Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust [LWN.net]

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 10, 2021 10:46 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46)
In reply to: Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust by khim
Parent article: Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

> Grudging agreement between “free software” movement and industry was broken and “war” have started. Maybe that war was inevitable, who knows? But even if it were, ultimately, inevitable, GPLv3 provoked it early and thus made “free software” position worse instead of making it better.

I believe that GPL enforcement efforts poisoned the well far more than GPLv3 ever did. All companies ever cared about was money, and GPL enforcement changed "I get to use this for free" into "we have to actually pay attention to what we're using in our products", which required changes to how they did business.

Mind you, supply chain management is critically important (though "the industry persists in trying to bury their head in the sand and ignore this) and GPL compliance is downright cheap, especially when compared to most regulations that a typical company has to deal with. But it was the publicity around that (minimal) GPL enforcement that seeded the general industry rejection.

(And I say that as someone who is firmly in the "GPLv3 is better than v2" and "we need _more_ enforcement" camps)

> Today… these people usually pick APL or MIT license because they expect that this would just attract more potential contributors that way and would make proprietary forks unsuccessful.

Those that _contribute_ determine the direction software takes, and "the industry" massively out-contributes the "free software" crowd, so it's no surprise those contributions reflect the priorities (including the ethics) of "the industry"

> This is somewhat risky ploy, but, after GPLv3 fiasco and industry rejection of it… more-or-less inevitable.

Equally inevitable is the failure of that ploy, because it does nothing to prevent the a bigger fish from taking your software and completely proprietizing it (making it more attractive to users by out-contributing you) or wrapping/bundling it as a service and completely undercutting your ability to monitize your own software.

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Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 10, 2021 12:30 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (18 responses)

> Equally inevitable is the failure of that ploy, because it does nothing to prevent the a bigger fish from taking your software and completely proprietizing it (making it more attractive to users by out-contributing you) or wrapping/bundling it as a service and completely undercutting your ability to monitize your own software.

If it's as inevitable as you say then why there are so many projects which don't support that fate and so few popular GPLv3 projects?

Actually you answered that question.

> Those that _contribute_ determine the direction software takes, and "the industry" massively out-contributes the "free software" crowd, so it's no surprise those contributions reflect the priorities (including the ethics) of "the industry"

Indeed — that's why you can pick APL/MIT and face the problems you outlined above. Risky and uncertain choice, yes. Or you may pick GPLv3 and guarantee the failure.

IanKelling class for GPLv3+ fork of uutils. Basically do what you say industry does to APL/MIT-licensed projects. But have any such GPLv3 fork succeeded? Ever? I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm really genuinely curious.

Because for now it looks as if choice of GPLv3 doesn't doom the project, but certainly hurts and if any GPLv3 ever succeeds it's because it's not just better than alternatives but better enough to overcome GPLv3 stigma.

GPLv3 fork of any permissively-licensed project can show that it's not true and we can learn on it's example about how GPLv3-software can win. But to do that we need at least one example of such a project.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 10, 2021 14:08 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (17 responses)

> IanKelling class for GPLv3+ fork of uutils. Basically do what you say industry does to APL/MIT-licensed projects. But have any such GPLv3 fork succeeded? Ever? I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm really genuinely curious.

The only way a "GPL fork" of a permissively-licensed project will be "successful" (in terms of mindshare, marketshare, whatever) is if the GPL-proponents out-contribute the others, producing something that is "better enough". Which is bloody unlikely when you're a handful of part-time volunteers up against teams that are funded by industry consortia.

BTW, you seem to define "success" as "the industry widely adopts it". I *do not care* what "the industry" wants (which is "everything, for nothing"). Instead, I care about (1) the software meeting my own personal needs, and (2) the other users of my software.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 10, 2021 14:45 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (16 responses)

> Instead, I care about (1) the software meeting my own personal needs, and (2) the other users of my software.

Do you? How does GPL (any version) helps with either (1) or (2)?

I don't see how GPL can help either (1) or (2) if industry rejects your software.

