The removal of GPL code from FreeBSD 16’s base system isn’t just housekeeping — it reflects a BSD vision of “software freedom” that differs from FSF, Gnu, and Linux.
If you want to own your own proprietary BSD system without having to work for it, FreeBSD 16 — which won’t be released until December, 2027 — should make that easy-peasy. Michael Larabel, the publisher of Phoronix who makes it his business to know such things, reported on Wednesday that the last piece of GPL licensed code has been removed from the source tree for FreeBSD 16.
This is actually something of a technicality built on top of a technicality.
The last GPL code standing was ‘dialog,’ found in the FreeBSD installer. Dialog is a userland utility built on top of ncurses, which was used to draw the menus, forms, message boxes, and prompts that the installer used to interact with users in the terminal. FreeBSD replaced it with bsddialog, a BSD‑licensed clone providing similar terminal widgets, so the installer could keep the same UI behavior without depending on GPL/LGPL code.
The move from dialog to bsddialog happened a while back in the installer, although another similar tool — dpv — continues to use dialog. That tool has now been retired from FreeBSD 16, although the operating system’s most current production ready release, FreeBSD 15, continues to make dpv available as a tool, although it’s not actively used by the system.
The removal of GPL code is important because a lot of BSD people have a different view on “software freedom” than the rest of us. To many in the BSD crowd, “freedom” means the freedom to make the software proprietary, as Steve Jobs did to create NeXTSTEP and OS X. To create a proprietary operating system out of a BSD operating system, GPL code must be removed because GPL code can’t be released under a proprietary license.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
I continue to support GPL projects over BSD ones. The GPL carries software freedom forward into our future. The BSD license does not.
Exactly, Joe. Linus Torvalds once said during one of his onstage interviews at Open Source Summit that the reason he didn’t choose a permissive license for Linux was because he didn’t want someone who helped develop Linux to wake up and find that their code was now locked up in some proprietary product.
The BSD license grants freedom. The GPL grants permission on the condition that you propagate its licensing terms into derivative and combined works. Calling both “free” obscures the distinction: BSD lets recipients decide what to do next; GPL uses copyright to deny them that choice. One is genuinely permissive. The other is a licensing virus by design.
@Will I rather use a software license that perpetuates freedom by design than one that permits to enslave me to a vendor, thank you very much.
See how the tables have turned?
@Ricardo, I’d rather offer my creative work for others to use as they see fit, without restriction. That is what freedom means.
The tables have not turned; you have simply redefined freedom as an obligation imposed on every downstream recipient. BSD permits proprietary use, but it does not compel anyone to buy from, use, or remain with a vendor. The GPL compels authors of derivative works to license their own contributions on prescribed terms.
Protection from vendor lock-in may be desirable, but compulsory reciprocity is still compulsion, not freedom.