this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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Linux
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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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Was worried they'd use it as a walled garden or a monitoring system. MIT license iirc allows forking, so at least if things go downhill, there are ways to mitigate it.
MIT is the “do whatever you want” software license, as long as you include the original copyright and license, and don’t hold the authors liable for damages.
What’s the license on Firefox and why is it so impossible to create a fork of that browser that doesn’t suck?
Nothing to do with license.
Firefox is a massive piece of code and following modern browser standards is so difficult that it's a feat for big teams of developers and no small team seems to be able to pick the pace needed.
Yeah, one of the largest pieces of software humanity has created, next to Google Chrome and the Linux kernel, which are all around 30 million lines of code.
To give a frame of reference: With a team of 5 full-time devs at my dayjob, we can dish out a codebase of about 20 thousand lines over the course of two years.
A browser might be somewhat quicker to build, because the requirements are relatively clear at this point and you can start implementing many standards in parallel. But yeah, it's still just an insane amount of code.
Mozilla Public License, and there are a number of forks. A browser is a lot of work though.
What's holding you back from doing that?
what would you want changed