[TheDong]

What's even harder is doing that while trying to avoid the GPL, so doing that without reading the original source code.

uutils would be so much better imo if it was GPL and took direct inspiration from the coreutils source code.

[dbdr]

The GPL prevents you from reading the licensed code before writing related non-GPL code? Which section of the GPL says that?

[TheDong]

It's based on an interpretation of "derived from".

It does not matter if it's in the GPL explicitly or not since we're talking about uutils and their stance on it, and they've written that:

https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/blob/6b8a5a15b4f077f8609...

> we cannot accept any changes based on the GNU source code [..]. It is however possible to look at other implementations under a BSD or MIT license like Apple's implementation or OpenBSD.

The wording of that clearly implies that you should not look at GNU source code in order to contribute to uutils.

[goodpoint]

"we cannot accept any changes based on the GNU source code" is false. They are choosing not to accept it.

[kibwen]

"We cannot accept it without issuing a breaking change to the project by significantly changing the license terms."

[i_think_so]

"clearly implies"

Hmmmm....

[snovv_crash]

This is clean room implementation 101, and why LLMs are so controversial in terms of licensing.