Linux Foundation is going crazy
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Hey guys,
I wanted to share this article about the new platform "CommunityBridge" from the Linux Foundation: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2019/mar/13/lf-community-bridge/
I was shocked that the software freedom conservancy pointed out that this platform is proprietary.
This is nasty and the futur gonna be nastier...
"I was shocked that the software freedom conservancy pointed out that this platform is proprietary."
Why? What's wrong with Conservancy pointing out a proprietary program? I could understand if someone felt shock from the Linux Foundation using a proprietary program here (note that I only say I could understand; not that it would be warranted shock or unexpected shock because they are a 501(c)(6) after all -- their mission isn't to pursue software freedom but to pursue the interests of their member companies which might overlap with software freedom in some areas and not in others. I could understand if someone felt shock from the Linux Foundation using a proprietary program here if said person didn't fully appreciate the difference of what a 501(c)6) is about but I digress) but the shock shouldn't be in Conservancy pointing it out. That's a great thing for them to be doing.
>Why? What's wrong with Conservancy pointing out a proprietary program?
...
> but the shock shouldn't be in Conservancy pointing it out. That's a great thing for them to be doing.
Sorry I'm not a native English speaker... I meant by the post that I'm shocked to see the linux foundation making/supporting/promoting proprietary platforms when they talk about "open source" and I quote from their website "Linux Foundation launches CommunityBridge platform
to advance sustainability, security, and diversity in open source."
Wait what? proprietary and open source what are they thinking?
But i was never shocked for their craziness, honestly and simply they have been crazy since their establishment.
They use free software base system (excluding their kernel, some hardware drivers and fw are nonfree) to still ship nonfree software, but fortunately we all have Parabola, PureOS, Trisquel and so on GNU free systems.
On the other hand, *BSD projects just have minimal nonfree distro to work the most hardware devices, but FreeBSD, TrueOS, NetBSD base systems have ZFS which is obviously gone against us (though UNIX fast file system (UFS) can be a replacement), OpenBSD and DragonflyBSD don’t have ZFS.
*BSD people are also clueless to which hardware systems and peripherals are free software friendly.
like Linux Foundation, *BSD people also call our GPL to be so-called ‘‘restrictive’’.
> *BSD people also call our GPL to be so-called ‘‘restrictive’’.
If they find the GPL restrictive, they should have an even bigger problem with iOS. iOS is the most restrictive operating system I've ever seen. iOS is based on BSD, and it has far more users than BSD, so the work of BSD developers is usually distributed under terms far more restrictive than the GPL. If they avoided the GPL because they don't like restrictions, then that decision really backfired.
Chromium OS by Google is also come from Gentoo/FreeBSD (where MacOS and iOS are also come from Darwin/FreeBSD), whereas Android is come from Linux.
Like Apple, Google also does things to let their software more restrictive.
Google also dislikes GPL and prefers BSD-like licenses like Apple.
Under BSD-like licenses developers may choose GPL, but may also choose nonfree licenses, but people getting code under BSD-like licenses are to be mostly fallen to nonfree licenses, in short BSD-like licenses are more likely to be fallen under more restrictive licenses, instead of freed under GPL.
Linux Foundation is one of the major enemies to software freedom. Once they called copyleft licenses (such as GNU GPL) "restrictive" licenses, because they prevented (proprietary) software vendors from making copylefted software proprietary and thus prevented the vendors from maximizing their profits.
https://fossforce.com/2017/04/lin-desktop-linux-gpl-openness/
Hmm... this is bad, what will happen if Linus make the kernel proprietary?
If i'm correct I did read that Linux removed the "or later" in the GPL 2 license. is this dangerous for the future of free software community? What choices do we have?
Linus Torvalds is only author of a tiny proportion of the kernel. He does not have any right on what other contributors wrote. Even if the kernel could become proprietary, the last free version would be taken as the base of a fork.
As far as I know, Linux has already been under the GNU GPL version 2 only.
By contrast, Torvalds refused to re-license Linux kernel to GPL v2 or later. He was never a free software supporter.
Since Linux kernel is GPL v2 only, it is vulnerable to tivoization (Secure Boot).
Again, Linus Torvalds could only re-license what *he* wrote, not the whole kernel. Tivoization and Secure Boot have nothing to do with each other. In particular Secure Boot could well be distributed under the terms of the GPLv3: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Ubuntu-will-use-GRUB-2-for-its-Secure-Boot-implementation-1714232.html
I just listened a podcast (Linux Action News) which talked about this subject.
The people on this show are not strict users of Free Software (they talk about proprietary software regularly), but even they were very negative about this matter.
Unfortunately, I feel this is moving in the wrong direction and it will cause harm to the Free Software community and hackers everywhere.
I recently heard someone say 'Linux is the new Microsoft; LibreBSD or GNU Hurd is the new Linux' as a joke. Hyperbolic, but I think there is some truth.
I think in 10 years Microsoft and Google will have swallowed up Linux completely. They will chip away at it piece by piece.
Many people have said that the kernel project would get eaten alive by the big corporate interests of the day. Used to be people were worried about IBM and Sun and then Oracle and Novell (and of course there was SCO that was going to snatch it away via the legal system). Microsoft has always been a perceived menace, as has Intel. These days it's concerns about tech giants like Google and Facebook swallowing it up. But amazingly, the kernel project has been far bigger than all of the concerns of all these tech giants.
I have a feeling that in 10 years, the kernel will be very much like today, and we will still be stripping all the proprietary bits out for our corner of freedom. The one thing that COULD happen is that the GNU Hurd could really pick up steam at some point. Now THAT would be interesting. It's been lurking in the shadows for nearly 30 years now, slowly building its functionality.
I have a feeling that in 10 years, the kernel will be very much like today, and we will still be stripping all the proprietary bits out for our corner of freedom.
If only it could be true today regarding the firmware blobs: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/
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