If industry accepts that software than (and only than) license starts to matter.

> Which is bloody unlikely when you're a handful of part-time volunteers up against teams that are funded by industry consortia.

Then why the hell do you insist on putting yourself in that position?

Back in XX century FSF (and GNU project) worked with the industry. GNU tools were “unofficial standard” on many OSes (and FSF's FTP even carried binaries for popular OSes like Solaris) even if definitely mostly helps the ones who adopted free software because of convenience and not because of their belief in “free software”. Heck, back then, back in XX century Stallman wrote If you want to accomplish something in the world, idealism is not enough—you need to choose a method that works to achieve the goal. In other words, you need to be “pragmatic.”

And back then copyleft worked. The biggest achievements which Stallman lists in his essay are few cases where someone made a piece of software because copyleft forced them to do that.

After GPLv3 fiasco… that stopped happening. Instead of releasing things under GPLv3… people started releasing stuff under permissive licenses or, alternatively, stopped using GPLed programs as basis for development and don't release anything at all.

And instead of trying to be pragmatic and adjusting their stance “free software” camp doubled-down on their idealism and is now quickly driving themselves into irrelevance.

That's sad to observe, but… if these people want to fight… against the whole industry… well… that's their choice, in the end.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 10, 2021 15:47 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (15 responses)

> I don't see how GPL can help either (1) or (2) if industry rejects your software.

"Industry" has failed me (and the users in my little niche) many times over. WTF would I give a damn what they want?

If I released my code under permissive terms, I'd be effectively paying them to screw me over again. That'll sure show them!

> And instead of trying to be pragmatic and adjusting their stance “free software” camp doubled-down on their idealism and is now quickly driving themselves into irrelevance.

There is no compromise with someone who doesn't believe you have the right to exist. Keep that in mind when you talk about compromising ideals.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 10, 2021 16:33 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (14 responses)

> There is no compromise with someone who doesn't believe you have the right to exist. Keep that in mind when you talk about compromising ideals.

That lines highlights the issue with the GPLv3 and the reason why it shouldn't be used much better than anything else.

The truth is different: extinction is much worse than even the “compromise with someone who doesn't believe you have the right to exist”.

But in the end, as I have said, it's your choice: if “free software” camp want to become just an article in Wikipedia about yet another group which no longer exist… who am I to judge them?

> "Industry" has failed me (and the users in my little niche) many times over. WTF would I give a damn what they want?

Care to write an article which explains how “industry” have failed you, and, more importantly, how you are thriving now without them?

I'm sure people on LWN would appreciate it. As cautionary tale if not anything else.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 10, 2021 17:18 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (12 responses)

> That lines highlights the issue with the GPLv3 and the reason why it shouldn't be used much better than anything else.

The entire purpose of the "tech industry" these days is to sell advertising (and/or access to "content") on locked-down appliances. "user empowerment" as embodied in the "Four Freedoms" is in direct conflict to this.

But your takeaway is that the GPLv3 is the problem, rather than the ones seeking to repress users? WTF?

> Care to write an article which explains how “industry” have failed you, and, more importantly, how you are thriving now without them?

Printers. I've said here in the past that I've been threatened with lawsuits by companies that were actively distributing (if not outright using) my code -- Code that I only wrote because they refused to support Linux users.

Meanwhile, the actual "need" that got me into this area to begin with was a brand-new printer with memory card slots that couldn't handle abitrary jpegs... and also violated the flow control portions of the USB printer class specification.

And yes, by any objective standard, I'm thriving. My personal printing needs are well met these days, and I've been able to leverage this work into a (very) modest consulting business that pays for more creative-outlet-type devices (most recent one was a laser engraver that runs GPLv3-licensed GRBL).

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 10, 2021 21:04 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (11 responses)

> The entire purpose of the "tech industry" these days is to sell advertising (and/or access to "content") on locked-down appliances. "user empowerment" as embodied in the "Four Freedoms" is in direct conflict to this.

… because that's the only thing that you can actually make and sell. It's not as if there are no attempts to create other types of devices — people are just not buying these.

