[cyphar]

> >What are you talking about? Why do you care if GNU/Linux takes your code and modifies it? No damage is done to the original.

> This is more about the fact that when they take it it's worse for the project than a proprietary fork.

... Who is it worse for? First of all, that almost never happens. But for users, there's no difference (if anything it's an improvement because they now have better protection of their freedom) and the original developers can just ignore the fork or merge the code and change license (which isn't possible with a proprietary fork).

> The CDDL indeed saved illumos from being cannibalized and disappearing as a community. Had its features been easily ported to Linux without a licencing problem, the project would probably not have survived, simply due to the fact that there would have been few reasons to stick with it.

I think that's a very irrational fear. GNU/Linux took plenty of BSD code and BSD still exists, many different projects take ideas from each other -- it's what's called "collaboration".

> I won't go so far as the grandparent post here, but I'm one of those developers that couldn't give half a care about "user freedom".

It's disappointing that you don't want to actually make the world a better place (not in the standard bullshit silicon valley sense) by giving people freedom.

[adf]

GPL fans said the great problem we would face is that companies would take our BSD code, modify it, and not give back.

"Nope—the great problem we face is that people would wrap the GPL around our code, and lock us out in the same way that these supposed companies would lock us out.

Just like the Linux community, we have many companies giving us code back, all the time. But once the code is GPL'd, we cannot get it back." — Theo de Raadt, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_de_Raadt

The GPL actively reduces freedom.

[Annatar]

> First of all, that almost never happens.

Are you kidding me? The Linux rabble will happily take what they want and discard the rest like a rotten carcas, with fanfare all the way how "Linux is the best!" Thanks, but no thanks. I don't want a superior operating system to be discarded for that steaming pile of excrement after the Linux "developers" swipe every good piece of technology from it.

> It's disappointing that you don't want to actually make the world a better place (not in the standard bullshit silicon valley sense) by giving people freedom.

We do (well, I do), just in a world without GNU and without GPL. That is a better world for me.

[dmpk2k]

It's disappointing that you don't want to actually make the world a better place

Self-righteous much?

This is embarrassing.

[cyphar]

You think the world isn't better as a result of GNU/Linux existing? I personally think that GNU/Linux has had a positive impact on the world, and without it the world would be a worse place. Sure, my impact as a single developer is very small, but I want to help a movement that I agree with.

[Annatar]

Linux destroyed so many good things, and some projects like SmartOS now have to spend major effort in educating the populace at large on why SmartOS is a better solution for the cloud and why data integrity and correctness of operation are important. And all of that just because GNU/Linux is argumentum ad populum. What a nightmare.

[cyphar]

> Linux destroyed so many good things

Would you prefer Windows? Because that's where the world was heading in the 90s. History happened, and what it shows is that Linux arose at a time when EVERYONE thought that Windows was going to steal Unix's throne. It's amazing you have such negativity about a piece of software.

[Annatar]

> Would you prefer Windows?

I would prefer sgi IRIX 6.5, but that's dead. In the absence of IRIX, illumos and SmartOS are the next best thing, so that is my next preference.

> Because that's where the world was heading in the 90s. > History happened, and what it shows is that Linux arose at a time when EVERYONE thought that Windows was going to steal Unix's throne.

Not everyone. I went through the entire '90's using Sun SPARC, sgi, hp PA-RISC and Commodore Amiga computers, and neither did Sun Microsystems. Didn't touch an intel-based PC until 2002, when I put together my first one, and even my current intel based PC runs Solaris 10.

Sun Microsystems was the only company which refused to bow, and continued developing Solaris. And while we know that eventually that company died, the OS lives on, and is being very actively developed, with new features added, and new technology invented.

> It's amazing you have such negativity about a piece of software.

You would also have it if your telephone rang with priority 1 incidents at two o' clock in the morning because Linux has a problem which I would not have had if I were using SmartOS. Then you'd have bonus negativity when you'd have to log into a crisis bridge and explain to a whole bunch of angry managers (who don't understand a thing about their decision to use Linux) that the application broke because Linux killed the service when it ran out of memory and oh by the way the data is also corrupted because the filesystem is a design from the '90's of the past century. And no I cannot find out why the application ran out of memory because the OS is locked up and when I reset it, I cannot get a core dump for analisys because I do not have adequate tools for that on Linux.

Computers and UNIX are my life calling, and since I am passionate about them, I spend extraordinary amounts of time working on them and researching them. Even what little free / spare time I have, I spend doing computer research and system engineering. So when according to my research and experience, something as inferior as GNU/Linux starts to push out a better solution just because of ignorance, it is only logical I have developed an intense hatred of it. It is messing with something I hold very dear, illumos and SmartOS - it's messing with UNIX.

And when I cannot find any SmartOS jobs where I live because every single ad says Linux-blah-blah Linux, you bet I hate it even more, since working on it, I get to experience first hand just how bad Linux is. When I'm forced to suffer because I am ordered to use Linux, and have problems I would not have if I had been on SmartOS, it's becomes personal, and it also becomes not just personal, but professional.

At home I have SmartOS and do not have a single issue I have at work, because I am using a different OS, a better one, and I love every microsecond developing on it and using it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to do some more software engineering. On GNU/Linux.

[cyphar]

> Not everyone.

BSD wouldn't have been free software without Stallman (he convinced them to release their changes under a free software license publicly). Same with OpenSolaris (the idea of free software wouldn't have existed). So, GNU was central to us not being in a world dominated by proprietary software.

But GNU was never going to be ready (Hurd will never be finished), so Linux offered us the opportunity to live in freedom. And people ended up using it. Yes, the kernel Linux has _many_ problems. But without it, we would be living in a much worse world than even the most broken of Linux interfaces and semantics. But GNU/Linux definitely was a saviour for Unix.

Yes, Sun was still holding on to Unix. But they were the only one (apart from Be, which folded soon after). But do you really thing they would've ever created OpenSolaris if GNU hadn't come into being and GNU/Linux hadn't started to dominate the market? I doubt it. History is odd like that.