🚀 go-pugleaf

seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) writes:

> Based on common usage, I'm referring to "Linux" as the thing you get
> on a CD from one of however many vendors.  It includes an X
> distribution, it includes all sorts of stuff.  Distinct from "the
> Linux kernel".
> 
> The point being, that's a system you can use because Linus had a
> vision of having a complete O/S that was free software.

Actually, this is a very wrong account of the history.  Linus had a
vision of making a good Unix kernel, and that's what he is still
working at.

The GNU project was the vision of having a complete O/S that was free
software.  The GNU project started sometime in the eighties.

Now when Linus had his kernel running, he figured he could make it
much more useful by just using the stuff made for the GNU project.  In
connection with this, a few design decisions were made.  a) he decided
to make Linux as standard-compliant a Unix as possible.  b) he decided
to license the kernel under the GPL (this change occured at version
0.98 or so) in order to make it appear in line with a GNU system (he
expressed it that he considered it his contribution to the free
software he had been able to use from the GNU project, so I
extrapolate that he aimed at his software being free in the same
manner or at least spirit).

The visions of Linus were rather of different focus.  *His* main
visions are about standards, technical feasibility and end user
acceptance.  He does not have a particular stand about software
needing to be free or not-free.  His contribution to the free software
is simply on a tit-for-tat base: he found it useful for him, so he
recontributed something to it.  It's not a vision for him.

In contrast, RMS is so full of vision he has some problems keeping up
with real-world sights.

-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany