Re: Re: [LIH] Linux or GNU/Linux? a philosophical problem

[Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jun 07, 2000 at 11:56:08AM +0530, Sachin Garg wrote:

> I agree with parts of the GNU project's statements. 

I meant - GNU project's philosophy. Not just a specific statement
about the part of Linux contributed by the GNU project.

> I also agree with Stallman is that a major part of the Linux "Operating
> System", i.e. what I would perceive to be a part of the OS, i.e the
> shell, command utilities, development tools etc. are largely due to the
> FSF and the GNU project and hence it is only fair to give them credit.

No one is denying them credit. Given the number of GPL fan^H^H^H^H^Hs
here, they are being listened to (but not analyzed enough, IMO), 
people are aware of their "highly visible" software.

It's just that they're not happy with the amount of exposure. And given
their /strong/ and pro active survival instincts, it's only natural for
them to go for "GNU/Linux".

> But, at the same time, there is lots of BSD and other stuff on a typical
> box which runs the Linux kernel. Hence, it is painful to credit all
> those concerned without hurting anyone's feelings.
> 
> I suggest we call the "Operating System perceived to be Linux" as "The
> operating System formerly called Linux, but now called
> GNU/FreeBSD/MIT/RH/SuSE/Linux" or something like that.

Exactly what Alan Cox said in Linux journal. Why not just stick with
"Linux" and leave the rest to the Linux distro to acknowledge the people
who contributed to their distro ?

BTW, I think the main indespensible part of the GNU contribution is their
compiler tool set. There was an equally good (better in the opinion of
some people [1]) set of UNIX libraries and commands in the BSD system.
If GNU project hadn't written them, Linux would've just used the BSD stuff.

	-Arun

[1] GNU utilities often get criticized for these reasons

	- Feature creep. cp -a is an example. find + tar + cp would be 
          functionally equivalent and in keeping with the UNIX philosophy.
 	- Long command line options --foo etc. Some people think they are
 	  a waste of time and effort and contribute to bloat. If someone
	  can't remember -f, it's likely that they won't remember --foo. 
	- Lack of man pages. At one point, GNU had texinfo, but no man. Even
	  today, the average foobar-0.9.tar.gz doesn't come with foobar.1.
	  Compare that to the BSD world.