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germanatlas@lemmy.blahaj.zone to 196@lemmy.blahaj.zone – 1479 points –
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I disagree. Linux is a kernel, and Android uses and develops its features to a great extent.
It's very different to GNU though, and this confusion is why calling it GNU+Linux makes sense.

Fair enough. I just feel like when people talk about Linux they are talking about basically the polar opposite ethos of Google and android lol

Even though Google is developing Android it is open source and you can run it without Google. I believe projects like LineageOS and GrapheneOS would continue development with the existing code base if that ever changed. But yeah, personally, I still would love to see a Linux phone that does not rely on Google which is why I appreciate the efforts of the likes of Pine64.

It definitely doesn't have the vibe of most Linux-based operating systems, but I'd say it's functionally very similar. Most Linux software will run just fine on Android, including X.org and Wayland apps, since you can just run X/Wayland servers.

A lot of highly commercialized projects start with open source technology and patents and ideas that are just lying around.

I know but that’s not really what I’m driving at.

If someone says “I use linux primarily” almost no one thinks they could mean Android.

Oh thats true. But like... It is though? Like I know I'm.using a website... But it runs in Linux. Lol.

I don’t think I have ever met somebody who when they said “I use Linux” meant they were using android. Anecdotal of course so feel free to dismiss I guess. It’s just kind of odd to me.

Nobody in this thread seems to be discussing kernels - but rather talk about Linux distros. While GNU userland still dominates most distros, most of the rust replacements seems to be mit or bsd-like licenses. Like the coreutils

The license doesn't say whether it's part of the GNU project.
The existence of other Unix-likes (GNU-likes? :D) or program implementations doesn't play a major role here, as Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, etc all use GNU userland. The distinction feels like bike-shedding.
Your first sentence actually reenforced my point.

There’s no requirement from the kernel that the userland is GPL. It’s by chance - and replaceable. Like with Android - there’s not much left of gnu userland there afaik. If you look at end user devices this makes up the bulk of devices running the Linux kernel.

Looking at today’s landscape of Linux development, replacements for userland is likely to be rust code. The majority of this code is MIT or BSD licensed. The coreutils implementation was an example of this. It’s not GNU licensed.