AFAIK the GNU authors didn’t have access to the original source code because they were proprietary. I don’t know why this matters but it feels different in a purely “feels” way.
The GNU authors almost certainly did have access to the AT&T UNIX source code, and they had to be reminded not to refer to UNIX source code when writing GNU replacements. GNU made intentional efforts to design their programs along completely different lines to avoid similarity to the originals. This is described at https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Reading-No... under "Referring to Proprietary Programs".
Yes and no; due to antitrust laws with AT&T, almost everyone had copies of UNIX source code, especially if you were near any universities (why does BSD still honor UC Berkeley on bootup, do you think?). Easy as pie to get; but extremely difficult to legally use without a license.
The question about whether Linux and GNU copied from the proprietary originals caused the famous SCO lawsuits. Even though this was proven false, there’s very little chance the originals weren’t used as reference in GNU.
Gotcha! I don’t, but that’s why I asked, I wasn’t sure if this was about any specific license or what.
I’m also curious about this: does that it’s in a different language make any difference here? Like I could also maybe see what you’re saying if these were also in C, but being in Rust, it’s not like they can literally copy the code, regardless. I know you’re talking about feelings and not hard and fast rules, but do you think that plays into any of the feelings at all?
Not really. I love Rust. It’s all I want to write these days.
My feelings stem from what I perceive as the degradation of the old school hacker ethos into a more corporate friendly environment. Especially during this time when the bigger companies are salivating at the mouth to replace SWEs with AI at the same time encouraging us to pick friendly licenses so they can take advantage of our volunteer work…
I didn’t mean that it was about Rust specifically, just that if a language change factored in.
Anyway, thanks for replying. It’s always interesting to hear how people think. I personally feel differently, but I’m sure it’s nothing you haven’t heard before. :)
