Refuting the "cuck license" argument
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Started 27d ago
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Started 27d ago
Libre software forms the basis for commercial non-free software. The norm is to shit on permissive licenses because the MIT license allowed Intel to hijack MINIX and use it as the OS that powers Management Engine, and Andrew Tanenbaum couldn't do jack fucking shit about it. That norm exists for good reason, but we should also consider how not every permissively licensed project would end up like MINIX.
FreeBSD is used by Sony to power the PS4 and PS5's operating systems, WhatsApp uses it on their servers, as does Netflix and many others. These companies not only use FreeBSD, but they also submit their own patches and modifications back upstream that later get integrated. FreeBSD is not "base system + X11/Wayland + KDE/XFCE/whatever + all the shit I use like a normal human being;" it's literally the base system alone. Y'know, that text console you boot into after installing it? Sending bug fixes, patches, modifications, and so on back to FreeBSD doesn't hurt those companies because all the secret sauce is in the upper layers, where the UX lies. The opposite is true; it behooves them to cooperate with upstream.
Also, lest we forget, Wine is free software that's not permissively licensed, but its copyleft is weak enough to allow for integration into proprietary programs. Codeweavers literally has most of the development team on Wine under their payroll, they take the Wine source code, and add some UX tooling and commercial support that they keep behind a proprietary wall. The guys who run pfSense and OPNSense have their own private companies, where they take pfSense/OPNSense, put it onto some network box that they sell on their website, and that network box has proprietary tooling and UX shit that ain't free to the world.
Copyleft is ideal, but we shouldn't let Tanenbaum's misfortunes override pragmatic reality on the ground. Sometimes, a weak copyleft or permissive licensing is a good thing.
FreeBSD is used by Sony to power the PS4 and PS5's operating systems, WhatsApp uses it on their servers, as does Netflix and many others. These companies not only use FreeBSD, but they also submit their own patches and modifications back upstream that later get integrated. FreeBSD is not "base system + X11/Wayland + KDE/XFCE/whatever + all the shit I use like a normal human being;" it's literally the base system alone. Y'know, that text console you boot into after installing it? Sending bug fixes, patches, modifications, and so on back to FreeBSD doesn't hurt those companies because all the secret sauce is in the upper layers, where the UX lies. The opposite is true; it behooves them to cooperate with upstream.
Also, lest we forget, Wine is free software that's not permissively licensed, but its copyleft is weak enough to allow for integration into proprietary programs. Codeweavers literally has most of the development team on Wine under their payroll, they take the Wine source code, and add some UX tooling and commercial support that they keep behind a proprietary wall. The guys who run pfSense and OPNSense have their own private companies, where they take pfSense/OPNSense, put it onto some network box that they sell on their website, and that network box has proprietary tooling and UX shit that ain't free to the world.
Copyleft is ideal, but we shouldn't let Tanenbaum's misfortunes override pragmatic reality on the ground. Sometimes, a weak copyleft or permissive licensing is a good thing.
Also, given how the Linux community deeply despises corporations but it's thanks to corporations Linux is a serious kernel and not some GNU Hurd tier tinker toy, it's not too surprising. The biggest cancer on proliferation of Linux due to how disassociated with reality and constantly confused the average Linux community member is. Of course, the Linux community will be at a denial to this fact forever, even if all the facts in front of them make this truth abundantly clear: without corporate interest Linux would die.
Every advancement in the code that pushed Linux further to widespread viability was a result of corporate backed interest. Anything that wasn't remained dead in the water. It took a corporation like Valve to take Wine and work on it themselves to create Proton to make Linux gaming viable. The Linux community would never accomplish this in a hundred years and would instead forever bicker about how you can't play games on Linux. The day the Linux community collectively accepts that fact is the day Linux can finally succeed as a desktop OS.
Every advancement in the code that pushed Linux further to widespread viability was a result of corporate backed interest. Anything that wasn't remained dead in the water. It took a corporation like Valve to take Wine and work on it themselves to create Proton to make Linux gaming viable. The Linux community would never accomplish this in a hundred years and would instead forever bicker about how you can't play games on Linux. The day the Linux community collectively accepts that fact is the day Linux can finally succeed as a desktop OS.
If you aren't coding anything, the license of something should not influence whether or not you use it