Messages in this thread | | | From | Bob Taylor <> | Subject | Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: Article: IBM wants to "clean up the license" of Linux | Date | Tue, 22 Dec 1998 14:36:33 -0800 |
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In message <199812221034.SAA05843@typhaon.ucs.uwa.edu.au>, David Luyer writes: cc: linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu
[snip]
> But how about GNU and Linus? Well, Linus named the OS kernel Linux, > quite rightly since it was his kernel. GNU, who contributed more code > towards the environment which made Linux possible than anyone else - well, > they get mostly ignored by users, and their ideology is forgotten. How > important is this? Well that's what the recurring flame war is about. > There are those who look shallowly, and say that GNU has nothing to do with > Linux - they didn't write Netscape, X11 or the Kernel. Hey, gcc, gdb, make, > emacs, bash, etc... who needs them? :-) (only a very small portion of the > GNU applications most Linux applications depend on of course). Even the > Linux libc has always been based on GNU code. So RMS would prefer if, at > the distribution level, people put the name 'GNU' in there to remind > themselves that a significant portion of the code they are using comes from > GNU.
Evidently you have not noticed the name GNU appears frequently while using Linux. I strongly disagree that the FSF/GNU is ignored. Stallmans insistence on renaming Linux GNU Linux is patently nothing more than an ego trip on his part. While I have appreciated the *results* of the FSF efforts, I utterly *reject* their "ideology". I really do wish Stallman would shut up about an ideology the people of the world have rejected and has been proven to be a total failure.
> (In fact, a great deal more than comes from Linux.) Not unreasonable. > (irrespective of what you think of RMS's ideologies and political views, it > is not unreasonable to refer to distributions as GNU/Linux when such a large > portion of the Linux project has been vitally dependent on the results of the > GNU project.)
What you don't say here is the simple fact that it is *stupid* to recode what the FSF had already done. Linux is *not* dependent upon GNU/FSF. What dependencies there are are there by convenience not by necessity.
[snip]
Bob
-- +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | Bob Taylor Email: brtaylor@inreach.com | |---------------------------------------------------------------| | Like the ad says, at 300 dpi you can tell she's wearing a | | swimsuit. At 600 dpi you can tell it's wet. At 1200 dpi you | | can tell it's painted on. I suppose at 2400 dpi you can tell | | if the paint is giving her a rash. (So says Joshua R. Poulson)| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
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