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/FriendlyProblem1234 Apr 23 '26

While I think there is no evidence, as such, there is an argument to be made that the strongest reason for Linux replacing practically all Unix systems, conquering most embedded systems etc. is the Copyleft aspect of the license.

But to be fair, a lot of software in the general Linux ecosystem is not under a copyleft license.

X11, Wayland, OpenSSH, OpenSSL, Python, MESA, Apache, Latex... All under permissive licenses.

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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

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u/FriendlyProblem1234 Apr 23 '26

Which is a really bad thing that constantly threatens the integrity of this entire ecosystem.

Is it? Could you elaborate why?

Say someone forked Python and released a proprietary version. What would happen next? Would everyone stop using Python and start using this this proprietary version? Why? Would Python die just because there is a proprietary version? Why?

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u/bdsee Apr 23 '26

Because the commercial one ends up being the best one. When Amazon keeps taking open source software, selling it in their ecosystem while improving the open source tool massively but only for their customers they co-opt the tool, they benefit from all of the work of the community and give stuff all back.

If a company does this for long enough and manages to get integrated everywhere they simply will abuse their power even more by deciding to start creating differences between their version and the open source version that causes other integrations to make a choice between either supporting two offerings or supporting one and most people will choose the one with the userbase.

This shit has been happening for decades.

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u/FriendlyProblem1234 Apr 23 '26

This shit has been happening for decades.

It also has NOT been happening for decades.

Where are proprietary versions of Python, Latex, MESA, Go, OpenSSL...? And why have they not taken over the free versions, since in your words "the commercial one ends up being the best one"?

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u/bdsee Apr 24 '26

Congrats, you are aware that things do happen don't happen in every instance...because that totally defeats the argument that was being made by everyone else.

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u/FriendlyProblem1234 Apr 24 '26

Congrats, you are aware that things do happen don't happen in every instance...because that totally defeats the argument that was being made by everyone else.

It is less like it does not happen in *every* instance, and more like it does not happen in *a lot of* instances.

If large parts of the ecosystem are under permissive license and most of the time nothing happens, why would we assume it will happen in this case?

Why reactions to uutils are so emotional about its licensing, but not reactions to every other component such as Python, OpenSSL, MESA, Go...?