I've heard the GNU Coreutils in Ubuntu 25.10 will be replaced with a Rust implementation. Should I be concerned about this?
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I've been made aware that the GNU Coreutils will be replaced with a Rust version in the next Ubuntu release. I absolutely disagree with Ubuntu's decision. Rust uses the MIT license instead of the GPL. Because Trisquel is currently based on Ubuntu, I assume that Trisquel 13 will be based on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. And if the decision carries on into Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, that would be concerning to me. Therefore, how this will affect future Trisquel releases after Trisquel 12 ecne?
Thanks.
One of the biggest concerns I see is with people thinking GNU is just some low-level utilities rather than an operating system, they might even start referring to so-called Ubuntu as "Ubuntu Rust/Linux" as a means of mockery, similarly to how they use Alpine as an argument against GNU due to it (allegedly) not including GNU code, which is only true if things like Busybox and musl were a full replacement for most things GNU-related, even though a clear search in Alpine's repositories shows that this is not true since Alpine still has massive GNU packages in its repositories (even if one assumes they aren't installed by default), such as GNU Emacs, and even the much smaller (but extremely culturally signficant) GNU Nano editor, and Alpine even offers GNOME which for a long time was originally part of the GNU Project before leaving. Also, from "apt show busybox":
> The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options than
their full-featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts.
This shows that Busybox is extremely inspired by GNU's design and work, if it wasn't for GNU, Busybox as it is today wouldn't exist at all.
So next time some mean person sends you that horrible copypasta about Alpine arguing that GNU is no longer relevant (
https://rl.bloat.cat/r/confession/comments/1hn5ort/i_use_linux_as_my_operating_system_i_state_proudly/ ), you know they are either ignorant or acting out of genuine malice.
> One of the biggest concerns I see is with people thinking GNU is just some low-level utilities rather than an operating system, they might even start referring to so-called Ubuntu as "Ubuntu Rust/Linux" as a means of mockery
There you go, literally only one day after I posted this and r/"linux"memes is already at it: https://rl.bloat.cat/r/linuxmemes/comments/1jc4tpy/rms_learning_the_news_about_ubuntu/
> Wait so Ubuntu is no longer a GNU+Linux distro?
> > It's a Rust+Linux distro
Rust would be much more of a concern if you agree with Hyperbola's views that Rust is not FSDG-compliant, but Hyperbola is probably the only FSDG-compliant system to see Rust as non-free. But Hyperbola behaves basically fully independently from the FSF, they generally do not care much about what other FSF-endorsed FSDG-compliant distros think and Hyperbola's government has a high level of toxicity with them e.g. labelling thoughts they don't like under the buzzword "conspiracy theories" (as seen in https://wiki.hyperbola.info/doku.php?id=en:project:teamwork ) and pretending to be pro-free-speech even though their e.g. communication channels are extremely strongly moderated, probably much more moderated than any other FSDG-compliant distro. I don't try to pretend I support "free speech", I've stopped advocating for free speech ever since I learned the beautiful things that community-led censorship allows through e.g. the FSDG's censorship against proprietary software. So it would be cool if, like me, Hyperbola stopped pretending to be pro-free-speech when they are basically the most anti-free-speech system out of all FSDG-compliant distros.
You can see on Hyperbola's Wiki ( https://wiki.hyperbola.info/ ) how they argue that they are the only truly freedom-oriented system and how they see all other FSF-approved distros as not being truly concerned with freedom but rather convenience due to the inclusion of things like Rust, systemd, GNOME and/or dbus. Unless you agree with the traits I've shown about Hyperbola, you probably shouldn't worry about their views regarding Rust.
EDIT: Hyperbola was the first FSDG-compliant system for me to have ever used long-term, I have many things to appreciate about Hyperbola, primarily their FSDG-compliance. As a FSDG-compliant system it's still better than 90%+ of distros. But I feel very hurt. I've done very problematic things while I was a part of Hyperbola's community, but the arguments I've put in this reply still stand even when disregarding my somewhat dark past.
I know atleast one of Hyperbola's developers reads the Trisquel Forums, so if such person is reading right now: Leave me alone. Don't try to contact me with a crappy non-apology. I don't want to hear about your thoughts about me. I made this reply as a means to answer the poster's question about Rust, not expecting any pity out of you at Hyperbola. I wish you and everyone else happiness but I don't want to hear you talking to me again. Please leave me alone.
I don't know much about Hyperbola, but it looks like a Parabola fork (correct me if I'm wrong). Didn't the Hyperbola project say they were going to switch development to BSD and no longer be a Linux-libre distro a few years ago? I rarely hear about them. I know Trisquel, PureOS, and Parabola best.
Anyways, interesting note.
> Anyways, interesting note.
Thank you so much, but Hyperbola is not a Parabola fork, it is a GNU/Linux distro independent from the others (Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre) transitioning to an independent BSD operating system (HyperbolaBSD). During the start of Hyperbola as a FSDG-compliant system they were heavily based on both Arch and Debian (Arch package management + Debian-style stability), in contrast to Parabola which is Arch-based but on Arch's rolling-release model rather than Debian-style stability. Eventually Hyperbola proclaimed independence and behave quite autonomously. Parabola on the other hand doesn't try to be fully autonomous but rather extremely based on Arch development, being a libre version of Arch (and possibly other Arch-based systems) (noted at https://wiki.parabola.nu/Parabola_Social_Contract )
I see. They look so similar, that's what confused me. The website layout looks similar too.
