🚀 go-pugleaf

The world rejoiced as Tim Haynes <usenet@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk> wrote:
> Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org> writes:
>
>> The Linux kernel itself isn't GNU software, by virtue of its absence
>> from <http://www.gnu.org/software/linux.html>.
>
> True.
>
>> GNU Software seems likely to be most properly defined as the software
>> that has been approved as "GNU Software" by the Free Software
>> Foundation.  The total list consists of 234 pieces of software.
>>
>> Conspicuously _ABSENT_ from the official list are such important
>> things as:
>>  - X11
>>  - TeX
>>  - Linux
>>  - KDE
>>  - LILO (what you probably use to boot Linux)
>
> Note that quite a few distributions are moving towards Grub these days.

But LILO is the historically common boot manager, more than likely
what people are using.

>> My system has 1175 packages installed at the moment, which means that
>> supposing I had every single one of the 234 pieces of "GNU Software"
>> installed, a total of 19.9% of my system would consist of "GNU Software."
>> I don't have all of them installed, and likely have rather less than half
>> of them installed. (In contrast, I _do_ have every single one of the
>> items I listed on the "absent" list.)
>>
>> If you are truly in the mood to play statistical games, then I think it
>> is reasonably defensible to claim that the amount of "GNU Software" on my
>> system is most likely somewhere around 10% of the total. I'll not bother
>> doing a precise census of the 234 packages; that would be a pedantic
>> waste of time.
>>
>> And it would miss the point. The point is 

> The point is that without glibc there, none of the packages you have
> installed would work. That makes it a pretty *important* "0.1%",
> IMNSHO.

Fine.  Throw that in peoples' faces and see how grateful they _WANT_
to be.

Tell them that only the *important* "0.1%" deserves to be named, and
what do you get?

You get what we see, namely that when you _demand_ gratefulness, it
comes grudgingly, at best.

>> When the FSF _demands_ this kind of "quasi-worship," it just gets
>> peoples' backs up, and discourages them from expressing gratefulness
>> where gratefulness is due.

> So why don't you choose to see it as the partnership that it is,
> rather than viewing it as "_demand_ing quasi-worship"?

If it was supposed to be a willing partnership, then we wouldn't see
the _demands_ at <http://www.fsf.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html>

>> It's much the same as when Americans head to Europe and expect
>> people to virtually bow at their feet for having liberated them
>> from Nazi Germany in World War II.

> Thank you for Godwinating.

If that caused your brain to shut off, then I guess it must be a very
delicate "off switch."  I didn't associate anything at all with Hitler
or Nazi Germany.
-- 
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.gultn@" "enworbbc"))
http://cbbrowne.com/info/linux.html
"It is the user who should parameterize procedures, not their
creators." -- Alan Perlis