Speaking of operating systems written in Rust – a popular activity as of late – one of the SoC contributors to Redox is also writing their own operating system in rust, called Aero.
Aero is a new modern, experimental, unix-like operating system written in Rust. Aero follows the monolithic kernel design and it is inspired by the Linux Kernel. Aero supports modern PC features such as Long Mode, 5-level paging, and SMP (multicore), to name a few.
Open source, of course, licensed under the GPL, version 3.
GPL, v3…. I can’t imagine why anyone would do this. There are VERY good reasons why Linux never upgraded to GPL v3 and many other projects have opted for BSD/MIT or 0BSD in recent years.
Funny. I can’t imagine aby anginę wouldn’t.
*why anyone wouldn`t. Sorry, can`t edit
cb88,
I actually think FOSS rights could be stronger today if GPL3 had been employed at the beginning to fix the loopholes with GPL2 in hindsight. Tivoization is a huge impediment for FOSS utility after all. But those lessons had to be learned along the way.
Alas, the GPL 2 license does not allow for relicensing. Even if the linux project heads wanted to, they don’t own the code and contacting the tens of thousands of contributors, many of whom have no current contact information, may be retired/deceased/etc isn’t tractable. Some contributors may have contributed GPL 2 code that they got from elsewhere because the GPL encourages sharing. Re-licensing linux is not on the table. For better and for worse they’re stuck with GPL2 and that’s that.
I kind of think we need a GPL V4 to clarify the RHEL situation. If you want your code licensed such that no one upstream of you can effectively retaliate for redistributing the code. You can’t cancel contracts do anything else based on how they use or distribute the software. That sounds good in my head but I’m sure there are thousands of corner cases I haven’t’ thought through. And you’d need a new license that was just GPL v2 + this and one for GPL3 + this.
That’s kind of the point GPL2 is fine.. whatever. But GPL3 became a minefield of poorly thought out stuff. I’d literally rather it be MIT or 0BSD because either of those don’t really require a lawyer to interpret.
cb88,
GPL 2 being fine is subjective. Obviously the FSF felt it wasn’t fine given how corporations have been able to restrict users in practice. I don’t have an issue with your suggestion of MIT or BSD licenses, however I would say those are not natural progressions for GPL, which is a copyleft license. Your gripe may not be with GPL3 specifically so much as copyleft in general.
Obvious layman interpretations aren’t legally binding though. Having one or more lawyers review your specifics would be advisable regardless of the license. Your “adversaries” aren’t going to respect your interpretations over ones that favor them.
It’s more so… that GPL3 is developer/investment toxic…. the BSD/MIT/0BSD licenses are just there because they have to be there. Whereas GPL3 is trying to implement some kind of restrictions that eventually don’t work in practice because more effort is spent policing them than developing… and thus GPL3 becomes useless, and the FSF turns into a legalese entity rather than a developer centric foundation.
It’s still subjective and depends on the individual. Obviously I have to concede that companies wanting to exploit code for their own personal gain will hate GPL3 and prefer the less GPL2 with more loopholes if not forgo copyleft altogether with BSD and MIT. But that’s only one perspective. If you are a developer who strongly believes in FOSS copyleft licenses, you may not want corporations to use your technology in their proprietary products such that users of your software will not be able to effectively use the source code. GPL3 makes a lot of sense from these perspectives.. Many developers despise the idea of their software, which was built on their own time & money, becoming tivoized as permitted by GPL2 and more liberal licenses including BSD, MIT, etc.
So you are entitled to whatever opinion of GPL3 you want, but I just want us to be clear that regardless of how you and I feel about the GPL3, it does not follow that it’s a bad license for a developer contributing to FOSS projects.
I agree legalese sucks. but for better or worse this is the world we live in and it’s important for licenses to be precise so that someone doesn’t show up down the line using your code in ways you dislike. FSF is just there to cross the T’s and dot the I’s, which I think they’re doing better than developers like me can. Still, at the end of the day every developer creating a new project can select whatever license they want.
“precise so that someone doesn’t show up down the line using your code in ways you dislike. ”
Which is why I’m all in on the BSD/MIT/0BSD licenses… because restrictions limit the reach of my code, thats literally all they can do.
cb88,
I see nothing wrong with that, so long as you are ok with corporations like ibm/apple/microsoft/facebook/oracle/etc expanding on your code in their products and potentially not giving anything back. Copyleft licenses exist for people who aren’t comfortable with their code being used like that.
