📰 FSF-Approved Hyperbola GNU/Linux Forking OpenBSD, Citing 'User Freedom' Concerns

Long-time Slashdot reader twocows writes: Hyperbola GNU/Linux, a FSF-approved distribution of GNU/Linux, has declared their intent to fork OpenBSD and become HyperbolaBSD..." The news came earlier this week in a roadmap announcement promising "a completely new OS derived from several BSD implementations" (though Hyperbola was originally based on Arch snapshots and Debian development). "This was not an easy decision to make, but we wish to use our time and resources to create a viable alternative to the current operating system trends which are actively seeking to undermine user choice and freedom." In 2017 Hyperbola dropped its support for systemd -- but its concerns go far beyond that: This will not be a "distro", but a hard fork of the OpenBSD kernel and userspace including new code written under GPLv3 and LGPLv3 to replace GPL-incompatible parts and non-free ones. Reasons for this include: - Linux kernel forcing adaption of DRM, including HDCP. - Linux kernel proposed usage of Rust (which contains freedom flaws and a centralized code repository that is more prone to cyber attack and generally requires internet access to use.) - Linux kernel being written without security and in mind. (KSPP is basically a dead project and Grsec is no longer free software) - Many GNU userspace and core utils are all forcing adaption of features without build time options to disable them. E.g. (PulseAudio / SystemD / Rust / Java as forced dependencies....) HyperbolaBSD is intended to be modular and minimalist so other projects will be able to re-use the code under free license.

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