Comments by "Anony Mousse" (@anon_y_mousse) on "A New Sitcom Coming This Fall To DTTV..." video.

I'm never going to say it. The kernel is the driving force here and no GNU software needs to be used. Look at Android, a mostly useful Linux distro without GNU. It's not great, but it is an example of the fact that GNU isn't needed.
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@Soulskinner Funny you should say that since it was revealed when the source code to WinXP was leaked a few years back that MS was illegally using GPL licensed code in their OS and not even remotely contributing their modifcations and leaving them open. Many corporations do indeed work on the Linux kernel, but they do so out of good publicity, they certainly don't make a profit off of it. And no, not even Red Hat makes a profit off of their contributions, they make their money on supporting their software. Which is where most companies that actually make money promoting Linux make it. As to the last point, you're attempting to refute it by agreeing with it? Or do you think that no one else cropped up to fulfill that need? Because many have, and some are even still doing it today. You even made that point for me by pointing out BSD systems which are most definitely not GNU and most definitely are open source promoters.
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@SirLancelotS Distro is short for distribution. As in an end product that is distributed by someone, in this case a company. Linux plus all the other software that comprises Android and is distributed by Google makes it a Linux distro. The core of the operating system being the kernel, and the kernel having a widely known name is just a way of referring to things that use that core. You understand that right? That the word is correctly being applied here, whether you like it or not.
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@johnq4951 Alpine Linux is one.
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@shallex5744 Yeah, we'd have everything without GNU, it just would have taken a different form. I wouldn't mind if it was less socialism focused. The GPL, whatever version you want to use, restricts users far too much. If MIT or APL or any others along those lines had won out, Linux might have a larger user base, more developers, higher pay for those developing for it. Who knows. This is all speculation, because we won't ever know now, but given real world experience, it's probably an accurate guess.
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@MicroClases_Ciencia If they were based on GNU code they would be required to be under the GPL. The names of the programs that GNU provides are either implementations of standard POSIX programs or library functions, or things that are legacy from before GNU existed when they were in UNIX or some other OS. Much like Apple, GNU didn't innovate, they just had better marketing.
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@softwarelivre2389 The GPL doesn't guarantee freedom, unfortunately. It attempts to lay a legal basis for guaranteeing it, but it fails as has been proven by companies like Microsoft. Where is the lawsuit to stop them? They used plenty of GPL code, without accreditation, without open sourcing their changes, where is the government to file an antitrust lawsuit?
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@SirLancelotS The only requirement is that it uses the Linux kernel, and for the time being it does.
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@Soulskinner It sounds like you don't understand what I was saying. Microsoft illegally used GPL code, full stop. No one who wrote any of that code made money off of it. If you write code and use a personal license, monetizing the code is up to you. If you don't monetize it in some way and release it, then the code was merely given away, and at that time it doesn't matter what license you use, as you won't make money off of writing it. The government should file an antitrust lawsuit against MS, but they apparently refuse to, and not just for illegally using something contrary to its license. The majority of people that get money from contributing to open source are getting that money from using their time to contribute, not from the source code itself. So it doesn't matter what license they use, it's the monetization methodology that matters. The GPL precludes doing some things which could allow a programmer to make more money, and especially off of their code directly. There's absolutely nothing to prevent a program from being open sourced several years later, or having a license that requires users of your program to not share the source code. If MIT or BSD or APL had been the go to choice for licensing, we might have had less open source, note might have, but even if we had, there would've likely been more money made and more code written professionally. Again I'll say it, that this is hypothetical, but if you understand the economics of it all, you'll realize it's a very likely scenario.
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@Soulskinner You still don't understand my point. Those programmers made money off of their time, not the code they wrote. They might as well have been skywriting for all the good it did them. If the GPL had never existed, programmers would've chosen licenses like BSD, or MIT, or APL. Neither of the other two are you even acknowledging, which tells me you don't know what they are. Without the GPL, we would've had less in the way of companies doing what they wanted to do within the bounds of the law. Not every company is MS after all, and that would've led to more projects getting started, and more of the economy pushing into that sector. Clearly you don't understand how capitalism works, and I'm guessing that you're probably an anti-capitalist zealot. Forced open source with even the slightest legal teeth behind it has actually held the industry back.
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@Soulskinner So your assertion is what? That if GNU didn't exist and we didn't have a license like the GPL that no one would profit from open source? Or that only anti-consumer companies would exist? A little or lot of each? If you saw how the world worked, you'd realize things would still be the same with or without them in terms of closed source companies and non-software companies in general. Companies started by people with altruistic goals in mind would still exist and create open source. However, we might wind up with companies started by people who wanted to make profit, and took it that distance because they knew they could and were even slightly altruistic and opened their source. Without the GPL, they could legally work it that way even if they had to start with someone else's code. With the GPL, it's very likely that a lot of people of that middle mindset decided it wasn't worth the effort and didn't do it. You need to learn more about psychology and the economy and how people invest based on feelings.
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@Soulskinner I already know how all of it works, clearly better than you. If we had less open source software, we might actually be better off. There's too many horribly written open source programs as it is, all of them forgettable. Look at how projects have evolved and died off. If instead of starting a new project they had said, "do people need this", "do people want this", maybe then we'd have more good software.
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@Soulskinner And yet more people use closed source, and there are still good closed source programs. And without the GPL we'd still have open source as it did exist before it anyway, we'd just have less of it, maybe.
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@glidersuzuki5572 And I would argue that the GPL is intended to restrict the developers. User freedom isn't the only freedom that matters here, if developers don't want to contribute to a project because the project wants to force the usage of the GPL, then that project and its users lose out as does the developer. You might interject that no one is forcing them, but the license does. You can't modify GPL code without subsequently making your changes available under the GPL. So it's either start from scratch or be forced into a particular license.
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@93nada That's a bunch of coping nonsense. There were other open source projects that pushed things forward. It's not like Stallman invented open source, it was around before he was. Without the GPL, it's far more likely that Linux would've been a bigger success. Though, it's sad that that should be the case, that's the way business works in reality. A license that allows a corporation to use it with impunity would've made it a success, instead the possibility of being sued by thousands of different people kept many businesses from even giving it a shot.
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@93nada No, to think that it's due to Stallman, the FSF, GNU et al why we have any freedom at all is naive and childish. What's worse is we still don't have a whole lot of freedom. What's the market share for Windows? How about MacOS? People complain about Android not being a real Linux because it doesn't give you true freedom. What's Android's market share? How about iOS? Do you see where I'm going with this? We'd have more freedom if not for Stallman and the GPL. He was arrogant to think that everyone would fall in line and he has been proven wrong. That you don't see it is sad, and it just proves you're a zealot like he is. That attitude holds us back and keeps us in chains. If you want more people to adopt open source so we can be free, you need to learn how to market it.
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@93nada It actually is the topic of discussion, you're just too much of a zealot with definitions to get it. You're hung up on the same nonsense that Stallman and others like him are hung up on. Free versus open versus get TF out of here with that garbage. You know precisely what I mean, yet you decide to nitpick because you have a belief that you will stick to until you die. Refuse to change, that's fine, but I'd prefer to have more freedom and give it to everyone else while I'm at it. Servers may predominately run on Linux, but you can't use what they offer freely. In fact, they're used to restrict our freedom because you and everyone like you doesn't understand that you're not advocating for freedom, you're advocating for restrictions. We need true freedom, and for that, we need non-zealot advocates. We need everyone to be educated about freedom. We need everyone to demand it.
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