Toybox
| Toybox | |
|---|---|
| Original author | Robert Landley |
| Developers | Robert Landley and others |
| Initial release | 2006 |
| Stable release | 0.8.12
/ January 18, 2025 |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Unix-like |
| Size | 3.30 MB (archived) |
| Type | Independent SUS XCU implementation |
| License | 0BSD |
| Website | www |
| Repository | |
Toybox is a free and open-source software implementation of over 200 Unix command line utilities. The Toybox project was started in 2006, and became a 0BSD licensed BusyBox alternative. Toybox is used for most of Android's command-line tools in all currently supported Android versions, and is also used to build Android on Linux and macOS. All of the tools are tested on Linux, and many of them also work on BSD and macOS.
Toybox aims to provide a BSD licensed replacement for the GPL licensed BusyBox. Toybox's major technical design goals are simplicity, smallness, speed and standard compliance. Toybox aims to be mostly POSIX-2008 and LSB 4.1 compatible, and does not focus on having every option found in GNU counterparts.
Toybox is licensed using the permissive 0BSD license, where BusyBox uses the copyleft GNU General Public License, which led to different usage domains. BusyBox is mostly used in the copyleft FOSS domain, while Toybox is used mostly with permissive licensed projects and by commercial companies, e.g. Google's Android, which is an explicit target of Toybox.