mindset and community that's beneficial to a hacker culture (as in tinkerer, not as in black).
- catiopatio 4y ago
  I argue the opposite. The GPL consumed all the (OSS developer) oxygen in the room in a number of useful spaces (gcc, for example), where it was far too expensive for far too long to start a non-GPL’d replacement. This is still the case for things like GPG, where we have zero integration with mainstream e-mail clients, and zero penetration into the “normie” consumer market. The GPL creates an inescapable sub-critical mass. You can almost never grow beyond the “hacker” market of other GPL software developers, because the people who cannot code — but can spend money — have no reasonable way to pay for development. The GPL is a cancer on open source that has hobbled OSS (and the general progress of the industry!) at almost every juncture. Imagine if BSD and Linux developers could cross-pollinate code, for example. How much more vibrant would OSS be for the interaction of those different branches of the UNIX tree? GPL OSS that has succeeded has done so despite the GPL, not because of it. The GPL is viral, coercive, and captures and co-opts the value of OSS to further the aims of the GPL, rather than the OSS development itself.
  - deafpolygon 4y ago
    > Imagine if BSD and Linux developers could cross-pollinate code Nothing in the GPL prevents you from making your own derivative. Anyone can take that derivative and make their own. What it prevents is forking and closing the source of the software. We wouldn't have code to cross-pollinate at this stage if it were not for the GPL.

42 points by fearedbliss 4y ago

gjvc 4y ago

warning: link referencing James Gosling is to a Lex Fridman podcast

soupbowl 4y ago
Is Lex Fridman considered fringe now?
- gjvc 4y ago
  considered annoying and fake AF
mlambie 4y ago

class4behavior 4y ago

>There was a time when I was younger when I really liked the GPL (v2), but as I got older I realized that even though I am a strong supporter of Open Source (...), and I strive to use only Open Source components, I've always been perfectly fine with some applications that are proprietary. Whenever I hear someone start to reason with "as I got older", I interpret it as: I've gone back to the fridge more than a dozen times by now so I've lowered my standards far enough to not care anymore.

blablabla123 4y ago
Generally I agree although in case of the GPL there's a lot to criticize especially about the whole GNU project in my opinion. It's hard to identify with it these days and at the same time seeing how so many projects with less restrictive licenses flourish. Also working at a day job with GPL isn't exactly inspiring
- class4behavior 4y ago
  Neither the culture of some particular working group nor the well-known inherent challenges of GPL licensing itself - many of which others licensing models certainly share - are legitimate arguments against the method itself. This kind of line of reasoning is like supporting fossil fuels because they work, are well-understood, employ a lot of people, and the run the global economy while the future of green energy is still uncertain, a lot of tech not even invented, and no infrastructure established.
- alerighi 4y ago
  I think that the GPL philosophy is correct: if you modify an open source software you have to release the work you did back to the community. Without it Linux wouldn't be the thing that is today, rather there would be a ton of proprietary Linux variations, or at least a ton of proprietary Linux kernel modules, that the user cannot modify or inspect. If we talk about FreeBSD, the reason why FreeBSD is not successful as Linux is... the fact that is not GPL licensed. Multiple companies (including Apple for OSX, Sony for the PlayStation OS, and many others) user FreeBSD in their products, but since the license allows them they do not release their improvement to the public. Meaning that the project evolves very slowly, or doesn't evolve at all.
  - einherjae 4y ago
    Doesn’t the fact that Sony and Apple put FreeBSD-derivatives into more end users hands than Linux ever reached (depending on how you view Android) count as being successful?
    - tadfisher 4y ago
      Sony and Apple don't benefit from each other's changes, and neither do users of FreeBSD. I like that you brought up Android, because the experience in shipping kernels to billions of devices has led to numerous upstream improvements, as well as an ecosystem of devices that support other Linux-based operating systems. Sony and Apple don't enable this by forking FreeBSD.
Macha 4y ago
It's funny as I've gone the other direction. Particularly motivated by all the companies that have gone from permissive to source available citing their need for a reward while ignoring that they themselves were the beneficiary of permissive licenses has soured me on licensing any of my own stuff permissively and left me considering the GPL or AGPL specifically so such companies would have to drop any of my libraries to make such a move.

nix23 4y ago

True words...i had the same way behind me, but from arch to freebsd ~10 years ago ;) But really this Post speaks greatly out of my heart.

