IBM to Acquire Red Hat for $34 Billion

zeebra · 08-06-2019, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cynwulf

Not a great example. There are viable alternatives to glibc such as musl libc, which are not encumbered with GPL.

However the replacement for libc and gcc are very real, whereas the replacement for Linux, is at this stage, purely theoretical.

Linux tried switching away from glibc but it was all in vain, it's an absolutely core part of the whole community, everyone uses it and any replacement theories are pure fantasies or theoretical, just like switching Kernel. Sure, it can be done, but generally it is GNU/Linux that counts..

Debian offers some different GNU distroes: Debian GNU/Hurd, Debian GNU/kfreebsd, GNU/netBSD.

GNU and Linux are mutually dependent and equally important. Often when people talk about Linux stuff, in real life they are talking about GNU stuff. So it's not just glibc.

Anyways, it's not a discussion worth having. The main thing is that we can have freedom and openess, and that's due to GNU and FSF. If it was up to the Linux gang, freedom doesn't really matter, and you might just as well have things like Android/Linux, which is an unfree tyrannical system, despite what some people claim. Or Busybox/Linux which is also locked down and bad (due to lack of gcc/glibc/make).

I don't know your motivation to keep discussing this, but I'd advise you stop it and just enjoy the freedom we can both have. The main threat to such freedom is not IBM, but creepy things like SystemD.

average_user · 08-06-2019, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeebra

Linux tried switching away from glibc but it was all in vain, it's an absolutely core part of the whole community, everyone uses it and any replacement theories are pure fantasies or theoretical, just like switching Kernel. Sure, it can be done, but generally it is GNU/Linux that counts..

WTF? Is glibc used on Android, the most popular Linux-based operating system and the most popular operating system in the world? And what's that little thing on my OpenWRT router

Code:

~ $ ll /lib/libc.so.0
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          21 Sep 11  2015 /lib/libc.so.0 -> libuClibc-0.9.33.2.so

?

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeebra

GNU and Linux are mutually dependent and equally important. Often when people talk about Linux stuff, in real life they are talking about GNU stuff. So it's not just glibc.

GCC was started by GNU and it still has to be used to build Linux, together with GNU make I think and bash in a few places. When Linux is built there are no "mutual dependencies" any more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeebra

Anyways, it's not a discussion worth having.

That's correct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeebra

Or Busybox/Linux which is also locked down and bad (due to lack of gcc/glibc/make).

You should educate yourself on Busybox. It's not supposed to be a replacement for gcc, glibc etc. It's very possible that your TV, set-top-box, router and e-book reader come with busybox. Android comes with toolbox that is quite similar.

zeebra · 08-07-2019, 03:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by average_user

WTF? Is glibc used on Android, the most popular Linux-based operating system and the most popular operating system in the world? And what's that little thing on my OpenWRT router

I already mentioned Android/Linux as an example of a terrible system which is Linux but not GNU.

Quote:

Originally Posted by average_user

You should educate yourself on Busybox. It's not supposed to be a replacement for gcc, glibc etc. It's very possible that your TV, set-top-box, router and e-book reader come with busybox. Android comes with toolbox that is quite similar.

I've used Busybox extensively, and one of the main issues preventing freedom was that it was impossible to install gcc/glibc/make.

Android is a massive jail, a system that owns you and offers no freedom at all. It's no better than Windows in regards to freedom. Perhaps even worse actually.

average_user · 08-07-2019, 05:20 AM

You quickly changed the subject. Now you're talking about 'freedom' and stuff but a few moments ago you claimed that nobody uses anything else than glibc and blah blah it's the only one.
Also, I wonder how does busybox prevent you from using gcc, glibc or make? Do coreutils also do that?

zeebra · 08-07-2019, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by average_user

You quickly changed the subject. Now you're talking about 'freedom' and stuff but a few moments ago you claimed that nobody uses anything else than glibc and blah blah it's the only one.
Also, I wonder how does busybox prevent you from using gcc, glibc or make? Do coreutils also do that?

It's not a discussion about me or winning against me in a discussion or trying to arrest me on something I said, so get over it. Stop just discussing to discuss and try to stay on topic and in the right timeframe.

average_user · 08-07-2019, 08:55 AM

Nah, I'm genuinely curios how does busybox prevent you from using gcc or make because it doesn't on my Slackware system:

Code:

[ja:/media/data/busybox/busybox] master+ ± PATH=$PWD:$PATH ./busybox ash
/media/data/busybox/busybox $ busybox
BusyBox v1.30.0.git (2019-08-07 15:51:32 CEST) multi-call binary.
BusyBox is copyrighted by many authors between 1998-2015.
Licensed under GPLv2. See source distribution for detailed
copyright notices.

Usage: busybox [function [arguments]...]
   or: busybox --list[-full]
   or: busybox --install [-s] [DIR]
   or: function [arguments]...

        BusyBox is a multi-call binary that combines many common Unix
        utilities into a single executable.  Most people will create a
        link to busybox for each function they wish to use and BusyBox
        will act like whatever it was invoked as.

