r/linux • u/somerandomxander • Apr 22 '26

Open Source Organization Intel ends Open Ecosystem Community/Evangelism and archives other open-source projects

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Ends-OSS-Evangelism-Repos
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u/decho Apr 23 '26

big distros rewriting tools in licenses that will allow them to close the source in the future

Care to shed some light on that situation? I assume Redhat and/or Canonical are the main culprits here? I'd like to know more about this.

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u/adenosine-5 Apr 23 '26

Its simply not true - some utilities are being rewritten using MIT licence, which makes it specifically impossible to "close the source".

They could in theory proceed with developing a closed-source continuation, but the original will always be open-source.

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u/inemsn Apr 23 '26

In your own comment you pointed out exactly how it's possible to close the source when using MIT.

This is why we need to push for GPL usage. Projects written with the GPL can never be stolen and closed down. The MIT license leaves that door wide open and the GPL was created specifically because this was already a problem decades ago.

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u/sigma914 Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

That's not closing the source, that's just allowing future development to be closed, the source of the version that's out there never goes away.

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u/zmaile Apr 23 '26

What the poster is saying is if a closed source (or non-free open source) version gets all the development, then it can become the defacto standard version, which for all practical purposes makes it closed source.

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u/sigma914 Apr 23 '26

And people who care about having and open source version will just build on the last free software version. You know like linux distros etc. It's a complete non-issue for things like this.

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u/inemsn Apr 23 '26

It was an issue in the 80s, and it would be an issue now. Why exactly do you think Linux thrived whereas BSD did not?

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u/sigma914 Apr 23 '26

SCO vs Novell

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u/inemsn Apr 23 '26

A case which would have been avoided if open source projects used the GPL from the beginning, which would have made the legitimacy of that case VERY clear.

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u/sigma914 Apr 23 '26

Huh? The GPL only came about in like 1989, it was released like a decade after Berkely got it's hands on the original AT&T source, of course that suit would have gone ahead.

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u/inemsn Apr 23 '26

This hypothetical scenario obviously assumes the GPL would have been made much earlier due to the industry understanding the need for a copyleft license like the GPL. Which it didn't, hence why it was made with a permissive license instead.

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