> But your takeaway is that the GPLv3 is the problem, rather than the ones seeking to repress users? WTF?

GPLv3 is a problem because it's expressly designed to make sure code released under that license wouldn't reach actual users and would forever stay irrelevant.

Yes, it was brave attempt to change the industry rules… and it failed. Time to move on.

> And yes, by any objective standard, I'm thriving. My personal printing needs are well met these days, and I've been able to leverage this work into a (very) modest consulting business that pays for more creative-outlet-type devices (most recent one was a laser engraver that runs GPLv3-licensed GRBL).

Interesting. This means that while industry-at-large changed and now using GPLv3 for something like uutils just means that nobody would bother to even look on your creation… yet at the same time certain niche markets appeared where GPLv3 is not considered large enough liability to try such software.

This certainly is an interesting example and article may show how more such niches can be found (or made?). That would mean that “free software” may still be relevant to some people beyond core “die-hard believers”. And certain types of software may actually exist as genuine “free software” because of that.

I wasn't aware such niches remained. All the software I develop and use is either:

Used by billions of people — and then, of course, GPLv3 is just flat out unacceptable, or
is niche enough that you can't make a business out of it — and then GPLv3 is irrelevant since there are noone who would misappropriate it in the first place (since there are no money in it)

If you may show where “free software” can be actually useful then it would be 100 times more important than whining about the desire of uutils makers to create something that people would actually use.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 11, 2021 0:39 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (10 responses)

> … because that's the only thing that you can actually make and sell. It's not as if there are no attempts to create other types of devices — people are just not buying these.

Of course there are other types of devices, and real people do buy them. There is a considerable middle ground between "tens of millions of units shipped in a quarter" and "nothing".

> GPLv3 is a problem because it's expressly designed to make sure code released under that license wouldn't reach actual users and would forever stay irrelevant.

[citation needed]

> If you may show where “free software” can be actually useful then it would be 100 times more important than whining about the desire of uutils makers to create something that people would actually use.

"free software" isn't inherently useful, except in an abstract educational sense. But "useful software" is made more so by being "free".

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 11, 2021 8:24 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> Of course there are other types of devices, and real people do buy them. There is a considerable middle ground between "tens of millions of units shipped in a quarter" and "nothing".

Yes and the resources to pay engineers and develop software are a direct function of that volume.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 11, 2021 8:26 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (8 responses)

> > GPLv3 is a problem because it's expressly designed to make sure code released under that license wouldn't reach actual users and would forever stay irrelevant.

> [citation needed]

Let's quote you then:

> The entire purpose of the "tech industry" these days is to sell advertising (and/or access to "content") on locked-down appliances.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 11, 2021 10:37 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (7 responses)

Those aren't mutually exclusive, and in any case, my quote says nothing to support the assertion that GPLv3 was "Expressly designed to make sure code wouldn't reach actual users and would stay irrelevant" (I'd think such an absolute declaration as to the intents of the GPLv3 would be trivial to cite, as the whole drafting process was quite public)

And do I really have to point out that the software world is *much much much* bigger than the "tech industry"?

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 11, 2021 11:53 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (6 responses)

> I'd think such an absolute declaration as to the intents of the GPLv3 would be trivial to cite, as the whole drafting process was quite public

The whole thing was designed to fight tivoization. It wasn't the only reason to create GPLv3, but that was the main one. And the expected outcome was that hardware manufacturers would just make it possible to change the code on a device they sell.

But it was really quite naive to expect such an outcome in a world where the same hardware is sold to a different users at “differentiated prices”. Think Intel's CPUs or compare prices of TI-NSpire and TI-NSpire CAS (not only they have identical hardware, their sales rely on the inability of the buyer to tinker with their software… they are not doing all that good of a job ensuring that, actually, since they only need to claim that it's impossible to change the software, they don't need to make it actually impossible — but that stil absolutely precludes use of GPLv3 software).

