🚀 go-pugleaf

Kevin Everets <kevin.everets@alcatel.com> writes:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> This statement is false, I believe, and appears to be making the whole
> thing more of a religious issue than a pragmatic one.

The logical statement `if an organisation demands quasi-worship, it
gets back disrespect' is false?  Curious, that.

> From what I've read, Stallman's out to get credit for the GNU
> system, and nothing else.

He wants the GNU label place over everything on a typical Linux
distro, above TeX, above netbase &c.  He wants to elevate it to a
level of importance equal to the kernel.

> The GNU page on Linux seems to express fairly well the GNU project's
> position on this: they were the first to begin the massive attempt
> to develop a complete free Unix-like system.

And the first to fail in a very big and embarassing way...

> None of those individual components are an attempt to create a full
> operating system, however.

Non of those attempts are full OS, _and neither are the GNU tools_.

> Basically, if you don't believe that a system is any more than the
> kernel, then by all means continue to call your system "Linux".  If
> instead, you feel that a system is more than a single component then
> what you're talking about is a version of GNU that happens to have
> Linux at the helm.  Thus, it would be called "GNU/Linux".

In the latter case, what I'm talking about is the Linux OS with all
the myriad bits of free software, GPLed, LGPLed, BSDLed &c. which make
up my system.  Thus, I call it Linux.  Although I could, I suppose,
call it BSD/MIT/GNU/Knuth/Linux.  Which would be silly, and dumb.

> Unless, of course, you're talking about a proper GNU system (simply
> called "GNU") that uses GNU's official kernel: the Hurd (which is
> actually quite usable, despite dubious reports to the contrary).

I'd call that a Hurd system.  I don't call my Solaris boxes with the
GNU tools installed GNU/Solaris; I call 'em Solaris.  I wouldn't call
a Hurd box with the GNU tools installed GNU/Hurd (I might refer to GNU
Hurd, but that indicates something else).  So why should I call a
Linux box with the GNU tools installed GNU/Linux?

Answer: because someone's bitter that someone else could come up with
a GPLed OS in half the time and get twice the performance.

-- 
Robert Uhl <ruhl@4dv.net>
In Africa, some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground
with clubs and uttering spine-chilling cries.  Anthropologists call this
a form of primitive self-expression.  In the West, we call it golf.