The Great Ubuntu NAS Project, Continued…
Malena Bower
Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is a discontinued[159] Debian flavor. It used the FreeBSD kernel and GNU userland. The majority of software in Debian GNU/kFreeBSD was built from the same sources as Debian, with some kernel packages from FreeBSD. The k in kFreeBSD is an abbreviation for kernel, which refers to the FreeBSD kernel. Before discontinuing the project, Debian maintained i386 and amd64 ports. The last version of Debian kFreeBSD was Debian 8 (Jessie) RC3. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD was created in 2002.[160] It was included in Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) as a technology preview, and in Debian 7.0 (Wheezy) as an official port. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD was discontinued as an officially supported platform as of Debian 8.0. Debian developers cited OSS, pf, jails, NDIS, and ZFS as reasons for being interested in the FreeBSD kernel.[161] It has not been updated since Debian 8.[162] From July 2019, the operating system continues to be maintained unofficially.[163]As of July 2023, the development of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD has officially terminated due to the lack of interest and developers.[164]
"Qt is used extensively in Kubuntu and KDE applications, and Canonical is delighted to see this breakthrough in its licensing model," said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu project. "Qt's new licensing terms will help us deliver ever more 'lustful' applications to users. Nokia's continued investment in cross-platform Qt libraries, and the Linux platform, is a major driver of innovation in the free software desktop and mobile device stack."
I'm confused, how exactly does one 'kill' Linux? I thought that one of the beautiful aspects of the GPL is its robustness. Everyone is free to do basically anything they want (with the most minor caveats) which is great because that means you can always just fork GPL'd code as long as you release your changes with your distributions. Even though I've moved from Debian to Xubuntu for my personal computers, I could very easily move back. This is not true with my servers (which have remained Debian for that very reason).
Personally I feel like Canonical has done a lot for Linux and they've done that by taking risks. Now Shuttleworth is taking risks that a lot of people simply do not agree with. It's fine to criticize these in detail but a hyperbole like "killing Linux" frankly befuddles me. How is this going to disrupt CentOS or Debian or Gentoo or Slackware or any other distro of Linux? Furthermore, how is this going to disrupt the core kernel itself? Linux is robust. Linux is alive and vibrant on servers. Canonical made a move to make it a desktop OS just like Android was an effort to put it on phones. If they think that taking their code is a smart gamble and you so strongly disagree with it, fork that code and start doing your own development.
Shuttleworth can't kill Linux. He can make stupid decisions that negatively affect Ubuntu but at the end of the day, he's getting money for that development from backers and has the say in which direction that development team takes. He worked on Debian a while ago and left because he disagreed with it. Now if you're developing for Ubuntu and you don't like his direction, leave and make MasterNerdGuyLinux or whatever you want to call it. No one's stopping you, the Linux kernel development marches on, what's the problem here?
Microsoft can't kill Linux and neither will Shuttleworth -- that's a testament to Linux. He can jeopardize his marketshare but at the end of the day I will argue that Shuttleworth has made a major positive impact on Linux despite my frank disagreement with his latest developments.