Combuster wrote:
You get centuries worth of man-hours for free, and you are explicitly allowed to stack non-GPL code on top of GPL. Pretty much every company in the hardware industry that believes it has something to hide does it this way.
I'm not saying it's always the right decision, I'm just saying it happens, and not infrequently. Interpreting the GPL is actually pretty tricky since it has a very limited case history, and some legal departments say "I'd rather not risk it".
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In no way or form does that imply you can't use
anything from the Linux sources. In fact, being multitargeted already makes Linux a much easier subject for porting in general.
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Operating systems that strictly serve as execution environments for bytecode interpreters: verified code platforms, Javacard implementations, SDR platforms, etc.
Android, ChromeOS
Right well I'm not really interested in a pedantic argument about whether or not Linux can do X. Of course with enough effort Linux (or anything else for that matter) can be used for whatever you want. My point was just that there are many real-world scenarios where Linux is not automatically the best choice. Specifically I was responding to the following statements:
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There IS a one-size-fits-all operating system. It's Linux.
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So? It's fun to look at different designs and fiddle around with them and consider new concepts in operating systems, but it goes without saying that these "fun projects" are never going to beat Linux when it comes to use in the real world.