Ok. I have one question then. I think we can come to a clear resolution with it.
Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, what percentage is it Linux?
It includes 100% the apps, system tools, GUIs, and libraries that you associate with Linux. It also has 0 lines of Linux code in it.
If you can justify that it is above >0% Linux I will use your definition of operating system going forward.
But we can agree that there are upper and lower limits though. And I believe that we can now agree that system utilities and system libraries are outside of that limit. Just because the edge are fuzzy, don’t mean we can’t come to any conclusions at all.
Any now stepping way way back. I think we can now agree that Fedora, Ubuntu and other distros run the same operating system. That operating system being Linux.
That’s ok! I was just trying to help you see the difference. You do now. It’s a win/win. There was a reason why I kept on brining up Debian GNU/kFreeBSD. It really highlights the difference.
You’re gunna do you and use your own definitions and I respect that. But the first line from the page is
Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is a port that consists of GNU userland using the GNU C library on top of FreeBSD’s kernel, coupled with the regular Debian package set.
It is literally GNU userland using the GNU C library on top of FreeBSD’s kernel, coupled with the regular Debian package set
You can say Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is BSD system tools with a Linux kernel but you would be evidently and clearly wrong.
Anyways. I wish you well. Best of luck.
If you define it that way you are right. Yah. But the common understanding is a bit different than yours.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system
Really great read.
I urge you to take a look at https://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/ It’s the exact same utilities and everything but a completely different kernel. It really highlights the difference here. How would your definition account for this?
Would Debian GNU/kFreeBSD be 50% Linux, 50% FreeBSD under your definition even though it has no Linux code? It has all the system libraries and system utilities that you associate with Linux.
But it literally is the same. The only difference is the user space. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD shows this. Different operating system same user space.
Take a look at Wikipedia for more info.
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, peripherals, and other resources.
I mean they are all literally the same operating system yah! They all use the same kernel APIs.
The logical conclusion is that from an operating system they are all basicly the same.
The main difference is the user space. The package management and defaults.
Look at Debian GNU/kFreeBSD it’s a whole different operating system with the Debian user space. It’s cool stuff and really highlights the difference between operating system and user space.
Hot take. Under semantic versioning everything after vista has been in essence a new version of vista.
Going from NT 5.x to 6.x was a major jump.
The reason why Vista had no/terrible drivers was because they went from an insecure one driver bug crashed the whole system model to more secure isolated drivers that don’t crash the whole system model. Developers had to learn how to write new drivers and none of the XP drivers worked.
They went from a single user OS with a multi user skin on top, to a full role based access control user system.
They went from global admin/non-admin permissions to scoped UAC permissions for apps.
Remember on Vista when apps constantly had that “asking for permissions” popup? That was the apps not using the 6.x UAC APIs.
Given the underlying architectural situation everything since Vista has been vista with polish added (or removed depending on how you look at it)
Things will go beyond vista when a new major release with new mandatory APIs shows up.
After you edited it, it is more clear now. You should have phrased it that way to begin with.
Because saving video games and stopping the killing of children are mutually exclusive???
Exactly.
No problem. I just thought I had covered that when I said:
That’s some incredible stuff. Now days you can use things like XCP-ng to do the same but VMware was ahead of the pack for a decade.
They started dying when they were squeezed between cloud hyper scalars and the cheaper alternative hypervisors that finally had caught up.
This being said I don’t think even in 2025 proxmox and things like vsphere are comparable. XCP-ng I do think is though. It’s open source and matches features.
You’re not wrong in 2025. But VMware was able do it in 2003.
There is a major difference between running a vm on your desktop and orchestrating a fleet of highly available virtual machines. Just one example might be vmotion. You can move a virtual machine from one physical host to another in real time with 0 interruption to services running on that host.
That’s some incredible stuff. Now days you can use things like XCP-ng to do the same but VMware was ahead of the pack for a decade.
They started dying when they were squeezed between cloud hyper scalars and the cheaper alternative hypervisors that finally had caught up.
Then the corpse was bought by Broadcom who is currently trying to milk it before the body completely rots.
This is incorrect. Functional code bases exist in many production environments. Twitter (pre musk) migrated their bloated code base TO Scala because functional code bases are easier to maintain and understand.
If you think about it, it makes sense, side effect free code will be easier to maintain just due to the lack of side effects.
I can’t speak for general use. But use it to:
It works perfectly for me and I have not run into issues. But it might be bad for other people. I just know it works well for me.
I use forjero with forgero runners.
Basicly 100% compatible with GitHub actions and all locally run via podman.
Strong recommend. It’s all designed to work together and everything just works.
Ask Cisco how they feel about it. There is a precedence of companies using copy left licensed software and the community benefiting from it.
If companies are just going to be blatantly criminal and violate software licenses they were going to do that anyways. I’m not sure how much experience you have working in or with mega corps but the ones I have worked with in the past HATE the idea of opening themselves up to being so blatantly liable.
When I worked in big tech we had a license scanner that checked the libraries we were using. Anything strongly copyleft would be flagged and we would be contacted by legal.
You might have experienced working with companies that act otherwise. I encourage you to call them out, maybe work with the FSF to get another Cisco style ruling.
Funny you mention ZFS though. It’s not the GPL that was the issue. It is CDDL that’s incompatible. GPL is generally comparable with foss licenses. MIT, MPL, Apache, BSD all are comparable. It’s just CDDL that’s incompatible with copyleft in general.
If you think the community will benefit more from MIT licensed software than copyleft I think you need to look harder at the modern corporate world. Corporations are not altruistic.
This being said I’m not sure there is much more to be said here. You’ve gone to saying I believe in magic and that there are corporate GPL conspiracies. I just don’t see the proof and I think there is not much more to be gained by such talk.
If “theft” is your only concern yes. It’s a common misconception that copyleft licenses stops rich companies from stealing. It does not.
I am more concerned about societal enrichment vs corporate enrichment.
If you release some code under MIT that a company finds useful, they could take it, improve it a bit, and resell it back to the community. This enriches the company at the expense of the community. Without the original code the company could have never taken it as a basis to sell and the community that wrote the code gets nothing.
If you release that same code as AGPL the company can take it, improve it and sell it to the community. BUT the difference is that the community now benefits from those improvements too. Maybe more improvements happen. Maybe a second company takes those improvements and sells them too. The community would have all the improvements and would benefit from greater competition.
With copy left licenses. The community is enriched and companies are enriched.
With MIT style licenses. Companies are enriched at the expense of the community.
The point is, that the answer is 0% by any reasonable metric. I don’t think any more is to be gained here given the question dodge.
So I will say good bye and best of luck again.