7 ms·

Also, Ubuntu using a non-GPL licensed userland means they can pull all kinds of tricks to allow more TiVoization in the Linux ecosystem. Combine this with what

Also, Ubuntu using a non-GPL licensed userland means they can pull all kinds of tricks to allow more TiVoization in the Linux ecosystem. Combine this with what Amutable (systemd guys) are building, and you can have monolithic, closed source, non-user-modifiable Linux distributions or flavors. Ubuntu and companies which embed Linux into their products will love this from a business perspective. Consider: An end to end signature-enabled, verified, attestable, Linux environment with completely closed source util-linux and userland packages, down to the "ls" and "cd". Deliciously apocalyptic. We're two stops away from this, and there are no shortage of momentum or funding to enable teh future.

benrutter 8mo ago
History probably says I'm being naive, but I feel like I don't hate this possibility (hear me out!). Personally, I'd always choose to use a distribution with open source userland packages and utils, but if closed source alternatives exist and conform to the same specifications (i.e. we get "embrace" without the "extend and extinguish") then I don't mind if a company has closed sourced tech, especially if it'll help there business case, potentially boosting funding for open source linux projects. Maybe that's all naive, I guess we'll find out if ubuntu really do go for more and more closed source options.
- bayindirh 8mo ago
  I understand the optimism, but after being burned by what Microsoft did to the Linux community for the last 20+ years, I'll just distance myself more from Ubuntu ecosystem. When you put Snaps, Juju, uutils, etc. as a list, it all smells like a path to lockdown, not dissimilar to what RedHat did with their "unbranded" patches recently (IBM being IBM, which was unsurprising). Also, remembering how Canonical worked together with Microsoft on some projects like WSL, which felt like "Surrender servers to Linux, and save the Windows desktop by allowing Linux run as a slave inside a VM" type of deal, I do not trust them a bit. So, Linux is maturing, but it'll also bring a couple of very big cracks through ecosystem, and it'll be noisy and painful. Personally, I'm on Debian for the last 20+ years, and not planning to move anywhere for now. I understand that there needs to be an economy, but money is not more important than destroying what we're standing on. Let it be physical like our planet, or virtual like the free software and the culture we built around it.
- einr 8mo ago
  i.e. we get "embrace" without the "extend and extinguish" This only ever happens when the party trying to EEE is fighting a losing battle. If they have the upper hand, they will always get to the extend and extinguish part. Do we think movements for user freedom have the upper hand right now?
b112 8mo ago
Ubuntu oozes over debian like a parasitic malaise of vile chicanery. Their entire goal is to, essentially, use the work of untold millions, provided for free, to build their own cathedral. People complain about AWS and others taking OSS projects and profiting wildly off them, but they're all children compared to the machinations of Ubuntu. It's been this way from the start. The constant conflict of interest, where Ubuntu devs manipulate debian democratic processes, and the inclusion of systemd and its ridiculous swiss-army-knife implementation of an init system and surrounding tools. You ever see those knives, the huge ones, with a screwdriver, plyers, and 100 other tools on them? Thing is, they're all crap. They work for an odd case, but you always need to reach for a real tool. That's systemd. Whether systemd-timesync, its dns services, or anything else it does, it's kiddie time. Barely functional, broken in inane ways, and leaving any professional in a situation of endless masking of a myriad of barely cogent and horribly malign services. We didn't gain anything with systemd, except for an init system 1000 times larger, codebase wise, and a collection of tools you have to replace anyhow. And now these guys want to do Amutable. I hope they fail, for if they succeed, they will sink us further into this absurd system. Systemd for death. For despair. For dislike. For dumb. For disregard, devilment, debased, disturbed, systemd is all these things, and more, all packaged for you, all presented to you, all given to you, to all of us, dragging us down, destroying us. If there is an apocalypse, it'll be somehow some bug in systemd that causes it. Nukes will fly due to its broken code, viral containment systems will fail due to buffer overruns in its code, systemd is the end-of-world waiting to happen, its over-complicated, poorly written code a guillotine