Ubuntu Will Replace GNU Core Utilities With Rust

How hard is it to just use a decent license like AGPL???

While shifting to Rust might be a good idea for improving safety and performance, adopting the MIT license represents a fundamental change that will enable large tech companies to develop and distribute proprietary software based on the new MIT-licensed Core Utilities. This shift moves away from the original vision of the project which was to ensure that the software remains free and open as enshrined in the GPL's copyleft principles. The permissive nature of the MIT license also will increase fragmentation, as it allows proprietary forks that diverge from the main project. This could weaken the community-driven development model and potentially lead to incompatible versions of the software.
- Open source has been captured and corporatized.
  But Ubuntu has always been extremely corporate.
  
  That doesn't mean we should make it easier for them, if anything that means we need a V4 of the GPL that addresses and combats that
- Do large tech companies contribute a lot to the GPL coreutils?
  
  Yes, they do. The GPL's copyleft clause requires companies to release the source code of any modifications they distribute, ensuring contributions back to the community. The MIT license, however, allows proprietary forks without this obligation. In other terms, the MIT license is effectively permitting companies to "jump out" of the open-source ecosystem they make use of.
- That explains all the fragmentation with Xorg, Mesa, libxml, and Haiku OS.
- This is stupid,, businesses just use busybox and move on.
  Nobody is freaking out that their smart toaster doesn't have the full version of troff.
- If this happened, would Ubuntu based operating systems be impacted as well? I might start to learn Debian or LMDE if so.
  
  MIT license is still open source, so Ubuntu based operating systems can still be open source. The problem is that this makes it less needed that they have to be. However most current projects will probably stay proper open source projects and likely continue to use a better license.

genuinely my only problem with it is the license. I really hate how much stuff is mit or apache now. I've seen some really nice projects get taken over and privatized in the last few years and nobody has learned
- sadly, i think that's exactly the reason why so many gnu coreutils/libc/compiler competitors keep croping up: people want to get rid of the gpl as much as possible. if they could replace the linux kernel with a non gpl variant they would
  not that the people creating the projects necessarily have this intention, but the projects are certainly being picked up and sponsored mainly for that reason
  
  Imo thats also why its devolped as well, people genuenly like permissive licenses because apparently coporate leeches arent an issue to them.

What you’re referring to as Linux is actually Uutils/Linux…
- Stevchard Jollman is making me really uncomfortable.
  
  Ew, AI generated image.
  Made with ❤️ using stolen assets.
  
  Cursed image

Can't wait for proprietary apps to not work on distros that still use gnu core utilities.

Fuck Ubuntu fuck MIT fuck everything

this means ubuntu is no longer a linux distro?? because if linux hardcore people think that linux is kernel+gnu then that means both android and ubuntu are not distros!! i believe the opposite, linux kernel? linux distro of course!! and ubuntu is the android of linux distros even if android is a linux distro itself
- Ubuntu is no longer GNU/Linux distro. Linux is just a kernel.:)
  
  It using glibc still distinguishes it as more of a GNU system than, say, Alpine.
- IMHO distros share the same apps. The defaults can differ, the implementations too but the user can install apps that are on other distros.
- Ubuntu already wasn't a linux distro nor is android. They're different operating system which use the Linux kernel.

Sounds good to me.
I actually prefer the MIT license too. It's more open.
- More open strictly in that it allows free software to be rolled up into proprietary software.
  
  So what? Some people just want to make stuff that helps other people.
  A more open license is a way to accomplish that.
  IMO it's weird to complain that someone makes their thing even more open source.
- If you were a survivor of Unix Wars you'd never touch MIT again

oh no!! wait but that means that xubuntu will still be around?? because as far as i know, xfce has some elements that use agpl and that would interfere with some rust code and would hurt xubuntu. would that make xubuntu stop existing?
- IANAL, but as far as I know there's no problem with distributing MIT software as a GPL component, since MIT allows imposing extra restrictions (like the share-the-source limitations of the GPL) to the code, so you can in theory turn every MIT software into GPL, what you can't do is turn GPL software into MIT, so if the GPL software links MIT libraries that are part of its function, that instance of MIT software needs to follow the GPL.
- do they interfere?

Clickbait. The VP Engineering for Ubuntu made a post that he was looking into using the Rust utils for Ubuntu and has been daily driving them and encouraged others to try
It’s by no means certain this will be done.
- Clickbait
  With mental outlaw, it's usually that or ragebait, to rile up his audience.
- Clickbait. The VP Engineering for Ubuntu made a post that he was looking into using the Rust utils for Ubuntu and has been daily driving them and encouraged others to try
  It’s by no means certain this will be done.
  Here is that post. It isn't certain to happen, but he doesn't only say that he is daily driving them. He says his goal is to make them the default in 25.10:
  My immediate goal is to make uutils’ coreutils implementation the default in Ubuntu 25.10, and subsequently in our next Long Term Support (LTS) release, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, if the conditions are right.
  
  His goal.
  A VP could have the goal to increase profits by 500% over the next 6 months but that doesn't mean it's gonna happen.
  It might happen, but just because someone says it's their goal is no confirmation that it will happen.
- Yeah this particular guy also loves doing insane things to his machine. He's absolutely mental in a wonderful way.
  My personal take on anything Jon does based on my experience with his delightful antics is that the only thing we can say for sure is if it doesn't work for him it's just not going to happen. His blog is pretty great to follow.
  
  Huh, he mains NixOS. Always a bit funny to see someone daily driving a distro different than what they professionally work on.
  I thought I recognized that blog, I remember reading his blog TPM+FDE for NixOS back when I was trying NixOS.

Hopefully it’s drop in compatible with GNU coreutils else a lot of scripts are gonna break
- That’s the project’s goal and they have 100% comparability across quite a few of the tools. Definitely still a ways to go before they can fully replace all of coreutils, but Ubuntu’s goal is to replace the tools peace meal with the once that are ready.

One of the main developers presented this project at FOSDEM.
https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-6196-rewriting-the-future-of-the-linux-essential-packages-in-rust-/
(He is a Mozilla employee but made a point to tell it was not affiliated with Mozilla and was working on it on his spare time)
- Then it's not too late to tell him it must be GPL.

Here's the giant run-on sentence youtube transcript:
- Oh, how I wish spoilers worked in my Lemmy app...
  
  Works on Voyager and Mlem.
  
  Works well in thunder
  
  Worked for me on the voyager app

Waiting for the Rust haters to get unjustifiedly mad again...
- I love rust and projects rewritten in Rust, but I've felt pretty mixed about this particular project. The strong copyleft on GNU coreutils is part of what keeps many Linux distros truly free. There's stuff like BusyBox or BSD coreutils if you need something you can make non-free, but GNU coreutils are just so nice. I wish this reimplementation in rust had been licensed with GPL or a similar copyleft license. At least there's no CLA with copyright transfer.
  
  Yeah the licensing is a bit worrying, but it's not a language issue.

Isn’t Rust a Mozilla project, and with the direction they are heading it’s not long until Rust is considered non-free and we‘ll be forever stuck with C
- No, it started as a Mozilla project; it's been independent for a long time now.
  If anything I expect Mozilla to be among the smaller contributors nowadays from a purely monetary standpoint.
- Which Mozilla projects started out as free and are now non-free, i.e. no longer under an open source (or even viral open source) licence?
- It started there, but now it's controlled by the rust foundation. If you wanna worry about licensing uutils is under an MIT license unlike GNU coreutils which is under GPL