GNU-Darwin: Three Years of Free Software Activism

JigSaw writes "The GNU-Darwin Distribution is a free BSD operating system and a popular source of free software for Mac OS X and Darwin-x86 users, but it is also a platform for digital activism. Founder Michael L. Love wrote an editorial speaking about the roots, goals, problems and just about everything about GNU-Darwin. Free Software is at the core of GNU-Darwin and also anything political that has an impact on digital and even rights. Is this the first truly politically oriented BSD OS?" Nope.

Comments

Digital activism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is that for most people, digital activism amounts to bitching and whining on /. and maybe voting for people who have no chance of winning.

How curious. "Remove it"?

[AndroidCat]

We have been prepared to take the Distro off-line a couple of times as a form of political action. It is important to realize that the software freedom status of GNU-Darwin was tenuous before the change to the APSL, so we were ready to cut our losses, and remove GNU-Darwin from the internet, if necessary. Now things have improved very much.

Now, I'm probably mistaken, but if they took down their site, couldn't someone just immediately pop up a mirror site and carry on from there? If it really is free software under the GNU licence, how can they remove GNU-Darwin from the Internet?

Political?

[worm eater]

Well, timothy seems to be suggesting that OpenBSD is a 'truly politically oriented' version of BSD. Yet the OpenBSD site says that one of their goals is to "[b]e as politics-free as possible; solutions should be decided on the basis of technical merit." So is it just not possible for a group of Free Software programmers to be non-political?

Reenactment

[Anonymous Coward]

Scene: the Whitehouse

Dubya: Ok, tomorrow we start dropping the bombs if the demands are not met.

General: Sir! We just got the news in! The GNU-Darwin distribution has taken down its website!

Dubya: Oh my god! Cancel the war!!

Political OS

[Chromodromic]

Well, I'm not very familiar with Darwin, but now I can say, based on this story, that my mind is pretty closed to it. I would certainly be hard pressed to ever consider it for anything in a production environment.

I don't want politics with my OS. I don't want the distribution site going black because Bush decides to bomb koala bears or even humans for that matter. Call me cold-hearted, but if I'm in a production environment, and I need to deliver a box that's expected to be supported and work as advertised, I don't want to worry if the freaking OS "activists" -- whatever the hell they are, exactly -- are going to pull the Distro (capitalized, no less) because the Malaguan butterfly's habitat is endangered by oil drilling or 250 million U.S. citizens have strong opinions about war.

Screw that. Give me my FreeBSD, which, to my knowledge, is pretty much always available, regardless of what Dan Rather is spewing at any given moment, and give me peace of mind. Hey, I know that's a lot less eloquent than "give me freedom, or give me death", but in my mind, and with some of the pressures I face from clients, I really don't distinguish between the two.

Activists need to shut up and get jobs anyway.

Re:Political OS

[11223]

Please don't confuse Proclus's trolling with Darwin, which is a fine operating system put out by a lot of good people at Apple, including Jordan Hubbard. Instead go to the OpenDarwin web site, with people who are actually interested in improving the technology. The only reason GNU-Darwin offers bootable CDs is that an OpenDarwin team member mistakenly told him how to build a CD without linking to the Apple proprietary components; the OpenDarwin release ISOs do this as well.

GNU-Darwin also has a spotty history with replacing libraries with broken versions, installing stuff in /usr and /usr/local, and generally making a mess of the system. Please do not attempt to run GNU-Darwin and ask for support from the real Darwin folks; they will turn up their noses at you.

Pay no mind to Proclus's trolling. I'm just dismayed it ended up on Slashdot.

Re:Darwin

[CRCulver]

We need a non-GNU toolchain to put on top of the Linux kernel so that when the Hurd makes its power play, Linux won't be dependent on the GNU stuff.

Why do you think that the advent of the Hurd would be a bad thing from which other systems need protection? Your entire post is an odd rant, for why rail against GNU software if you're a Linux user?I'm disappointed by the lack of progress in the Hurd (it should pick up after the port to the L4 microkernel, however), but if it achieved stability it would be a superior solution to anything currently on the market. The Hurd has a ton of ingenious improvements and renovations in POSIX architecture, and could truly be a better future for *nix users. Of course, I'm not getting my hopes up, it's been ten years and Debian Hurd is hardly usable. But a man can dream.

Anyway, I expect GNU-Darwin to be cannabalised for code after Hurd picks up. This isn't a bad thing, however, since code reusability is a good thing.

Zealot!

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy's a zealot. I don't mind him choosing to do what he does, but I won't ever bother to try out GNU/Darwin because of his zealotry. I prefer a more relaxed environment where BSD, GNU, APSL, or other licenses are not so strongly advocated or political/religious views put forward that I can worry instead about what interests me.

Scary..

[Pave Low]

This nutjob seems to think that people should be buying into his beliefs when all anybody cares about is the software. He makes the mistake of thinking people should care just like him one other issues because of one non-related issue.

Can you imagine if you were in a restaurant and the waiter berates you for being pro/anti-abortion, pro/anti gun or being christian/jewish/whatever??

I'm sorry, this guy is really no much different than the child molesters who tempt kids with candy , only to get them into the back of their vans. Harsh, but true.