waiting to fall upon us all. I run thousands of sysvinit, and thousands of systemd systems. Which ones, do you think, have the worse record of "something stupid" bringing down a service, a machine, preventing a boot up, you name it, it's systemd. I swear to God that Trump exists because of systemd somehow. I place all the ills, perils, at the feet of systemd. It represents everything wrong in the tech ecosystem, its tendrils spreading dark, deep disturbing dreams of madness through all it touches. Just learning how to use systemd, destroys the logic centres of the mind, rendering advocates incapable of productive work. All wrong and ill that befalls this world, is at its feet. I suspect through some incomprehensible twist of fate, the entire fabric of the universe may unravel, undoing all that is, and ever was. All lost, all gone, all because of systemd. I am beginning to suspect I dislike systemd. (Send $19.95 to my address, if you wish to subscribe to my newsletter, and hear my REAL, UNFILTERED opinions about systemd)
DeathArrow 8mo ago
If that means that the massive fragmentation stops and we will have an OS 95% percent of linux users install, It might not be that bad.
- bayindirh 8mo ago
  I run and develop on various Linux distributions and fail to see that fragmentation for that last couple of decades, sorry.
  - tmtvl 8mo ago
    I've only used GNU/Linux since 2012, but I do think we have to face the fact that there is a fair amount of ~~choice~~ fragmentation in the ecosystem. Deb/RPM/Flatpak/Snap/PKGBUILD/Nix, GNOME/KDE/Cosmic/Cinnamon/Xfce/LXQt/MATE/Budgie/Sway/Hyprland, AppArmor/SELinux, GTK/Qt/Electron/Tauri/WxWidgets there's even distributions which use musl libc instead of GNU libc or non-systemd inits. Sure, you can just pick one and focus on it, but if someone else picks something else then they may need to duplicate some effort to get things working on their preferred setup.
    - bayindirh 8mo ago
      When you put down your project in a sound and standards compliant way, packaging doesn't matter much. RPM and DEB automatically builds your code and packages it. DEB also has a lot of tools which allows you to make sure that everything is done correctly. I'm sure RPM has similar tools, but I didn't use them a lot. Desktop environment doesn't matter much, because GTK and Qt works on every Linux Desktop. I'm using KDE, but I don't know which tools I use are GTK, which are Qt, etc. Qt and GTK teams collaborate a ton both in window management and desktop underpinnings side. Also there are tons of standards, and things just work if you follow them. Even the standard libraries of programming languages and Linux userland gives the tools to utilize these standards. C libraries are mostly interoperable. I operate with GNU's C library, but aside from interesting behavioral differences, the API is not different. If you're not writing daemons, you have no business with your init system in 99% of the cases, unless you want to utilize a special feature of any of them. You can just ship the service files. daemon() function is part of libc, not your init system. In total, after your code builds, you can add these layers step by step, one at a time, and have a codebase which works everywhere with minimal effort.
PlatoIsADisease 8mo ago
To be fair, no one should be using Ubuntu. They are the free CD people from the 2000s. They are the Apple of Linux, marketing wins, but low quality. They used outdated linux (Debian-family) because its lower cost to maintain. All around, never use debian-family outside servers. Fedora is the future. Maybe OpenSUSE too. (Note these are not Arch or related to Arch)
- bayindirh 8mo ago
  > They used outdated linux (Debian-family) because its lower cost to maintain. Ubuntu forks Sid, and evolves from there. They don't downstream Debian Stable. > All around, never use debian-family outside servers. Fedora is the future. Maybe OpenSUSE too. (Note these are not Arch or related to Arch) Daily driving Debian stable on servers and Testing on desktops for more than two decades. Testing is a rolling distribution and you install it once (ever). The only time I reinstalled it was to migrate to 64 bit architecture back in the day. Also, considering stable to stable upgrades take 5 minutes, I have no problems with Debian Stable, either. Fedora is nice, but it's RedHat's lab. While I have nothing against them, it's not user oriented as much as it looks. Debian Testing is much more stable than many (if not almost all) of the alternative distros, and follows versions reasonably well. IF I want cutting edge, I can go Arch or Gentoo way. Lastly, Debian is an iceberg. Looks simple from outside, and once you start to develop it, you understand why Debian is considered one of the golden standards. The underbelly is a rich ecosystem of very well designed yet simple subsystems.
