156
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2025
156 points (100.0% liked)
Linux
58677 readers
390 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
I understand the sentiment.
The move to a permissive license opens the door for these tools to possibly become closed source one day.
Why is that a problem if the developers are apparently fine with it?
Everyone can still use the open source version/fork. It could only become a problem if distributions for some reason decided to use that closed source version, which doesn't make any sense.
I fail to see a worst case scenario here beyond companies being able to profit from the software as well.
That's just it though. The developers can drop out over time, then some other corp can come in and control it, then close source it.
You know that you can change license of software that you own copyright to? You can take GPL code and change it to something else, but you can’t un-GPL existing released code. It’s the same thing with MIT.
The only people bound by the license are people who use it because it is licensed to them.
The difference is that organisation may develop MIT software without publishing their code.