LastTrain 4y ago

"I dislike the GPL, and the stigmatization of proprietary software for any reason, and the notion that it's inherently evil and unethical." Wow that is a wildly extreme characterization of GPL and people who support it. GPL uses laws to restrict how one's work product is distributed and used, just like proprietary software does. WTF?

yakubin 4y ago
After a couple seconds on GNU's homepage[1]: > With proprietary software, there is always some entity, the developer or “owner” of the program, that controls the program—and through it, exercises power over its users. A nonfree program is a yoke, an instrument of unjust power. [2]: > To release a nonfree program is always ethically tainted I've read enough of passages like these from GNU in the past to say that your quote is not a mischaracterisation. [1]: <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-impor...> [2]: <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html>
- LastTrain 4y ago
  Yes. Even though RMS is the founder of the movement, I think it is fair to say most people who contribute to GPL code have a more pragmatic view. Linus Tovalds springs to mind and is the 'owner' of the particular OS the article's author was writing about. I would argue the author has a similarly silly attitude which is the GPL is so bad he won't even taint his machine with it.
  - nix23 4y ago
    >Linus Tovalds springs to mind and is the 'owner' of the particular OS the article's author was writing about. Linux is just a Kernel, and Linus is the copyright-owner (of Linux (the brand)), not the 'owner' of code mostly others made. >I would argue the author has a similarly silly attitude which is the GPL is so bad he won't even taint his machine with it. Please read the article again, it's not against GPL but against those extreme RMS-mind's in the FSF community.

kmbfjr 4y ago

Over the past four years, I have come to avoid using Linux for anything not needing Docker or not run as a supported image in the cloud. The divergent distributions and design philosophies are nice when they produce positive change (systemd is just fine as an init). But more often than not, it produces four different equally bad ways to configure an ethernet device, still no real third party installation mechanism and depreciation of tools because someone at RedHat needed an epic.

alerighi 4y ago

I don't get the argument about the separation between /usr/bin and /usr/local that FreeBSD does: why there should be a separation of concerns about the core system and the rest of the packages? In Linux distributions everything is installed by the package manager, and while it may be in different repositories (for example in ArchLinux you have core and extra) the packages are exactly the same, and the package manager maintains a database of all installed files. Do you want to remove all the "non core" stuff? You can easily do that with a command. Meanwhile /usr/local is retained for stuff that is not installed by the package manager of the distro, and thus it's not registered in its database. This will include for example binaries and libraries installed with other package manager such as pip, npm, etc, or things that you install with `make install`, that are not upgraded automatically. It generates a lot of confusion, for example some files are in /etc, some others are in /usr/local/etc, some other files are in both locations and you have to know which is the correct one. And who decides that is core and what is extra anyway? There is not a clear distinct definition, for example do you define as core only the software necessary to boot? Do you include system utilities? Compilers? Of which language? It's a mess!

kjellsbells 4y ago
Sounds like OP's assertion is that with 3rd party packages installing into /usr/bin, things are mingled to an extent that upgrades (even with a package manager) cannot be cleanly completed, and (perhaps?) disk partitioning can't be done effectively (eg in the case where your 3P app is an absolute disk hog). I personally accept the second claim more than the first. UNIX used to have stronger standards here (eg /opt, /opt/etc, /usr/local, and so on) but I'm not sure if Linux ever followed such standards. And disk partitioning seems to have gone the way of the dodo these days.
- alerighi 4y ago
  If everything is managed by the package manager, there is a database of files that are installed, and assuming the package manager works correctly it shouldn't create any problems. I use installations made 10 years ago and they are perfectly fine! Different is for software that is not installed by the package manager, that in Linux is typically installed in /usr/local (if we talk about stuff that is compiled, or installed by another package manager such as pip or npm) or to /opt (for proprietary applications distributed as a binary).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deafpolygon 4y ago

> I dislike the GPL, and the stigmatization of proprietary software for any reason, and the notion that it's inherently evil and unethical. A flaw in OP's assertion is that I feel that most of what we have today wouldn't exist if it weren't for the GPL licensing. Edit: Despite RMS's unique bent on things, he hasn't been wholly wrong about the nature of free/nonfree software. If the Linux kernel, or the GNU software suite hadn't been GPL'd in the first place - we wouldn't be using it today. Instead, it would have died out or we'd be using some proprietary fork. I think, in the long term, GPL software benefits everyone because we can fork and share modifications. It fosters a mindset and community that's beneficial to a hacker culture (as in tinkerer, not as in black).

catiopatio 4y ago
I argue the opposite. The GPL consumed all the (OSS developer) oxygen in the room in a number of useful spaces (gcc, for example), where it was far too expensive for far too long to start a non-GPL’d replacement. This is still the case for things like GPG, where we have zero integration with mainstream e-mail clients, and zero penetration into the “normie” consumer market. The GPL creates an inescapable sub-critical mass. You can almost never grow beyond the “hacker” market of other GPL software developers, because the people who cannot code — but can spend money — have no reasonable way to pay for development. The GPL is a cancer on open source that has hobbled OSS (and the general progress of the industry!) at almost every juncture. Imagine if BSD and Linux developers could cross-pollinate code, for example. How much more vibrant would OSS be for the interaction of those different branches of the UNIX tree? GPL OSS that has succeeded has done so despite the GPL, not because of it. The GPL is viral, coercive, and captures and co-opts the value of OSS to further the aims of the GPL, rather than the OSS development itself.
- deafpolygon 4y ago
  > Imagine if BSD and Linux developers could cross-pollinate code Nothing in the GPL prevents you from making your own derivative. Anyone can take that derivative and make their own. What it prevents is forking and closing the source of the software. We wouldn't have code to cross-pollinate at this stage if it were not for the GPL.