  - fragmede 8mo ago
    other than systems, that is
    - fragmede 8mo ago
      *systemd
  - KronisLV 8mo ago
    >> All around, never use debian-family outside servers. Fedora is the future. That take in of itself also feels... uncommon? My experience matches yours more or less, I've run both Debian (and their LTS project version at one point) and Ubuntu LTS on my servers, both have been generally okay, albeit with a snag or two along the way. https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/debian-and-grub-are-broken https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/debian-and-grub-are-broken https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/debian-updates-are-broken https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/debian-updates-are-broken https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/ubuntu-lts-is-broken https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/ubuntu-lts-is-broken Aside from a few cases of not-very-serious configurations with off the shelf hardware having issues that I get to write the occasional rant about (back when I had an "Everything is broken" section in my blog), it's been surprisingly stable otherwise. I've had far more issues with RHEL-compatible distros (hate that they killed CentOS, Oracle Linux is sometimes weird but kinda works, outside of work stuff I'd personally reach for Rocky Linux which is a nicer experience) both when it comes to running stuff like Docker (way before Podman was even stable, RHEL-compatibles didn't play nicely with Docker when it came to SELinux and networking) and also support for slightly more uncommon consumer hardware, like my netbook touchpad didn't work at all by default on Fedora, but did work on DEB distros. The 10 year EOL is really nice, though, and if they had something as nice as Proxmox (for free), I'd probably be using RPM distros for my hypervisors right now! That's also kind of why I think saying that either of those don't have much of a future would be an odd statement - in my experience, both have their occasional issues but are still generally good for desktop and server use cases. As an addendum, however, snaps suck, viva la Linux Mint for desktop, plus, Cinnamon is a nice desktop and it's still close enough to Ubuntu LTS I run on servers if I ever need that familiarity in regards to packages!
pjmlp 8mo ago
It used to be GNU/Linux for a reason, Android/Linux is surely not GPL userland and there are others as such. There is also a reason why all the GNU/Linux competition on embedded space, including Linux Foundation's own Zephyr, aren't GPL licensed. People seem to forget Linux is only a kernel.
- bayindirh 8mo ago
  > People seem to forget Linux is only a kernel. I certainly don't and that's why I'm advocating the userspace shall stay GPL. The freedom has two pillars. Kernel and userspace. If you mow one of the two down, you lose everything.
  - pjmlp 8mo ago
    Yet there are already distros like Chimera Linux and Alpine Linux. That train is long gone, as folks rather have business friendly FOSS projects.
    - bayindirh 8mo ago
      If we stop fighting for anything just because someone said it's long gone, we'd have nothing. World's history has changed through wars where some people said that winning [said war] is impossible. Nothing is set in stone. World is changing more drastically than ever. Assuming that we can't change things or things will stay a certain way is a funny fallacy, at best. Permanence is an illusion. The pendulum is on the move. It might be moving in a way I don't like, but it can't continue like that forever. I'm just doing what I feel right. I'd rather die trying than regretting that I didn't try.
      - pjmlp 8mo ago
        Well, that is why I dislike Proton, but hey games! Courtesy of Microsoft's ecosystem.
    - LtWorf 8mo ago
      Folks rather have folks friendly FOSS projects :)
IshKebab 8mo ago
> Also, Ubuntu using a non-GPL licensed userland means they can pull all kinds of tricks to allow more TiVoization in the Linux ecosystem. Can we stop this conspiracy nonsense? They have explicitly stated that licensing was not a motivation, and even if you think they're lying it wouldn't make any sense anyway! No Tivoization is foiled by Coreutils being GPL. That's ridiculous for so many reasons, not least you can just use the BSD versions, as Apple does (and they still release the source code!).
- bayindirh 8mo ago