FSF hoped to, basically, change the business models of many different industries, laws (that's very explicitly written there, look on section #3), the style in which governments operate — with very limited reward: the ability to use some software for free. No wonder the attempt backfired.

It was a gamble: we may change the rules under which the whole world operates or we would be kicked out of mainstream and relegated to tiny, insignificant niches. But GCC looked so entrenched, Linux was so popular… the die was cast. “Free software” lost.

> And do I really have to point out that the software world is *much much much* bigger than the "tech industry"?

Indeed. And since software replaces hardware more and more it becomes more and more important for the developers of hardware to stop unauthorized modifications. For market compliance and other reasons.

Indeed, that was pointed out to FSF many, many times during the GPLv3 drafting. And it was altered to accommodate some such uses (look for distinctions WRT to “User Product”, e.g. — it's there specifically to allow producers of industrial devices not intended to be used by “Joe Average” to be able to delived locked-down hardware to their customers who very expressly don't want the ability to change the code on a device with associated liability). But it was very obvious even back then that such cases would become more widespread, not less (heck, look on #3 “Protecting Users' Legal Rights From Anti-Circumvention Law” again).

In a world where problems in software may lead to, at most, some papers being incorrectly printed GPLv3 may have been acceptable (yet, ironically enough, it was also not needed in such a world). In a world where software drives literally everything… it's unusable and ensures that end-users would never see your software.

Relying on software to fix hardware bugs is the norm novadays and it's much, much, MUCH simpler to rely on the locked down, signed, firmware instead on some nebulous schemes which may detect and alter modification of core system library (like libstdc++) and save the hardware anyway.

It's certainly nice that some niche industries may still afford to use GPLv3 and I really would be glad to read your article about that (no sarcasm here) but GPLv3 was expressly designed to make sure software under said license wouldn't be acceptable for many, many, MANY industries and thus would never reach the end users.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 11, 2021 12:15 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

> but GPLv3 was expressly designed to make sure software under said license wouldn't be acceptable for many, many, MANY industries and thus would never reach the end users.

This may have been the end result, but it is was not the "Expressly designed intent", as you yourself said in the very first sentence of your reply:

> The whole thing was designed to fight tivoization. It wasn't the only reason to create GPLv3, but that was the main one. And the expected outcome was that hardware manufacturers would just make it possible to change the code on a device they sell.

(though that should be "continue to make it possible" -- manufacturers have to do considerably more work to create a locked-down device than not)

Anyway. In my experience (based on discussions with the last two $dayjobs' legal staff) it's not the anti-DRM clauses that made the GPLv3 a pariah -- that was a minor nuisance, easily worked around via technical means. The patent language, however, was the RealProblem(tm).

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 11, 2021 12:36 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

> though that should be "continue to make it possible" -- manufacturers have to do considerably more work to create a locked-down device than not

Locked-down devices predate not just GPLv3, not just the whole GNU project. They go back to early days of the IT industry. IBM sold features which would be unlocked (by installation of some SMS cards) back in 1950th, TROS modules in 1960th and so on.

Yes, it was relatively easy to circumvent these limitations (compared to RSA signature in modern devices) but that's not something people invented just to make FSF angry at them.

GPLv3 needs entirely new scheme, though: the one where you can change part of your base system software but not the whole thing.

That is certainly harder to achieve than full lock down of the whole thing.

> Anyway. In my experience (based on discussions with the last two $dayjobs' legal staff) it's not the anti-DRM clauses that made the GPLv3 a pariah -- that was a minor nuisance, easily worked around via technical means. The patent language, however, was the RealProblem(tm).

How is that substantially different from Apache license? It also includes the patent grant. And is loved by the industry.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 11, 2021 12:49 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (3 responses)

> It's certainly nice that some niche industries may still afford to use GPLv3 and I really would be glad to read your article about that (no sarcasm here) but GPLv3 was expressly designed to make sure software under said license wouldn't be acceptable for many, many, MANY industries and thus would never reach the end users.