Indeed. They will replace GNU Coreutils with uutils.
"My immediate goal is to make uutils’ coreutils implementation the default in Ubuntu 25.10, and subsequently in our next Long Term Support (LTS) release, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, if the conditions are right."
(note: this reply is sarcasm)
> if the conditions are right.
That's the same excuse the Chinese government (and generally other Marxist States) uses to promote rapid economic growth under state-capitalist[1] oppression, everyone knows that the material conditions for communism (the final stage of socialism) can only be achieved by promoting wealth inequality, proprietary software, undemocratic government, abusive "social" networks such as TikTok and ignoring any concept about actually implementing socialist democracy (as in, democratic control over both the government and the workplace)
Dengism[2], this is why so-called Ubuntu promotes proprietary software, the only way to end the GNU Coreutils State and transition into uutils anarchocommunist utopia where all software is free is by promoting the same proprietary software contradictions that GNU opposes, this is why the "socialist" government in China adopts an undemocratic governance and promotion of profit motive and imperialism similar to the openly-capitalist governments in NATO. I've got it figured out people, so-called Ubuntu is actually the most free distro there is because through adopting unethical behaviour it has achieved the conditions necessary for the utopia where all software is free, people! Therefore leading to the conditions necessary to software freedom. Trust me people, once so-called Ubuntu achieves worldwide domination they will totally become very free, they are totally not doing this out of selfish interest rather than ideals, so-called Ubuntu is actually so genius by realizing that to achieve freedom you have to go further away from it!
Proof that so-called Ubuntu is just following the wise steps of the Chinese government: https://jing.rocks/2024/01/05/openkylin-attack-on-free-software.html
[1]. Technically all modern forms of capitalism have a State, but in this sense I used state-capitalism to constrast the very high level of State intervention in contrast to liberal-capitalism where the State adopts "free market" ideology during times of stability and mostly intervenes in times of severe crisis
[2]. Technically China under Xi Jingping has an ideology that's something inbetween Mao's and Deng's: Xi Jingping Thought. How amazing of them to name their ideologies after the current dictator, this is surely a sign of democracy, independent thinking required for such democracy without any cult of personality whatsoever and sure a sign that China as a State is sustainable and totally ruled by its people under socialist equality, it's not like there's another example of "socialist" country ("Soviet Union") where defining the ruling ideology simply based on the dictator at the top proved to be disastrous and completely incompatible with democracy. Hooray for the Chinese government!
And yes, I know that wealth inequality in China has technically been rapidly decreasing in the last year or 2, with China's number of billionaires rapidly shrinking, but this doesn't matter if there's a high chance that once dictator Xi dies another person with a different ideology will simply become dictator and crap on Xi's policies by eliminating the policies that led to wealth inequality shrinking in the first place.
To contrast this, an example of actual stability would be the Free Software Foundation, which has maintained mostly the same policy even after Stallman was forcibly overthrown from the presidency, showing that the Free Software Foundation is an actual organization with principles rather than a one-person cult-of-personality-based dictatorship that would crumble the moment Stallman goes missing.
I assume it would be straightforward to fix simply by reverting from uutils to GNU Coreutils in future Trisquel versions.
BTW, I'm not a developer. I'm just a Trisquel user.
> Rust uses the MIT license instead of the GPL.
Rust is licensed under two GPL-Compatible Free Software Licenses:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#Expat
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#apache2
Which one is your concern?
The MIT license. At least, what I heard from the YouTube channel "Mental Outlaw," the MIT license allows changes to the program without releasing the modified source while the GPL requires the modified source to be released along with the updated program.
From what I can see, if Ubuntu decides to make an updated version of uutils without the acompanying source code, that would constitute proprietary software, right?
I guess I've been misinformed if that's not the case. I'm not great at understanding licenses.
The title of the YouTube video where I got my information: "Ubuntu Will Replace GNU Core Utilities With Rust" by Mental Outlaw.
Still, it's a free license and Trisquel has always included many packages under the MIT license. In fact, uutils is already there in Trisquel 12 (the unreleased version currently under development). It's just not installed by default. Whatever the Ubuntu/Trisquel developers decide, you'll still have a choice between coreutils and uutils.
Thanks for explanation, i was interested mostly about if it's still choice between still using GNU ocreutils or uutils.
I guess this isn't as big of a deal Mental Outlaw claimed to be. As long as I have a choice to switch back, I think I'll be fine.
That's true.
The package "rust-coreutils" is here: https://archive.trisquel.org/trisquel/pool/main/r/rust-coreutils/
Based on https://directory.fsf.org/wiki?title=Rust&diff=87657&oldid=87651 and on https://www.fsf.org/blogs/directory/fsd-meeting-recap-2022-09-09, I think the software freedom issues that once existed with Rust's trademark policy no longer exist.