  > Can we stop this conspiracy nonsense? If they can earn my trust, why not? I'm not a pointlessly stubborn person. I have changed my views in the past, and can certainly change in the future. This my view resulting from my experiences, and jury is still out from my perspective. If you want to trust Canonical and Co., you can. Don't let me stop you. > They have explicitly stated that licensing was not a motivation, and even if you think they're lying it wouldn't make any sense anyway! Who prevents forking Ubuntu and taking that extra mile, esp. now we have a company which wants to enable exactly that lockdown? > No Tivoization is foiled by Coreutils being GPL. Belts have holes. They can be used to hold or to choke. Adding more holes to a belt allows more different uses. > That's ridiculous for so many reasons, Can you give me more reasons to believe me that I'm a tinfoil wearing crazy weirdo? > not least you can just use the BSD versions, as Apple does (and they still release the source code!). Same Apple removing any GPLv3 (and possibly GPLv2) tool from their roster in every iteration from their OS. Same Apple which provides no way to verify that what's published is what's running on their hardware. Same Apple which provides SIP to seal their system partitions which can't be modified without breaking tons of guarantees and seals. Same Apple which controls from their processor to software, without any gaps. Having the source have no meaning there. You can't use that source. You can't modify the machine you use, you can't install any other OS or just test something.
- duskdozer 8mo ago
  Well, why not license it as GPL then? If they don't care of course.
  - 8mo ago
bigfishrunning 8mo ago
Sure, but util-linux and the BSDs won't suddenly cease to exist. If you don't like what Ubuntu is doing, just don't use it. Upstream debian has been much more stable for as long as Ubuntu has existed...
- einr 8mo ago
  Sure, but util-linux and the BSDs won't suddenly cease to exist. If you don't like what Ubuntu is doing, just don't use it. And then websites and applications stop working if you're not using a verified, attested, locked-down OS and you're stuck with your nice free software system that will not do your online banking, let you chat with your friends, or access your company resources.
  - bigfishrunning 8mo ago
    At that point I'll just move into the woods with a typewriter and chat with my friends via HAM radio Edit: Also, why would some userspace components in a slightly-less-free license cause this to happen? if the powers-that-be want to shut you out of the internet, they can do it now; lots of proprietary software already exists.
    - einr 8mo ago
      Also, why would some userspace components in a slightly-less-free license cause this to happen? It won't, in itself, but it appears to be yet another little push forward on the slippery slope that probably will end where it appears to inevitably end.
      - bigfishrunning 8mo ago
        but again, the bsd userspace already has a permissive license. if the mustache twirling villains want to lock down stuff, they can do it now. they don't need any push forward.
        8mo ago
eklavya 8mo ago
So we will have a closed OS just like macOS and Windows but linux based. I don't see why it would stop all the other open source distros to exist.
- bayindirh 8mo ago
  Systemd is just another init system. People said the same thing about how it can exist with other ones in a level playing field. By the virtue of having some motivated backers, not only they have pushed everyone out from any distro which matters or acts as a root for others, they have formed a neat little company called Amutable which produces tech allowing anyone to lockdown any installation to an immutable, untouchable state.
  - tobias12345 8mo ago
    Yeap, systemd is just another init system existing on a level playing field. They just dare to be successful by tackling problems that people have today over trying to deliver solutions designed in 1989.
    - bayindirh 8mo ago
      > They just dare to be successful by tackling problems that people have today over trying to deliver solutions designed in 1989. Thanks for your input. Can you please elaborate about these problems a bit more? I'm pretty new on this Linux thing. Using for just 20 years or so, and managing a quite a few hundred servers only. systemd didn't make my life drastically different or smoother. Oh, I also used to be a tech-lead of a Debian derivative, and also did some country-wide rollouts of the thing we developed, but I'm sure it has no addition to my already extremely limited knowledge of how things work. Maybe this is because I'm a noob, or not using enough machines, or not have enough downtime, IDK. Any info will be greatly appreciated, thanks.
- LtWorf 8mo ago
  Because well funded projects start to hire developers all over the place to add dependencies and it's very difficult to do otherwise when you have an army of salaried people who do that 40h a week.

