🚀 go-pugleaf

Isaac <isaac@latveria.castledoom.org> wrote:
> On 11 Jul 2002 16:52:03 GMT, Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org> wrote:
>> The world rejoiced as jmd@arse.net wrote:
>>> You're absolutely right - the Linux kernel (i.e. the bit of the
>>> operating system which is actually called "linux" is only a very
>>> small part of the total code for any distribution.
>>>
>>> Almost everything in the distribution is covered by the Gnu general
>>> public license.
>> 
>> Is that an actual statistic, or is it just one that you made up?
>> 
>> The only system I recall installing where "almost everything" was
>> covered by the GPL was an early install of GNU Hurd, before the Debian
>> project for that started up.
>
> I'm not going to express an opinion about the name of the system, but
> if you want to attack or defend RMS's position, I'm not sure it makes
> sense to attack it based on the percentage of code belonging to the 
> FSF.  It's not quite as bad as the "kernel isn't an operating system" 
> argument (IMO), but it still misses RMS's point.
>
> As I understand RMS's position, he's saying that Linux based systems
> (no flames please) with all of their non GPLed software on them, are 
> exactly the system he envisioned way back when.   He envisioned 
> a free kernel with a bunch of freed unix like utilities + X + Tex,
> etc. 

I quite agree.

Systems running the Linux kernel are indeed the sort of thing that RMS
wanted to build and call the "GNU System."

FreeBSD and NetBSD and OpenBSD are also examples of something rather
like what RMS wanted "the GNU System" to be, albeit with less
allegiance to his favorite license.

> Of course he probably imagined that he and his staff would write the
> kernel.  If he had managed to complete it even during the period
> where Linux kernel based distributions were becoming popular, I
> think more people would have been willing to agree with RMS that
> Linux systems were simply GNU systems with a different kernel.  It's
> still possible that some of those who currently disagree that there
> was such a thing as a "GNU" system of which Linux is simply one
> example, might change their minds if the Hurd distributions become
> useful.

If RMS and the FSF had gone out and created a resulting "distribution"
(which corresponds pretty nicely with the "extended intent of
`operating system'"), there would be _total_ freedom to call that
system "the GNU System."

I don't think many would dispute the matter if the FSF had created a
distribution and decided to call it the "GNU System."  (If they'd
dispute that, they'd probably have to dispute MandrakeSoft having
taken Red Hat Linux and modified it to get "Mandrake Linux.")

The problem then is that it's not the midwife that gets to name the
children, and the relationship of the FSF to Linux is very much more
like that of midwife than like that of parent.  A midwife _is_ pretty
intimately involved in the birthing process, blood and guts and all.
Rather more intimate than that of a father fainting in a hospital
hallway :-).

But that still doesn't give the midwife the right to choose the
child's name.
-- 
(reverse (concatenate 'string "ac.notelrac.teneerf@" "454aa"))
http://cbbrowne.com/info/lisp.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #80.  "If my weakest troops fail to
eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting
time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to
my fortress." <http://www.eviloverlord.com/>