🚀 go-pugleaf

Wayne Brown <fwbrown@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> In comp.unix.admin Sami Sihvonen <ss@janiika.com> wrote:
>> In article <afs1pq$iki$4@news.doit.wisc.edu>,
>> Steve Mading <madings@baladi.bmrb.wisc.edu> wrote:
>>>>>>>> It is GNU/Linux, not Linux... See http://www.gnu.org/ for details.
>>> And the sad thing is, people opposed to RMS's messy name aren't
>>> trying to claim he doesn't deserve any credit, as some people
>>> falsely claim.  They just recognize that the name of a thing is
>>> not the right place to put its bibliography.
>
>> This is not about bibliography, this is about using the correct
>> name.  It is GNU/Linux. And that name should be used. This is not
>> about RMS or his credit, this is about GNU Project and it's credit.
>
> The "correct name" is whatever Linus Torvalds chooses to call it --
> and he calls it Linux.

Actually, that's somewhat incorrect.

Linus Torvalds holds the trademark on the _kernel_, whose name is
_very_ clearly "Linux."  (RMS doesn't dispute the fact that the kernel
is properly called "Linux.")

The problem is that what people tend to _call_ Linux is a
conglomeration of stuff that is neither part of the trademarked
kernel, nor licensed similarly, nor associated in any meaningful way
with the kernel called "Linux."

GCC is NOT part of "Linux."  Nor is Perl.  Nor is Python.  Nor
XFree86.  Ditto for any number of scripting languages, development
tools, utilities, and desktop environments.

RMS would like to call the conglomeration of "Linux plus other stuff"
by the name "GNU/Linux," thus asserting that such conglomerations are
somehow intellectually "owned" as concepts by the "GNU Project."

I don't think anyone (aside from the Jay Maynards of the world despise
_anything_ the FSF does) would have any great problem if the FSF
decided to release a distribution called GNU/Linux.

For Red Hat to call their distribution "Red Hat Linux" is their
choice, just as other naming choices by others that have collected
packages together are their assorted choices.

Personally, I think RMS would do far better to find some other axe to
grind on, and try and motivate the people around the FSF to do things
that would cause them to be perceived more positively.  When he
continues to grind the "it should be GNU/Linux" axe, especially what
with the not-exactly-lovey-dovey relationship betwixt he and Torvalds,
it makes him look like a crackpot.
-- 
(reverse (concatenate 'string "moc.enworbbc@" "enworbbc"))
http://cbbrowne.com/info/x.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #23. "I will keep a special cache of
low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if
the heroes manage  to neutralize my power generator  and/or render the
standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun
by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks."
<http://www.eviloverlord.com/>