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FreeBSD 16 Retires The Last Of Its GPL Code From Its Base System (www.phoronix.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
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As of this past week in the FreeBSD source tree for FreeBSD 16, the last of the GNU GPL licensed code from the base system has been retired.

The dialog implementation was the last piece of GNU GPL licensed software in FreeBSD's base system. The FreeBSD installer previously transitioned to using bsddialog in place of dialog and then dpv was the last user of dialog but itself since turned off and now retired.

This ticket to retire dialog was opened back in February while is now merged to the FreeBSD source tree for what will become FreeBSD 16.0.

With dialog removed, the latest FreeBSD code now retires the GNU sub-tree of the FreeBSD base system now that no more GNU code remains.

FreeBSD 16.0 is working its way toward release that is expected to happen in December 2027.

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[–] 23 points 4 months ago (9 children)

I understand why are they trying to do so, but it still feels odd to see a project removing GPL'd code

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    If you don’t mind, could you to explain why exactly?

    Is it a GPL3 thing? Or favouring their own BSD licences?

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  • [–] 19 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    They're trying to make their own distro fully BSD-licensed, so that it can be distributed without end users having to deal with copyleft restrictions.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (2 children)

    FreeBSD is a full OS separate from GNU and Linux. It’s not a distribution.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    The concept of Unix-based distributions predates GNU/Linux by the way - BSD stands for Berkeley Software Distribution.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    Yep. That is what the ‘D’ stands for, which is largely historical at this point, and originally, all code was shared code.

    The shared code pool which spawned the BSD hasn’t existed in decades, and the BSDs have been stand alone operating systems since February 1994 when the USL lawsuit was settled with 4.4BSD-lite.

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    • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    Here's a chance I've got to rethink about copyleft.

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    • 6 comments in c/opensource@programming.dev view that post
    [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    Interesting milestone for the project.

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    [–] 5 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    So FreeBSD is now fully exploitable by corporate leeches. Congratulations....?

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    imagine complaining of too much freedom

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Permissive vs. copyleft isn't an issue of more vs. less freedom, it's an issue of freedom for whom. The "freedom" that permissive licensing gives developers is the power to take freedom away from downstream users and comes at their expense.

    Permissive licensing is like the Confederacy demanding the "freedom" to own slaves.

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    • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Isn't Minix already demonstrated that absence of GPL is bad for humanity?

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    2 comments in c/news@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show view that post
    [–] 7 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I appear to have stepped away from BSD for a while; was there a push to get it back to a single license?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Just the normal remove GPL code push for the last couple of decades.

    I’m sure there’s still a bunch of other licenses around, and I’m curious if this counts duel licensed code.

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