Busy busy busybox [LWN.net]

Busy busy busybox

Posted Oct 2, 2006 21:13 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304)
In reply to: Busy busy busybox by Sombrio
Parent article: Busy busy busybox

You seem to believe that Linus wrote the entirety of what you see on a
Linux desktop.

Not only isn't that true, but the kernel is comparatively `sterile'; it
has odd requirements because it runs in kernel space and must be
self-contained, so its code isn't particularly reusable in other projects.

If you want the kings of reuse, look at BSD stuff: if you want the
projects and organizations that have spawned most other projects, look to
the FSF and the GNU Project.

If Linus had decided to use some other license, we'd be using a different
kernel. Big deal. The GPL would *still* be massively widely used.

If business loses interest in Open Source, then, well, we go back to the
status quo pre-1999: development slows to some extent, but certainly
doesn't stop, and the concatenation of work on earlier work continues.

I think your choice of terminology is instructive. Business is not
important to free software. It may be important to the vaguely-defined
pragmatic `Open Source', but it is not to free software. The business
world largely ignored free software while its toolchain climbed to
pre-eminence in portability, and while its Ada tools (in particular)
annihilated most competitors without even trying especially hard (and yes,
I know that ACT is a business, but once upon a time they were just some
hackers at NYU, and if need be they could go back to that, although it
would be annoying). The business world largely ignored free software until
the userspaces of most Unixes looked so outdated in comparison that they
were laughable. Even now, KDE (for instance) gets comparatively little
commercial backing (SuSE and Trolltech are the only major commercial
backers), yet it's powering ahead.

Take your business-world goggles off. They're blinding you.

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Busy busy busybox

Posted Oct 2, 2006 23:39 UTC (Mon) by Sombrio (guest, #26942) [Link]

Take your desktop goggles off, they are blinding you. Linux is irrelevant on the desktop where Windows is king and will be for quite some time yet.

Linux is king in embedded. That is where commercial interests are making big contributions and investments. Interestingly, that is also the domain RMS and the FSF are trying to tie down. Tivo is an embedded application. Embedded is also the domain that will abandon Linux if the fanatics have their way.

You are quite right that Linux will live on. It will just be a curiosity as opposed to a revolution.

I seem to have offended you and I apologize for that. This is not a religious issue for me. I am just an embedded developer who writes code to support my family. I have adjusted to Linux, and will adjust to whatever else comes along if Linux becomes unfriendly to the embedded device manufacturers. I am just standing on the sidelines, trying to keep up with the latest fads in embedded so that I can keep my job. Like 99% of the world, I don't give a damn what Tivo does as long as their box records Monday Night Football for me. I also don't believe in any DRM conspiracy theories. Having a great day with my kids, that is what is important. DRM concerns are just fluff.

Busy busy busybox

Posted Oct 2, 2006 23:59 UTC (Mon) by Sombrio (guest, #26942) [Link]

I am quite aware that Linux is just the kernel and that 90% of the code on a desktop is GNU. This is just another thing that bothers me about the fanatics. We have to call it GNU/Linux. Well, excuse me, but typing all of this on my phone is hard enough without having to call it GNU/Linux. I am sure you know how hard capital letters are on phone keyboards. Anyway, if you could do me the favor of assuming I mean GNU/Linux when I say Linux that would be a great help.

Busy busy busybox

Posted Oct 3, 2006 9:17 UTC (Tue) by ayeomans (subscriber, #1848) [Link]

I doubt 90% of any desktop code is GNU. David Wheeler's counts for Red Hat 7 showed around 65% as having GPL or LGPL licences. Not that this is all GNU code either - since the kernel, web browser, X, KDE are not GNU. For embedded systems using BusyBox, even binutils may not be present - I would expect glibc to be the only significant sized GNU code, and that's 1/4 the size of the kernel.

Busy busy busybox

Posted Oct 5, 2006 9:36 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

I'd expect embedded systems to be using uClibc, actually.

There's not much FSF-owned code on such systems (which makes the screaming from embedded devs even more peculiar).