Re: tlug: Last night's RMS discussion

["Manuel M. T. Chakravarty" <chak@example.com>]

simon@example.com (Simon Cozens) wrote,

> Stephen J. Turnbull (lists.tlug):
> >    Scott> I'll start calling it GNU when Stallman writes his own
> >    Scott> kernel
> >
> >He has, and Debian is about to start distribution GNU/Hurd Debian.  At 
> >least the policy manual is prepared for that.
> 
> Then the operating system is GNU/Hurd, not GNU. And if it's Linux based,
> it's not GNU either. Whichever, he was incorrect.

Though I doubt that we will really reach any consensus in
this discussion, let me share my opinion on this matter with
you.

Technically speaking, the OS that most of us use - according
to rms - should be called GNU/Linux (or Linux/GNU if you
prefer), because the GNU tools and the Linux kernel are the
two most important components in this system.[1] Which one
is more important is a philosophical issue and of no real
relevance in this discussion, I think.  (Don't underestimate
the importance of the GNU tools, I am not talking `cp'
here...without `gcc', the Linux kernel would be a pile of
worthless bits.)

Now, people are lazy, and so, I think (rms maybe not) that
it is fair enough to abbreviate for convenience to `Linux
(system)' or `GNU (system)'.  I personally usually
abbreviate to Linux, because while there is no
Whatever/Linux, there is GNU/Hurd, so `Linux' on its own is
less ambiguous.  Nevertheless, calling the overall system
`GNU' is _as_good_ and fair as just calling it Linux.

Rms gives three reasons for emphasising the GNU in GNU/Linux:

(1) He actually had the plan to make a complete system very
    long ago and the Linux kernel was only the last piece in
    the puzzle.

(2) Emphasising GNU draws attention to the free software
    philosophy, which he understandably finds important.

(3) The GNU part of the compound system is much more user
    visible.

Regarding the first point, I am convinced that without the
GPL, Linux would have never been the success it is - if that
claim is true, the philosophy of the GNU project is of much
more crucial importance to the existence of Linux than just
a supplier of required free Unix tools.  Anyhow, of these
three points, the only one which is open for discussion is
number (2), the other two are a matter of fact.

I personally tend to concur with point (2), as I think, it
is of foremost importance that we keep a completely free (as
in speech) infrastructure and incidents like the Qt/KDE
debacle show that even high grade OSS developers are often
not aware of the consequences of software licenses.

Manuel

[1] Some people try to be super smart and claim, we should
    then also mention XFree86.  That is, however, a red
    hering, because XFree86 is not necessary to run a
    GNU/Linux system (and most servers machines do in fact
    without it).

PS: To Scott, maybe rms starts to call GNU/Linux just Linux, when
    Linus writes his own C compiler?
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