I wasn’t trying to turn this into a “my license is better than yours” debate, only pointing out there’s a reason that licenses like GPL3 exist. It gives authors a different say how their code may be used.
I’d like to note that many FOSS projects are actually dual licensed. Meaning companies who are interested in the code but not willing to comply with the FOSS terms may have the option to buy a proprietary license for it. Most proprietary software vendors and service providers don’t even give you source code, so I still think it’s a good deal for companies that want to go this way.
Bill Shooter of Bul,
Good points. While many people side with Redhat over downstream distros like Rocky and Alma linux, the retaliation for practicing their “rights” under the license seems highly incompatible with FOSS principals.
These corner cases are how licenses end up getting so unwieldy, haha.
I hate sounding like a corporate shill but this “practicing their rights” stuff is disinformation.
Red Hat has taken no action against Rocky or Alma. All they have done is to stop distributing RHEL sources to them. They have no obligation to do so.
The GPL provides rights to those that you distribute software to. Red Hat stopped distributing RHEL software to Rocky and Alma. So, Rocky and Alma have no rights to RHEL under the GPL. That is how the license works. To receive rights from Red Hat, they need to get the software directly from Red Hat. They do not.
RHEL has not said anything ( that I have seen ) about restricting the rights of anybody that gets source code ( even RHEL source code ) from somebody other than Red Hat.
To be clear, Red Hat distributes essentially the same software as RHEL via CentOS Stream. They distribute CentOS Stream publicly and so we all have rights to that software. Red Hat has not tried to restrict this in any way and in fact enthusiastically promotes sharing it. In fact, This is where they wanted Rocky and Alma to get their code.
If you are a RHEL subscriber ( even an unpaid one – which is quite easy to become ), then Red Hat does distribute RHEL software to you and distributes the RHEL source code to you as well. Separately, Red Hat restricts subscribers from distributing RHEL source to others via contract. The penalty for breaking the terms of the contract is that is that you stop being a RHEL subscriber. That means Red Hat will not give you any FUTURE software or source code. That is it — that is the only restriction and the only consequence. You can do whatever the license allows with the source code they gave you already. Red Hat has done nothing that I have seen to circumvent the GPL.
Also, this is a line from the GPL in case you missed it ( straight from the license ): “Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other
parts of the aggregate.”. Individual GPL packages are the “covered works”. RHEL itself is “the aggregate”. RHEL and the RHEL SRPMS are not GPL licensed as many seem to think and, according to the FSF and the text of the GPL itself, they do not have to be.
tanishaj,
I’m afraid not. They are being punished as retaliation for redistributing the code, even though source redistribution literally granted by the GPL without exception and it is very clear about this. I understand people feel that is leeching redhat. But what about all those GPL developers that contributed their own code under GPL to make redhat what it is? The majority of software distributed by redhat is not their own. Redhat themselves are leeches under the same standard they accuse others of leeching. It’s not really fair to call it that though because the GPL expressly allows and encourages everyone to copy and reuse the code. I accept that you may not agree these goals, but it is nevertheless the whole point of the GPL
If we adopt the premise that corporations should be allowed to unilaterally deny access to rights that are explicitly allowed in a license in this way, then the entire premise behind GPL and copyleft is objectively broken. And so to redhat I would this: if you refuse abide by the GPL terms in good faith, that’s actually fine, but then stop distributing GPL software and violating the rights of the authors.
Redhat must distribute the exact source and build configurations that were used to build the binaries they’re distributing. Substitutions are not allowed and frankly if the FOSS community were to accept this it would become rife with abuse.
Can’t reply to the last post, so I’m hanging it here:
You only have to share the source to those you share the programs with. Rocky and Alma don’t (supposedly) have the binaries, so they can’t ask for RHEL sources. What they do have is the CentOS Stream sources, which include the sources for RHEL. Which apparently is good enough that AlmaLinux can keep building their distro without much issue.
Parodper,
Yes, they had the binaries legally but were cut off for redistribution. Furthermore the GPL explicitly allows anyone to get the source from any of redhat’s customers and redhat is not allowed to restrict this. But under redhat’s new restrictions, they all face the risk of GPL rights retaliation as well.
Regardless of whether we agree that redhat should be allowed to add restrictions or not, the point I’m making is that those restrictions are anti-GPL. To all those who claim redhat should be allowed to deny service to users who are practicing rights explicitly granted under the GPL, well for me it begs this question: what is the point of a license agreement if the terms don’t mean anything and can be overruled at will by a company like redhat? Hypothetically, would you be ok if microsoft starting punishing users who were practicing rights that were explicitly granted in their license agreements? That would be shady as hell and we would be right to call them out on that crap. Redhat deserves to be called out on it too.