Currently defined functions:
        [, [[, acpid, add-shell, addgroup, adduser, adjtimex, arch, arp, arping, ash, awk, base64, basename, beep, blkdiscard, blkid, blockdev, bootchartd, brctl, bunzip2, bzcat, bzip2, cal, cat, chat, chattr,
        chgrp, chmod, chown, chpasswd, chpst, chroot, chrt, chvt, cksum, clear, cmp, comm, conspy, cp, cpio, crond, crontab, cryptpw, cttyhack, cut, date, dc, dd, deallocvt, delgroup, deluser, depmod, devmem,
        df, dhcprelay, diff, dirname, dmesg, dnsd, dnsdomainname, dos2unix, dpkg, dpkg-deb, du, dumpkmap, dumpleases, echo, ed, egrep, eject, env, envdir, envuidgid, ether-wake, expand, expr, factor, fakeidentd,
        fallocate, false, fatattr, fbset, fbsplash, fdflush, fdformat, fdisk, fgconsole, fgrep, find, findfs, flock, fold, free, freeramdisk, fsck, fsck.minix, fsfreeze, fstrim, fsync, ftpd, ftpget, ftpput,
        fuser, getopt, getty, grep, groups, gunzip, gzip, halt, hd, hdparm, head, hexdump, hexedit, hostid, hostname, httpd, hush, hwclock, i2cdetect, i2cdump, i2cget, i2cset, id, ifconfig, ifdown, ifenslave,
        ifplugd, ifup, inetd, init, insmod, install, ionice, iostat, ip, ipaddr, ipcalc, ipcrm, ipcs, iplink, ipneigh, iproute, iprule, iptunnel, kbd_mode, kill, killall, killall5, klogd, last, less, link,
        linux32, linux64, linuxrc, ln, loadfont, loadkmap, logger, login, logname, logread, losetup, lpd, lpq, lpr, ls, lsattr, lsmod, lsof, lspci, lsscsi, lsusb, lzcat, lzma, lzop, makedevs, makemime, man,
        md5sum, mdev, mesg, microcom, mkdir, mkdosfs, mke2fs, mkfifo, mkfs.ext2, mkfs.minix, mkfs.vfat, mknod, mkpasswd, mkswap, mktemp, modinfo, modprobe, more, mount, mountpoint, mpstat, mt, mv, nameif,
        nanddump, nandwrite, nbd-client, nc, netstat, nice, nl, nmeter, nohup, nproc, nsenter, nslookup, ntpd, nuke, od, openvt, partprobe, passwd, paste, patch, pgrep, pidof, ping, ping6, pipe_progress,
        pivot_root, pkill, pmap, popmaildir, poweroff, powertop, printenv, printf, ps, pscan, pstree, pwd, pwdx, raidautorun, rdate, rdev, readahead, readlink, readprofile, realpath, reboot, reformime,
        remove-shell, renice, reset, resize, resume, rev, rm, rmdir, rmmod, route, rpm, rpm2cpio, rtcwake, run-init, run-parts, runlevel, runsv, runsvdir, rx, script, scriptreplay, sed, sendmail, seq, setarch,
        setconsole, setfattr, setfont, setkeycodes, setlogcons, setpriv, setserial, setsid, setuidgid, sh, sha1sum, sha256sum, sha3sum, sha512sum, showkey, shred, shuf, slattach, sleep, smemcap, softlimit, sort,
        split, ssl_client, start-stop-daemon, stat, strings, stty, su, sulogin, sum, sv, svc, svlogd, svok, swapoff, swapon, switch_root, sync, sysctl, syslogd, tac, tail, tar, taskset, tc, tcpsvd, tee, telnet,
        telnetd, test, tftp, tftpd, time, timeout, top, touch, tr, traceroute, traceroute6, true, truncate, tty, ttysize, tunctl, ubiattach, ubidetach, ubimkvol, ubirename, ubirmvol, ubirsvol, ubiupdatevol,
        udhcpc, udhcpd, udpsvd, uevent, umount, uname, unexpand, uniq, unix2dos, unlink, unlzma, unshare, unxz, unzip, uptime, users, usleep, uudecode, uuencode, vconfig, vi, vlock, volname, w, wall, watch,
        watchdog, wc, wget, which, who, whoami, whois, xargs, xxd, xz, xzcat, yes, zcat, zcip, nologin
/media/data/busybox/busybox $ gcc --version
gcc (GCC) 5.3.0
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

/media/data/busybox/busybox $ make --version
GNU Make 4.1
Built for x86_64-slackware-linux-gnu
Copyright (C) 1988-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

cynwulf · 08-09-2019, 04:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeebra

Linux tried switching away from glibc but it was all in vain, it's an absolutely core part of the whole community, everyone uses it and any replacement theories are pure fantasies or theoretical, just like switching Kernel. Sure, it can be done, but generally it is GNU/Linux that counts..

"Linux" don't need to "switch away" to a different libc, it's up those developing the replacement libc and those building the kernel from it, to ensure it works. i.e. Linux can be built against Android's bionic libc and against musl libc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeebra

Debian offers some different GNU distroes: Debian GNU/Hurd, Debian GNU/kfreebsd, GNU/netBSD.

The first one is a rather futile project, the second is practically dead and the third is long gone. Of the three, the kFreeBSD port was promising, but lacks developers and resources.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeebra

Anyways, it's not a discussion worth having.
[...]
I don't know your motivation to keep discussing this, but I'd advise you stop it and just enjoy the freedom we can both have. The main threat to such freedom is not IBM, but creepy things like SystemD.

IBM as the new owners of Red Hat, who in turn have funded the development of systemd and paid its developers are not a threat, but systemd itself is...?