For the "tech industry" as a whole, the "user" is not the "customer" -- as in, those _using_ the product/device/whatever are not the same parties who actually fork over money. In those scenarios (and other business models where hardware is sold at a loss and made up for on the back end), locked-down devices are economically advantageous.

For everything else, barring legal/regulatory anti-tamper requirements (which are actually quite rare), there simply isn't an economic incentive/advantage to lock the hardware down; indeed it doing so can actually place you at a competitive disadvantage (because it both raises your costs and _reduces_ end-user functionality/utility)

In my two decades of experience in this field, the general concept of copyleft as a whole is the problem -- businesses simply don't want to have to comply with source distribution requirements and the risk that their "secret sauce" is forced into the open due to viral GPL contamination. Nevermind that having the processes to maintain/track the "software supply chain" is a practical necessity (ie _not_ having it can be a massive liability even without copyleft/GPL)

Once they accept the practical realities of having some GPL software (ie providing corresponding source code and keeping their proprietary stuff, if any, properly segregated), GPLv2 vs GPLv3 vs MPL vs SCCL or whatever is largely irrelevant... unless you have patents you're trying to protect/enforce, and the GPLv3's explicit patent license can possibly render your business' entire patent portfolio effectively useless for anything other than purely defensive means. That scares the bejeebus out of the suits, so the edict comes down that GPLv3 is bad, along with the funding to avoid its use, even to the point of wholesale development of in-house replacements.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 11, 2021 12:57 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

You still haven't explained what makes explicit patent grant in GPLv3 worse than no less explicit patent grant of APL. And APL is certainly warmly embraced by the industry.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 11, 2021 14:17 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

While both licenses have explicit patent grants, they differ greatly in scope.

ASLv2's patent clauses kick in only for _contributions_ to the software (ie "by contributing, you're granting a license for all patents you have that relate to the software") , but GPLv3's patent clauses go considerably further, applying even if you merely redistribute unmodified 3rd party software covered by a patent you hold or have licensed.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 11, 2021 15:42 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

It's just one example but I worked on a project that forked the last GPLv2 version of GRUB for pure tivoization reasons. No one at $BIGCORP ever seemed to care about any GPLvX patent difference, it's all about the tivoization difference, in fact there are mandatory trainings about the latter and not about the former.

macOS has been stuck to the last GPLv2 version of bash for years, now switching to zsh. Same for other software on macOS.

Same timing all across the industry, what a coincidence!

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 28, 2021 14:09 UTC (Mon) by immibis (subscriber, #105511) [Link]

> > There is no compromise with someone who doesn't believe you have the right to exist. Keep that in mind when you talk about compromising ideals.

> That lines highlights the issue with the GPLv3 and the reason why it shouldn't be used much better than anything else.

Pardon? What about the GPLv3 doesn't give people the right to exist?

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 11, 2021 5:05 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (1 responses)

The people who care about monetization were never using permissive licenses, are not now using GPLv3, and increasingly they're not even using AGPL. Instead, they're inventing their own proprietary fake-open-source licenses such as the SSPL or Commons Clause. As it turns out, "take somebody else's open source software and host it for a small fee" is an increasingly viable business model, and the Four Freedoms (particularly freedom 0) were specifically designed to allow people to do that sort of thing.

Rewriting the GNU Coreutils in Rust

Posted Jun 11, 2021 6:20 UTC (Fri) by joib (subscriber, #8541) [Link]

> The people who care about monetization were never using permissive licenses

Some are, typically those using an 'open core' business model.

> As it turns out, "take somebody else's open source software and host it for a small fee" is an increasingly viable business model, and the Four Freedoms (particularly freedom 0) were specifically designed to allow people to do that sort of thing.

Sure. Software where only the copyright holder is allowed to monetize it is quite clearly not free, as freedom from the tyranny of the copyright holder is one of the core ideas behind both free software and open source. That being said, if an oligopolistic megacorporation uses their superior economy of scale to crush anyone else, including the original creators, from hosting an open source app that's a problem too. I don't know what 'the solution' to this would look like, though it seems the lack of success of AGPL would suggest that increasingly stringent copyleft isn't it.