this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Usually FOSS is specifically copyleft licences like the GPL, which Microsoft don't use. Their open-source stuff tends to be MIT.
While you're correct, that's funny because as a developer using a framework like dotNET, MIT gives YOU more freedom. At least for anything statically linked where the GPL code would end up as part of your binary and force you to GPL your own code I believe.
I find the distinction that dynamically linking GPL is fine but statically linking it is not to be so ridiculous. That's obviously just an implementation detail. The only conceivable difference other than the pointless "technuchalley your program contains GPL code now as part of the file" is that you have to do dynamic linking, which is slightly slower. How does the fact that your work is dynamically linked vs statically linked make any difference to the people writing GPL libraries??
I think that's for LGPL. For GLP any form of linking requires the code to be licensed under GPL, too. The dynamic linking except isn't that bad of you think about it. It gives you the freedom to update or replace the library at any time. For security critical libs (TLS, GPG, ..) that's a big plus.