FreeBSD thought it had scrubbed all GPL code, but a few kernel leftovers remained.
Not so fast, FreeBSD! Thar still be GPL.
A couple of weeks back we told you that the folks at FreeBSD had removed all GPL code from their operating system to keep the world safe for devs with copyleft allergies. The OS was thought to be GPL-free after the removal of dpv, a toolset that contains the GPL tool ‘dialog.’
That’s evidently important to BSD folks, who think that software freedom means the freedom to make it private.
Unfortunately, the dev team at FreeBSD left some other GPL code behind, so the GPL still lurks, sprinkled in the FreeBSD kernel, of all places. It’s in a header file that was copy and pasted from the Linux kernel for Qualcomm SoCs. There are also some GPLv2 snippets in the Device Tree.
There is some good news for those wanting a GPL-free BSD: most of the GPL pieces in the kernel are also licensed under BSD, which means they don’t count for this purpose.
As for me, I think it’s amusing that somebody finds it so important to not be copyleft. It reminds me of Microsoft under Ballmer.
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
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