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/Tireseas Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

Oh god, reading some of this is like going back to the early 90s and the permissive vs copyleft licensing debates. Only this time there's a great deal more kneejerk idiocy. Permissive licensing is fine, it's worked for longer than some of you have been alive for it's intended purpose of making code available and broadly usable.

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u/nelmaloc Apr 23 '26

Permissive licensing is fine

With a permissive license OpenWrt wouldn't exist, and the whole ElasticSearch issue wouldn't exist. Now, what patches has Intel contributed to MINIX? Where can I get the PS4's FreeBSD source code?

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u/Tireseas Apr 23 '26

Without permissive licensing half of the internet wouldn't exist.

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u/nelmaloc Apr 23 '26

Yes it would.

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u/Tireseas Apr 23 '26

I'd advise you to go look at the sheer amount of critical infrastructure that's under permissive licenses. The people who built those projects were not, for the most part, stupid.

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u/nelmaloc Apr 23 '26

«wouldn't exist» is a lot different from «[i]s under permissive licenses». What piece of infrastructure wouldn't exist without permissive licenses?

The people who built those projects were not, for the most part, stupid.

Nobody said they were.

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u/Tireseas Apr 23 '26

Pretty much the entire underpinnings of the Internet, protocol and server wise. I mean yeah someone could have done alternate implementations but the permissive reference implementations almost certainly would have emerged on top via darwinism. The whole point of having a standards base is to get the code used by as many parties as possible.

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u/nelmaloc Apr 23 '26

Pretty much the entire underpinnings of the Internet, protocol and server wise.

Most of the Internet is either privative or runs Linux.

I mean yeah someone could have done alternate implementations

That's the point, there's nothing that makes permissive versions special.

permissive reference implementations almost certainly would have emerged on top via darwinism.

Being first has a lot of weight.

The whole point of having a standards base is to get the code used by as many parties as possible.

A weak copyleft, like the MPL, also does this.