user 'freedom' (was RE: [thelist] Site check: Staples.com)
Robert Gormley
robert at pennyonthesidewalk.com
Tue Sep 20 23:50:42 CDT 2005
Shawn K. Quinn wrote:
> GNU *is* the operating system that people are mistakenly calling
> "Linux".
>
GNU is a set of packages. Linux is, to quote linux.org - a "Unix type
operating system". It, the kernel of the OS, was written under the GNU GPL.
Writing something and licensing it under the GPL does not make it become
a component of GNU. It doesn't inherit the title.
GNU tools are a /component/ of the operating system. Linux.org again
calls it Linux. It's /only/ RMS and his organisation that insist that
it's "not Linux, it's GNU/Linux". Not only does he want to co-opt the
name, but he also thinks that it should be afforded more import than any
other entity.
>
>> Unless, of course, you care to point out the announcement that marked
>> the moving of the various Linux distributions to being under the GNU
>> umbrella/name?
>>
>
> What they call a "Linux distribution" is useless without the GNU
> packages they include.
>
No, it's not. You can build completely functioning Linux distributions
without a single GNU tool. Either for the build aspect, or operation
aspect. It happens to be that these tools have become the tool of choice
due to preference/issues with other packages/virtue of ignominy, much
like Windows did via licensing to OEMs.
> You don't grasp the difference between an operating system and a kernel.
> GNU has been ported to run under several different kernels, Linux is
> just one of them.
>
The GNU tools have, absolutely. They've also been ported to run under
Windows/Cygwin/Mac OS<X. Does that make these systems GNU/Windows, or
GNU/MacOS9?
Robert
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