Apart from being open source what is Linux? Could I not create my own operating system that is different to windows or Macos and call it Steve, again there might be an awnser for this and sounds stupid but its more out of curiosity.
Apart from being open source what is Linux? Could I not create my own operating system that is different to windows or Macos and call it Steve, again there might be an awnser for this and sounds stupid but its more out of curiosity.
Linux is technically just the kernel, which is essentially device drivers. The rest of the OS that talks to the kemel and runs the UI and services is other software, most of which is from the GNU Project of Richard Stallman.
It would be a mammoth task to create another OS but there’s no legal reason why you couldn’t as long as you don’t copy verbatim from other OS’s
Also, Linux/GNU Linux is alot more than just open source. It’s core foundation is Freedom: the freedom of the human being to have the code, read it, use it, modify it and share it. As long as you give back to the original source any improvements you make.
This freedom is what sets it apart from all other OS’, even other open source one’s.
The open source licences of Linux and the BSDs allow verbatim copying. That’s kind of the point of OSS.
In fact, Mac OS is a verbatim copy of a BSD.
I’ll give them a little credit: OS X is not quite built on a verbatim copy, it’s cobbled from a few open source and licensed parts, and a not-insignificant amount of in-house development some of which is contributed back upstream.
NextStep started out as more or less the 4.3BSD userland hosted on the Mach 2.5 kernel instead of the monolithic traditional Unix style kernel the BSDs are built on, with a DisplayPostScript based UI (large parts licensed from Adobe) layered on top.
After Apple bought Next (or Next bought Apple with Apple’s money, because Apple’s management at the time was staggeringly dysfunctional and almost all the management after the dust settled ended up being Next people), they made major changes. NextStep/OpenStep tended to perform not-that-well because of additional overhead passing things in and out of the microkernel, a problem many microkernel based Unix-likes had, so they updated to the OSFMK 7.3 Mach variant, the BSD code to versions from FreeBSD, then hybridized it by pushing some pieces that traditional Microkernels ran in user space into kernel space for performance reasons, resulting in the XNU kernel that essentially every modern Apple product runs.
They also completely replaced the GUI layer with something custom and proprietary - the original plan for what became OS X was to use the Display Post Script system + a hosted classic environment, but 1. Many third party developers revolted against needing to make a ground-up new port of their software in a totally different environment and 2. the Adobe licensing costs were higher than the price of a normal PC, which was kind of OK for Next competing in the workstation market, but not OK for Apple selling consumer machines.
Apple publishes the open-source parts including most of the kernel (lately an increasing portion of drivers and platform support stuff are distributed as object files not under the open license) on a regular basis, formerly under the name “Darwin” which could be built as a pretty typical BSD-like OS, but in a way that’s sufficiently community hostile to prevent anyone from really building successful derivative projects or contributing back to it. I think the most recent attempt was called “PureDarwin” and last I checked they’ve been stalled for about 2 years.
The engineer in charge of kernel stuff for the NeXTStep/OpenStep/Rhapsody/OS X family from inception in the late 80s to 2006 was Avie Tevanian, one of the original developers of Mach.
One who does use a lot of FreeBSD parts where it’s not entirely clear how much they contribute back is Sony. The CellOS and OrbisOS that the PS3 and PS4 used are close relatives of FreeBSD, and it’s possible they hid their contributions via contractors or consultants to not expose internal plans…or they just leeched, it’s not really clear.
But in pretty sure you can just verbatim copy, call it LinusOS and distribute it as such? Don’t you have to make some improvements and changes if you rename it as another OS?
The name Linux is trademarked, so you cannot use it without permission, yes: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/trademark-usage
But other than renaming it for trademark reasons, there are no real requirements for making improvements or whatever.
Really? Wow. I’m surprised that an OEM hasn’t done that and then renamed it to their own OS to compete with the likes of Apple and Windows or at least Chromebook. Eg Lenovo, HP etc
Forking Linux would involve taking on a huge maintenance burden, so everyone just uses it, though often basing on an older version and/or with some custom patches. That is typically how healthy open source stuff works.
Companies DO put brand names on systems built on top of Linux (or a BSD) all the time though, often ones that don’t make it obvious that’s what it is. ChromeOS and Android are both Linux based, but Android doesn’t ship most of the UNIX-y parts that are typically layered on top, and instead uses their own (also largely open source) components. ChromeOS is actually a fairly close relative of Gentoo with a few custom pieces.
Google has their own internal project for a kernel called Fuchsia, and it’s really interesting modern OS development that they’ve assembled a bunch of experts to work on… But it’s increasingly unclear if they plan to deploy it on customer facing products.
A ton of appliance type devices are basically very tiny custom Linux systems, often assembled with tools like Yocto. A lot if the vendors who sell components to go into said devices contribute code and/or money to Linux and Yocto, in order to make their products more attractive to device builders and avoid having to make and maintain their own tooling.
Most consumer routers are basically Linux (usually with a minimal userland like BusyBox), often essentially shitty old customized versions of OpenWRT. Sony alpha cameras? Customized Linux. Off on the BSD side, CellOS and OrbisOS that the PS3 and PS4 run, respectively are modified FreeBSD. Open Source OSes and tooling are everywhere because making, maintaining, and building tooling and developer support for an OS that runs on especially relatively large modern computers is a big, hard project, so very few entities try to do it themselves.
As I see it their options are:
Copy it without meaningfully changing anything, i.e. just redistributing Debian or Ubuntu with some logos and desktop backgrounds - there is no reason to install this on your own and no one will care. This is effectively the same thing as customized Windows installs that they ship.
Creating a custom Linux distribution. This is feasible and has already been done (System76 created Pop_OS! based on Ubuntu; Android and ChomeOS are essentially new Linux distributions built from the ground up, taking only the kernel and ignoring the existing ecosystem), but requires serious maintenance work to be any good and offer real advantages over existing distros.
Forking a kernel like Apple did. This has fairly limited purpose from the perspective of laptop and workstation OEMs that use regular off-the-shelf parts. This is usually done to provide support for custom hardware (Apple) or for proprietary software that requires deep integration with the kernel (VMware).
No one will think of option 1 as a serious competitor in the OS market, option 2 requires a ton of work and motivation, and option 3 is useless for these OEMs. Software just isn’t their business and a cheap copy offers no real advantages over shipping an existing thing.
this doesn’t really matter, I just find it interesting but Android was initially based on Gentoo, not entirely from the ground up. unsure about ChromeOS, I’m sure they did a lot more leg work having more financial backing at this point.
Great reply! Thanks man. Yeah I get your point now. Makes sense m
Late to the party, but I remembered this talk about maintaining a FreeBSD fork. If you want to get a more detailed description of what maintaining a customized OS entails, I encourage you to watch it: https://youtu.be/xddAX6L3iWc
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/xddAX6L3iWc
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.