benrutter 8mo ago

History probably says I'm being naive, but I feel like I don't hate this possibility (hear me out!). Personally, I'd always choose to use a distribution with open source userland packages and utils, but if closed source alternatives exist and conform to the same specifications (i.e. we get "embrace" without the "extend and extinguish") then I don't mind if a company has closed sourced tech, especially if it'll help there business case, potentially boosting funding for open source linux projects. Maybe that's all naive, I guess we'll find out if ubuntu really do go for more and more closed source options.

bayindirh 8mo ago
I understand the optimism, but after being burned by what Microsoft did to the Linux community for the last 20+ years, I'll just distance myself more from Ubuntu ecosystem. When you put Snaps, Juju, uutils, etc. as a list, it all smells like a path to lockdown, not dissimilar to what RedHat did with their "unbranded" patches recently (IBM being IBM, which was unsurprising). Also, remembering how Canonical worked together with Microsoft on some projects like WSL, which felt like "Surrender servers to Linux, and save the Windows desktop by allowing Linux run as a slave inside a VM" type of deal, I do not trust them a bit. So, Linux is maturing, but it'll also bring a couple of very big cracks through ecosystem, and it'll be noisy and painful. Personally, I'm on Debian for the last 20+ years, and not planning to move anywhere for now. I understand that there needs to be an economy, but money is not more important than destroying what we're standing on. Let it be physical like our planet, or virtual like the free software and the culture we built around it.
einr 8mo ago
i.e. we get "embrace" without the "extend and extinguish" This only ever happens when the party trying to EEE is fighting a losing battle. If they have the upper hand, they will always get to the extend and extinguish part. Do we think movements for user freedom have the upper hand right now?

b112 8mo ago

Ubuntu oozes over debian like a parasitic malaise of vile chicanery. Their entire goal is to, essentially, use the work of untold millions, provided for free, to build their own cathedral. People complain about AWS and others taking OSS projects and profiting wildly off them, but they're all children compared to the machinations of Ubuntu. It's been this way from the start. The constant conflict of interest, where Ubuntu devs manipulate debian democratic processes, and the inclusion of systemd and its ridiculous swiss-army-knife implementation of an init system and surrounding tools. You ever see those knives, the huge ones, with a screwdriver, plyers, and 100 other tools on them? Thing is, they're all crap. They work for an odd case, but you always need to reach for a real tool. That's systemd. Whether systemd-timesync, its dns services, or anything else it does, it's kiddie time. Barely functional, broken in inane ways, and leaving any professional in a situation of endless masking of a myriad of barely cogent and horribly malign services. We didn't gain anything with systemd, except for an init system 1000 times larger, codebase wise, and a collection of tools you have to replace anyhow. And now these guys want to do Amutable. I hope they fail, for if they succeed, they will sink us further into this absurd system. Systemd for death. For despair. For dislike. For dumb. For disregard, devilment, debased, disturbed, systemd is all these things, and more, all packaged for you, all presented to you, all given to you, to all of us, dragging us down, destroying us. If there is an apocalypse, it'll be somehow some bug in systemd that causes it. Nukes will fly due to its broken code, viral containment systems will fail due to buffer overruns in its code, systemd is the end-of-world waiting to happen, its over-complicated, poorly written code a guillotine waiting to fall upon us all. I run thousands of sysvinit, and thousands of systemd systems. Which ones, do you think, have the worse record of "something stupid" bringing down a service, a machine, preventing a boot up, you name it, it's systemd. I swear to God that Trump exists because of systemd somehow. I place all the ills, perils, at the feet of systemd. It represents everything wrong in the tech ecosystem, its tendrils spreading dark, deep disturbing dreams of madness through all it touches. Just learning how to use systemd, destroys the logic centres of the mind, rendering advocates incapable of productive work. All wrong and ill that befalls this world, is at its feet. I suspect through some incomprehensible twist of fate, the entire fabric of the universe may unravel, undoing all that is, and ever was. All lost, all gone, all because of systemd. I am beginning to suspect I dislike systemd. (Send $19.95 to my address, if you wish to subscribe to my newsletter, and hear my REAL, UNFILTERED opinions about systemd)

