🚀 go-pugleaf

seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) writes:

> In article <36A8B800.DF85C991@urbanophile.com>,
> Aaron M. Renn <arenn@urbanophile.com> wrote:
> >Peter Seebach wrote:
> >> 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.
> 
> >Could you please provide me with a reference to back up that statement? 
> >From what I have read, Linus started writing his kernel to get around
> >limitations in Minix.  To the best of my knoweldge, Linus has never created
> >or distributed a full operating system.  Nor has he ever stated a desire to
> >be in that business.
> 
> He has created a project which can be found as a distribution.  The GNU
> project didn't make Red Hat any more than Linus did - but Linus was the one
> who made Red Hat possible.

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.

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.

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

-- 
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