this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

LXD was under the Linux containers project earlier. After the Canonical takeover of LXD, the following changes were made:

  1. The repo privileges of the original LXD developers were revoked. Those developers are driving the development of Incus now.
  2. LXD's license was changed to AGPL+CLA

The first point means that Incus is the true successor of the original LXD. The current LXD is a jealously guarded pet project of Canonical in the same manner as Snap and Mir.

As for the second point, I'm usually a proponent of AGPL. But CLA corrupts it so much that it's more harmful than with a permissive license. The real intention of this license change is to prevent Incus from incorporating changes from LXD (since the copyleft license of LXD code is incompatible with the permissive license of Incus). Meanwhile LXD continues to incorporate changes from Incus, although the Incus developers haven't signed any CLA. This move by Canonical is in very bad faith, IMO.

So yes - I consider LXD to be untrustworthy. But that doesn't cover the old LXD code, its developers or its community. Those transformed fully into the Incus project the same way OpenOffice was forked into LibreOffice. And I don't trust the LXD name anymore in the same way nobody trusted the OpenOffice name after the fork (before it was donated to the Apache foundation).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Oh, yep, that's shady and bad behavior. Thank you.