DeathArrow 8mo ago

If that means that the massive fragmentation stops and we will have an OS 95% percent of linux users install, It might not be that bad.

bayindirh 8mo ago
I run and develop on various Linux distributions and fail to see that fragmentation for that last couple of decades, sorry.
- tmtvl 8mo ago
  I've only used GNU/Linux since 2012, but I do think we have to face the fact that there is a fair amount of ~~choice~~ fragmentation in the ecosystem. Deb/RPM/Flatpak/Snap/PKGBUILD/Nix, GNOME/KDE/Cosmic/Cinnamon/Xfce/LXQt/MATE/Budgie/Sway/Hyprland, AppArmor/SELinux, GTK/Qt/Electron/Tauri/WxWidgets there's even distributions which use musl libc instead of GNU libc or non-systemd inits. Sure, you can just pick one and focus on it, but if someone else picks something else then they may need to duplicate some effort to get things working on their preferred setup.
  - bayindirh 8mo ago
    When you put down your project in a sound and standards compliant way, packaging doesn't matter much. RPM and DEB automatically builds your code and packages it. DEB also has a lot of tools which allows you to make sure that everything is done correctly. I'm sure RPM has similar tools, but I didn't use them a lot. Desktop environment doesn't matter much, because GTK and Qt works on every Linux Desktop. I'm using KDE, but I don't know which tools I use are GTK, which are Qt, etc. Qt and GTK teams collaborate a ton both in window management and desktop underpinnings side. Also there are tons of standards, and things just work if you follow them. Even the standard libraries of programming languages and Linux userland gives the tools to utilize these standards. C libraries are mostly interoperable. I operate with GNU's C library, but aside from interesting behavioral differences, the API is not different. If you're not writing daemons, you have no business with your init system in 99% of the cases, unless you want to utilize a special feature of any of them. You can just ship the service files. daemon() function is part of libc, not your init system. In total, after your code builds, you can add these layers step by step, one at a time, and have a codebase which works everywhere with minimal effort.

PlatoIsADisease 8mo ago

To be fair, no one should be using Ubuntu. They are the free CD people from the 2000s. They are the Apple of Linux, marketing wins, but low quality. They used outdated linux (Debian-family) because its lower cost to maintain. All around, never use debian-family outside servers. Fedora is the future. Maybe OpenSUSE too. (Note these are not Arch or related to Arch)

