🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <m2iudye5r1.fsf@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de>,
David Kastrup  <dak@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> wrote:
>Excuse me, but in this case you are really belittling the importance
>of the GNU project.  *All* the standard tools you type to and interact
>with on a Linux system are GNU utilities.  The text utilities, the
>file utilities, practically all of the development tools.  Not to
>speak of the things (like X11) that became freely available due to FSF
>lobbying.

That's true.  However, it's not the same as them having made the system.

>Without the GNU project, Linux would be nothing.  Of course, without
>the Linux kernel, the situation would be quite the same, even though
>we might in a few years see the first Hurd-based systems come along.
>More likely, we would be using FreeBSD.

Yes, and without the GNU project, NeXTStep wouldn't have had a decent
compiler.  Neither would LynxOS.  Without BSD, no one would have reasonable
TCP/IP code.

Still, the only systems actually *called* "*BSD" are ones derived from the
4.4BSD code tree.

>Without the GNU project, we would not be using a free system at all.

True enough.  And without AT&T, we probably wouldn't be using a system with
a model where all "devices" are just "special files".  And without AT&T,
we wouldn't have languages that use 'int' to refer to a native hardware word.

My main objection here is that I have a hard time coming up with a cutoff
for calling a system a "GNU system" which *does* include Linux, and *doesn't*
include *BSD.

>Without the Linux kernel, we would by now have a different free system
>(alternatives are pretty visible by now), although probably the free
>software movement would be 10 years behind.  Yes, I know that Linux
>itself exists just 7 years and some, but it has given a lot of impetus
>to other projects as well.

Yes.  Or maybe it would be five years ahead because one of the other projects
would have gotten the limelight and it would have gone completely differently.
Too hard to play the hypothetical game.

I would argue that, without someone coming up with a non-trivial, useful,
open source utility, we wouldn't have a free system.  But as soon as a couple
of them got started, it stopped being useful or valuable to play the "no, we
invented this" game, and at this point, the focus shouldn't be on whose ideas
went into what, but where we can go next.

Not that I'm necessarily contributing to this.  I just can't shake the feeling
that, in an alternate universe where FreeBSD became the media darling, and
Linux didn't, but (this is a "what-if", and yes, I know these results couldn't
have happened) Linux and FreeBSD were *EXACTLY* what they are today, we'd
be hearing arguments about "GNU/FreeBSD".

Now, this isn't necessarily *bad*.  GNU is political.  It's not about
technology.  It's not about inheritance of ideas, or any vision of specific
decisions.  It's about politics, and getting people used to the idea of
"free" software which is still worth having, and maybe even paying for.

So, *in those terms*, there is a very strong argument for saying "GNU/Linux" -
it makes people aware that there's a pattern of occurences *of which Linux
is but a single example*.

That's a good reason to say "GNU/Linux".  And if that were the *official*
reasoning, I'd buy it.

What bugs me is that I cannot, despite repeated efforts, come up with a
*technical* justification for calling Linux a GNU system but not calling
any of the other systems totally dependant on FSF code "GNU systems".  The
big difference is political and social - Linux is winning the marketing
war.  And I say, better them than Windows, and if the FSF can find a way
to use this to boost awareness of the idea of free software projects other
than Linux, that's a great thing.

But I think that's what they're doing, and I don't, as of yet, buy any of
the other explanations offered, and I find it vaguely offensive that people
would (in my perception) stretch so far to find some *technical* reason for
what is really a *political* decision.

-s
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