
Speiger
1.8K posts



FreeBSD just removed every single line of GPL code from its base system. The last piece was a small terminal utility called dialog. It is now replaced with a BSD-licensed equivalent. Sounds like a minor stuff? Not exactly. This completes a years-long effort to make FreeBSD's entire foundation free of 'copyleft obligations'. Why does this matter if you're not a BSD person? Because it changes what companies can do with the OS. GPL code requires you to share your modifications. BSD code doesn't. That's why FreeBSD (and its relatives like macOS's networking stack and PlayStation's OS) has always been attractive to corporations who want to build on an OS without releasing their changes back. With FreeBSD 16, that freedom extends to the entire base system without exceptions. The Linux world operates on a different philosophy. GPL is a feature here, not a bug. GPL ensures that improvements come back to the community. Watching FreeBSD cross this finish line is a reminder that the open-source world runs on more than one idea of what "free" means.


























You know how you can render a 10,000-line diff without melting the browser? By focusing on simplicity. 🧵






