FreeBSD 16 Retires the Last of Its GPL Code from Its Base System

Pretty sad from the free software movement's perspectice. Look how little leverage GNU's got these days. Then again, trying to contribute to GNU wasn't exactly a positive experience. Maybe it's for the best.

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riedel 31 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I am not really sure if I can follow. FreeBSD despite its title never had something to do with Free Software. BSD has a different history and it's "own licence". Being more consistent in its licence is a good thing particularly in contrast to Linux FreeBSD is a full distribution with user land. I would even think that you can without much problem publish a GPL version of FreeBSD if you like. I think you might have to leave out some CDDL stuff. FreeBSD has its value as an appliance OS (e.g. for firewalls or NAS) and FreeBSD has profited also from vendors contributing back: it is just another ecosystem . Personally I totally respect GPL and AGPL licenced software. The sad news is that without any fix in law, AI rewrites will kill GPL eventually, but then again also proprietary binaries can be decompiled and modified, so maybe there is still a win for freeing software in the game.

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mikece an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

On the other hand, isn't the FreeBSD user base shrinking and its former users going to Linux?

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bigfishrunning 44 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

As a 25 year Linux user (for work and at home), I've been experimenting with FreeBSD in the last year or so and I've found its simplicity refreshing. Maybe I'm swimming against the current, but I'm sure there are dozens of us!

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jjav 26 minutes ago | parent [-]

Same here, using Linux since the beginning (1993) but slowly migrating machines to FreeBSD (some to OpenBSD) as Linux slowly becomes ever more like windows which is exactly the opposite of what I want.

	▲	asimovfan 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		how so? could you please elaborate?

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isx726552 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

*BSD is dying! You don’t have to be Kreshkin…

But seriously, if one counts macOS and iOS as FreeBSD users, there are more than ever. Of course that means counting Android and Steam as Linux OSes, in which case Linux users still greatly outnumber FreeBSD users.

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bigfishrunning 43 minutes ago | parent [-]

FreeBSD's license means it shows up in a lot of unexpected places -- the last two Sony Playstations run a FreeBSD derived OS for instance. It's around, more then you think, but it's very quiet...

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rbanffy 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

One of the reasons it’s very quiet is that you can only do what the company that provided it to you allows you to do with it. You can’t reinstall a fork of PlayStation OS, for instance. Sony won’t provide you the sources and the changes they made. If it was a GPLv3 OS, they would provide everything you need to build your own PlayStation OS.

	▲	bigfishrunning 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		If it were a GPLv3 OS, it's likely that they would have chosen something else.

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throw0101d 38 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_based_on_Free...

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pengaru 3 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

FreeBSD has never played a significant role in the Free Software Movement.

Frankly I'm surprised there was any GPL code at all in the FreeBSD base repo in 2026.