FreeBSD 16 Retires the Last of Its GPL Code from Its Base System

https://www.phoronix.com/news/FreeBSD-16-Goes-GPL-Free

by lr0 • 7 days ago

98 63 7 days ago

Pretty sad from the free software movement's perspectice. Look how little leverage GNU's got these days. Then again, trying to contribute to GNU wasn't exactly a positive experience. Maybe it's for the best.

mikece• 7 days ago

On the other hand, isn't the FreeBSD user base shrinking and its former users going to Linux?

isx726552• 7 days ago

*BSD is dying! You don’t have to be Kreshkin…

But seriously, if one counts macOS and iOS as FreeBSD users, there are more than ever. Of course that means counting Android and Steam as Linux OSes, in which case Linux users still greatly outnumber FreeBSD users.

bigfishrunning6• 7 days ago

As a 25 year Linux user (for work and at home), I've been experimenting with FreeBSD in the last year or so and I've found its simplicity refreshing. Maybe I'm swimming against the current, but I'm sure there are dozens of us!

naturalmovement• 7 days ago

No. As enshittification encroaches onto Linux the user base is moving the other way. To their benefit, I might add. With ZFS on root in FreeBSD it's a no-brainer.

Linux is feeling more and more like a bunch of random tools thrown together as opposed to a complete OS designed to work as a whole.

coaksford• 7 days ago

As someone who very reluctantly fits that description, yes but no. I don't love FreeBSD any less or want to use it any less than anytime in the last 20 years, nor do I like Linux any more than at any time in the last 20 years (less, if anything). But NixOS is the "killer app" that has me on Linux instead of FreeBSD. If either FreeBSD gets a really good NixOS-like setup, or Linux-based NixOS becomes unmaintained, I'm happily going back to FreeBSD again, it has always been excellent and stable to me.

riedel2• 7 days ago

I am not really sure if I can follow. FreeBSD despite its title never had something to do with Free Software. BSD has a different history and it's "own licence". Being more consistent in its licence is a good thing particularly in contrast to Linux FreeBSD is a full distribution with user land. I would even think that you can without much problem publish a GPL version of FreeBSD if you like. I think you might have to leave out some CDDL stuff. FreeBSD has its value as an appliance OS (e.g. for firewalls or NAS) and FreeBSD has profited also from vendors contributing back: it is just another ecosystem . Personally I totally respect GPL and AGPL licenced software. The sad news is that without any fix in law, AI rewrites will kill GPL eventually, but then again also proprietary binaries can be decompiled and modified, so maybe there is still a win for freeing software in the game.

matheusmoreira12• 7 days ago

The point is GNU software used to be ubiquitous. Even people who were averse to the GPL would rather tolerate it than reinvent the software themselves. That's leverage.

Looks like that era is over.

Gud• 7 days ago

FreeBSD is absolutely Free Software.

vmilner• 7 days ago

FreeBSD despite its title never had something to do with Free Software

The FSF disagree:

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#FreeBSD

pengaru• 7 days ago

FreeBSD has never played a significant role in the Free Software Movement.

Frankly I'm surprised there was any GPL code at all in the FreeBSD base repo in 2026.

matheusmoreira12• 7 days ago

Didn't say they did. Just lamenting the movement's lack of leverage.

The whole idea was to build strong copyleft software and leverage all that into copylefting even more software. Obviously, it doesn't work if it's easy enough to just replace the copyleft software, which is exactly what this news is all about.

2lup382_4• 7 days ago

I think GPL and copyleft in general is getting less and less relevant as time goes on. Looking at GPL specifically it relies on scarcity. The reason companies would agree to the terms of the GPL in the 1980s, 90s, and even 00s was if you wanted a good compiler, parser, kernel, or library you had only so many choices. There might have been only a few thousand people in the world capable of writing a mature compiler suite at some points. So if you're $MEGACORP you could either a) buy a proprietary compiler, b) pay for rarified (so expensive) talent to write your own, c) tolerate the terms imposed by the GPL. Most companies saw option "C" as the more cost effective one. Now there is a lot of computer science talent out there, so the price of option "B" goes way down. Why tolerate the GPL when I can hire any of the people laid off from Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Amazon, come work for me, and all of them probably wrote a compiler in college and I get to own the code outright. Or, I can use FreeBSD, LLVM, whatever, and maybe there is a chance for $MEGACORP to contribute back, where in option "B" there is almost no chance. And this doesn't even take LLMs into consideration.

matheusmoreira12• 7 days ago

Yeah. Free software used to have so much more leverage back then. Now even GCC isn't sacred anymore. Linux is the only project that's still somewhat capable of leveraging corporations into upstreaming GPL drivers.

Just extremely low morale right now. Not sure if there's even a point to any of this anymore. Even proprietary software isn't safe: now that I've got AI, decompilation has gone from a time consuming grind to trivial.

rzerowan2• 7 days ago

I think GPL and copyleft in general is getting less and less relevant as time goes on. Looking at GPL specifically it relies on scarcity. The reason companies would agree to the terms of the GPL

Therein is the great misunderstanding , the GPL was never written for 'companies' , it was and still is for the User. You, Me a $MEGACORP , sentinel islander - it does not matter the rights are granted to all equally to reuse/modify/offer for sale as long as the contributoins come back to the commons.

What is happening now is akin to the 'enclosure system' in early Britain when the commons which had been for the benefit of all were fenced off and the peasants thrown off the land to seek wages in the newly industialising system.

When no one is contributing to the GPL commons the options become more restricted. If one isnt a corp that can write their own library or a 10X coder that can bash it out on their own , leaves the users looking at proprietary solutions or restricted offerings with two tier licences.

So in a way yeah most coder/engineers have developed an antagonistic relation to the GPL commons , which is leading to its decline in some sectors.However if/when the share of GPL drops to a level where the adverse effects can no longer be ignored , there will probably be attempts to rollback the clock.

ksec2• 7 days ago

Pretty sad from the free software movement's perspectice.

That somehow implies or suggest BSD is not free software.

matheusmoreira12• 7 days ago

It's not a suggestion, it's a fact. BSD is permissive open source software, not copyleft free software.

FreeBSD 16 Retires the Last of Its GPL Code from Its Base System

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