lemmeee

If you are asking what it means that a program is proprietary - it's a program that doesn't give the user the 4 essential freedoms: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#four-freedoms

But if you are asking what parts of those projects are proprietary, then:

• in Linux it's the binary blobs that it contains - that's why distros like Debian have to remove them and why Linux-libre was created
• in Android at the very least it's Google Play + the Linux kernel with blobs
• in SteamOS at the very least it's the Steam client + the Linux kernel with blobs and according to gnu.org proprietary drivers - but I saw some people say that that last bit isn't true and I don't know how to verify that

Arch uses the same kernel with blobs, but it's clear to see that SteamOS is more prorietary than Arch.

And GPL V3 is only needed for hardware products that come with Linux.

True. So things like Android smartphones, smart TVs and other stuff. So if we want to protect the users of those devices, we need to switch Linux to GPLv3. I don't think there is any other way. Manufacturers would still be able to use the old version of Linux, but then they would miss out on new features and patches. It would make it harder for them to keep abusing their users.

So why should it be GPL and AGPL shouldn’t?

Are you asking why the FSF doesn't propose to license Linux under AGPLv3? I've never really thought about that. Maybe they don't think it would add anything?

That's great! It's still a bit disappointing that so many people decided to stay on Reddit, though. They made a big protest just for everything to go back to normal.

Is Boost proprietary? Because then it's a good thing that you switched.

They work for people whose priority is freedom and that are GNU/Linux experts. So I don't think it's productive to make general statements like that. If there is something that sucks (like battery life), you should say what it is exactly.

If you can't know what some program does and you can't change it, then you don't control it. And if you don't control the software, then you don't control the device. You can remove Windows from your computer too, but that doesn't make it ethical. Microsoft could tell you: you don't have to use our OS if you don't like it. But people use it and they are abused by this company. Nobody should have that kind of power over users.

People deserve freedom and they deserve to be able to control their devices. For that you need the 4 essential freedoms. Trying to take that away from them is wrong. That's why proprietary software is always unethical.

AGPL is mostly only needed for server software. So for example GIMP or Blender don't have to be licensed under AGPL, because they aren't meant to be used over the network. So there would be no benefit from doing this.

There is also LGPL, which is meant for some libraries that are supposed to compete with proprietary libraries.

We’d all like Steam to be open source, but that’s not going to happen for a number of reasons

We should fight to make that happen or at least not pretend that it's fine.

We like Valve because they are actually contributing to open source projects, unlike Microsoft who say they love open source but don’t do anything to support it.

I don't deny their contributions. We should praise them for the good work that they are doing, but at the same time we should criticize their bad behavior. Microsoft makes Free Software too (VS Code kinda, TypeScript) and they give money to the Linux Foundation. But they also do a lot of unethical things.

In both cases you could pretty easily uninstall that app and replace it with something else.

And that makes it ethical? Users still don't know what the app does and they can't easily change it. It keeps secrets from them on their own devices. Its developers put themselves in a position of power over users. Making such software is wrong.

It contains proprietary binary blobs without source code. That's why Linux-libre project was created, but some distros (like Debian) remove the blobs on their own.

The goal of GPL (and Copyleft) was always to protect user's freedom by making sure that nobody can take it away from them. So I disagree that it should be a separate license. Linus Torvalds says this, because freedom is just not a priority for him - Linux contains proprietary blobs. Despite his huge contributions to Free Software, I don't think that he is against proprietary software at all.