bayindirh 8mo ago
> They used outdated linux (Debian-family) because its lower cost to maintain. Ubuntu forks Sid, and evolves from there. They don't downstream Debian Stable. > All around, never use debian-family outside servers. Fedora is the future. Maybe OpenSUSE too. (Note these are not Arch or related to Arch) Daily driving Debian stable on servers and Testing on desktops for more than two decades. Testing is a rolling distribution and you install it once (ever). The only time I reinstalled it was to migrate to 64 bit architecture back in the day. Also, considering stable to stable upgrades take 5 minutes, I have no problems with Debian Stable, either. Fedora is nice, but it's RedHat's lab. While I have nothing against them, it's not user oriented as much as it looks. Debian Testing is much more stable than many (if not almost all) of the alternative distros, and follows versions reasonably well. IF I want cutting edge, I can go Arch or Gentoo way. Lastly, Debian is an iceberg. Looks simple from outside, and once you start to develop it, you understand why Debian is considered one of the golden standards. The underbelly is a rich ecosystem of very well designed yet simple subsystems.
- fragmede 8mo ago
  other than systems, that is
  - fragmede 8mo ago
    *systemd
- KronisLV 8mo ago
  >> All around, never use debian-family outside servers. Fedora is the future. That take in of itself also feels... uncommon? My experience matches yours more or less, I've run both Debian (and their LTS project version at one point) and Ubuntu LTS on my servers, both have been generally okay, albeit with a snag or two along the way. https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/debian-and-grub-are-broken https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/debian-and-grub-are-broken https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/debian-updates-are-broken https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/debian-updates-are-broken https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/ubuntu-lts-is-broken https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/ubuntu-lts-is-broken Aside from a few cases of not-very-serious configurations with off the shelf hardware having issues that I get to write the occasional rant about (back when I had an "Everything is broken" section in my blog), it's been surprisingly stable otherwise. I've had far more issues with RHEL-compatible distros (hate that they killed CentOS, Oracle Linux is sometimes weird but kinda works, outside of work stuff I'd personally reach for Rocky Linux which is a nicer experience) both when it comes to running stuff like Docker (way before Podman was even stable, RHEL-compatibles didn't play nicely with Docker when it came to SELinux and networking) and also support for slightly more uncommon consumer hardware, like my netbook touchpad didn't work at all by default on Fedora, but did work on DEB distros. The 10 year EOL is really nice, though, and if they had something as nice as Proxmox (for free), I'd probably be using RPM distros for my hypervisors right now! That's also kind of why I think saying that either of those don't have much of a future would be an odd statement - in my experience, both have their occasional issues but are still generally good for desktop and server use cases. As an addendum, however, snaps suck, viva la Linux Mint for desktop, plus, Cinnamon is a nice desktop and it's still close enough to Ubuntu LTS I run on servers if I ever need that familiarity in regards to packages!

pjmlp 8mo ago

It used to be GNU/Linux for a reason, Android/Linux is surely not GPL userland and there are others as such. There is also a reason why all the GNU/Linux competition on embedded space, including Linux Foundation's own Zephyr, aren't GPL licensed. People seem to forget Linux is only a kernel.

bayindirh 8mo ago
> People seem to forget Linux is only a kernel. I certainly don't and that's why I'm advocating the userspace shall stay GPL. The freedom has two pillars. Kernel and userspace. If you mow one of the two down, you lose everything.
- pjmlp 8mo ago
  Yet there are already distros like Chimera Linux and Alpine Linux. That train is long gone, as folks rather have business friendly FOSS projects.
  - bayindirh 8mo ago
    If we stop fighting for anything just because someone said it's long gone, we'd have nothing. World's history has changed through wars where some people said that winning [said war] is impossible. Nothing is set in stone. World is changing more drastically than ever. Assuming that we can't change things or things will stay a certain way is a funny fallacy, at best. Permanence is an illusion. The pendulum is on the move. It might be moving in a way I don't like, but it can't continue like that forever. I'm just doing what I feel right. I'd rather die trying than regretting that I didn't try.
    - pjmlp 8mo ago
      Well, that is why I dislike Proton, but hey games! Courtesy of Microsoft's ecosystem.
  - LtWorf 8mo ago
    Folks rather have folks friendly FOSS projects :)

IshKebab 8mo ago

> Also, Ubuntu using a non-GPL licensed userland means they can pull all kinds of tricks to allow more TiVoization in the Linux ecosystem. Can we stop this conspiracy nonsense? They have explicitly stated that licensing was not a motivation, and even if you think they're lying it wouldn't make any sense anyway! No Tivoization is foiled by Coreutils being GPL. That's ridiculous for so many reasons, not least you can just use the BSD versions, as Apple does (and they still release the source code!).

