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by ajross 5209 days ago
No busybox in android; that too is GPL software that Andy Rubin and the pre-Google Android people didn't want to ship. They actually hacked up a minimal "toolbox" to avoid shipping it. Sad, really.
2 comments

Of course, yes. My mistake. Busybox is one of the first things I add after rooting an Android phone.
Why did they remove it? What is GPL stopping them from doing?
It's just the standard fear. Shipping GPL code you didn't write means that you need to honor a license in ways you might not forsee. Some people view that as a scary risk and some don't. Rubin is firmly in the "GNU is for commies" camp. Shrug.