I find this argument that centos stream is the same or good enough to be insincere because centos stream doesn’t target the same demographic. You could use a testing/merging distro in production, but it obviously isn’t recommended for that and IBM & redhat know this. They demoted centos as a production distro and are trying to pull off a redhat -> centos stream source code bait and switch because they don’t want the FOSS clones to be suitable for production. This is exactly why they hijacked and repurposed centos.
I do understand why some people are sympathetic towards redhat here and I’m not trying to argue over those opinion. However strictly as a licensing matter, the GPL is clearly at odds with what they’re trying to do with distribution restrictions. IMHO the bigger debate we all need to have is whether developers should be using GPL and what impact it has on FOSS sustainability and developer’s ability to support themselves in the long term.
There is no such thing as GPL rights… its just a license.
Rocky and Alma Linux are entitled to only source of binaries red hat gave them in the past… I frankly don’t see the big deal it will just result in red hat organically ceasing to be the upstream.
cb88,
Well obviously GPL rights aren’t granted by the government, but they are rights granted by the license agreement No different to rights that microsoft, google, or even your bank would grant users via their terms of agreement.
What you seem to be missing is that the GPL doesn’t merely granting rights to Rocky and Alma Linux. It’s also the basis by which redhat themselves are granted rights to the work.
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html#SEC1
For redhat to accept GPL rights for themselves, but then deny them for others is a serious problem. If we were to accept this as the new normal, then the GPL is effectively broken. Companies will simply use GPL software however they want while totally ignoring redistribution rights and imposing additional restrictions in violation of the GPL license agreement.
I concede that people who like BSD, MIT, etc licenses probably don’t care much about this. GPL without its copyleft terms works a lot more like those licenses. However we should all admit that ibm & redhat’s additional restrictions go against the distribution rights that copyleft and GPL had intended to provide.
Alfman, I can’t reply to you in-thread, so I’m doing it here
It’s not a matter of demographic. The sources for the products in RHEL are in Stream, as said by a Red Hat employee. The only thing that breaks the spirit of the GPL is that Red Hat will terminate your contract if you redistribute the sources, but it can’t stop you to redistribute the source for the versions they have already provided.
The issue with CentOS Stream is that the rebuilders can’t no longer build a «bug-by-bug» compatible version. But they can still build a API (and probably ABI) compatible version.
Parodper,
CentOS stream contains the sources for centos binaries, which makes CentOS in compliance. But obviously that’s a testing/merging environment upstream of RHEL. The binaries used in RHEL need to comply with the GPL too.
You stated this above “For redhat to accept GPL rights for themselves, but then deny them for others is a serious problem.”
Yet… no instance of this occuring has been cited. Red Hat hasn’t violated the GPL…. because they never provided binaries to those guys as they aren’t paying them to provide them.
cb88,
This is a bit of a straw man though because nobody is saying redhat aren’t allowed to charge for their binaries. That is compatible with the GPL and specifically mentioned within the license. The real problem however is that paying customers are also facing redhat threads and new restrictions on top of the GPL for redistributing the source code. Obviously redistribution is explicitly permitted by GPL and in fact is the entire point of the license. You are free to side with redhat if you want, but there is no denying the fact that it’s fundamentally an anti-GPL position.
That’s not what he said. The GPL has never forced you to give the sources to anyone who didn’t receive the binaries, be it by paying or free. And Red Hat doesn’t add restrictions on the GPL, it only adds consequences.
Parodper,
Go read the GPL terms right now. Unless you believe license contract are unenforceable, then the GPLs terms should apply to redhat.
The exact same semantic argument you are using here can be made in any context.
“No, the law doesn’t add restrictions on murdering people, it only adds consequences.”
And if you are testing something you need to do it with the same sources as the final product. If I go to https://gitlab.com/redhat/centos-stream/rpms/kernel I find that it includes the source for Linux 5.14.0, which is the same version included in RHEL 9.
Parodper,
As long as the source matches the binaries then there is no problem.
But if they modify the software the GPL requires them to provide source any additional restrictions on redistribution. The Software Freedom Conservancy has a great article about why what redhat are doing is troubling.
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/jun/23/rhel-gpl-analysis/