bayindirh 8mo ago
> Can we stop this conspiracy nonsense? If they can earn my trust, why not? I'm not a pointlessly stubborn person. I have changed my views in the past, and can certainly change in the future. This my view resulting from my experiences, and jury is still out from my perspective. If you want to trust Canonical and Co., you can. Don't let me stop you. > They have explicitly stated that licensing was not a motivation, and even if you think they're lying it wouldn't make any sense anyway! Who prevents forking Ubuntu and taking that extra mile, esp. now we have a company which wants to enable exactly that lockdown? > No Tivoization is foiled by Coreutils being GPL. Belts have holes. They can be used to hold or to choke. Adding more holes to a belt allows more different uses. > That's ridiculous for so many reasons, Can you give me more reasons to believe me that I'm a tinfoil wearing crazy weirdo? > not least you can just use the BSD versions, as Apple does (and they still release the source code!). Same Apple removing any GPLv3 (and possibly GPLv2) tool from their roster in every iteration from their OS. Same Apple which provides no way to verify that what's published is what's running on their hardware. Same Apple which provides SIP to seal their system partitions which can't be modified without breaking tons of guarantees and seals. Same Apple which controls from their processor to software, without any gaps. Having the source have no meaning there. You can't use that source. You can't modify the machine you use, you can't install any other OS or just test something.
duskdozer 8mo ago
Well, why not license it as GPL then? If they don't care of course.
- 8mo ago

bigfishrunning 8mo ago

Sure, but util-linux and the BSDs won't suddenly cease to exist. If you don't like what Ubuntu is doing, just don't use it. Upstream debian has been much more stable for as long as Ubuntu has existed...

einr 8mo ago
Sure, but util-linux and the BSDs won't suddenly cease to exist. If you don't like what Ubuntu is doing, just don't use it. And then websites and applications stop working if you're not using a verified, attested, locked-down OS and you're stuck with your nice free software system that will not do your online banking, let you chat with your friends, or access your company resources.
- bigfishrunning 8mo ago
  At that point I'll just move into the woods with a typewriter and chat with my friends via HAM radio Edit: Also, why would some userspace components in a slightly-less-free license cause this to happen? if the powers-that-be want to shut you out of the internet, they can do it now; lots of proprietary software already exists.
  - einr 8mo ago
    Also, why would some userspace components in a slightly-less-free license cause this to happen? It won't, in itself, but it appears to be yet another little push forward on the slippery slope that probably will end where it appears to inevitably end.
    - bigfishrunning 8mo ago
      but again, the bsd userspace already has a permissive license. if the mustache twirling villains want to lock down stuff, they can do it now. they don't need any push forward.
      - 8mo ago

eklavya 8mo ago

So we will have a closed OS just like macOS and Windows but linux based. I don't see why it would stop all the other open source distros to exist.

bayindirh 8mo ago
Systemd is just another init system. People said the same thing about how it can exist with other ones in a level playing field. By the virtue of having some motivated backers, not only they have pushed everyone out from any distro which matters or acts as a root for others, they have formed a neat little company called Amutable which produces tech allowing anyone to lockdown any installation to an immutable, untouchable state.
- tobias12345 8mo ago
  Yeap, systemd is just another init system existing on a level playing field. They just dare to be successful by tackling problems that people have today over trying to deliver solutions designed in 1989.
  - bayindirh 8mo ago
    > They just dare to be successful by tackling problems that people have today over trying to deliver solutions designed in 1989. Thanks for your input. Can you please elaborate about these problems a bit more? I'm pretty new on this Linux thing. Using for just 20 years or so, and managing a quite a few hundred servers only. systemd didn't make my life drastically different or smoother. Oh, I also used to be a tech-lead of a Debian derivative, and also did some country-wide rollouts of the thing we developed, but I'm sure it has no addition to my already extremely limited knowledge of how things work. Maybe this is because I'm a noob, or not using enough machines, or not have enough downtime, IDK. Any info will be greatly appreciated, thanks.
LtWorf 8mo ago
Because well funded projects start to hire developers all over the place to add dependencies and it's very difficult to do otherwise when you have an army of salaried people who do that 40h a week.