user 'freedom' (was RE: [thelist] Site check: Staples.com)

[Robert Gormley]

Shawn K. Quinn wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-09-21 at 13:42 +1000, Robert Gormley wrote:
>   
>> Shawn K. Quinn wrote:
>>     
>>> On Tue, 2005-09-20 at 17:09 -0700, Anthony Ettinger wrote:
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> From your source above:
>>>>
>>>> Linux 
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> For future reference, it's GNU/Linux. (And yes I realize you didn't
>>> write the original article.)
>>>       
>> For future reference, this is Richard Stallman's assertion of his 
>> opinion on what it should be called. Not established, immutable fact. 
>>     
>
> Linus Torvalds himself says that in order to do anything useful with the
> Linux kernel, you have to install the GNU operating system. (Look at the
> README for version 0.01 of the Linux kernel if you don't believe me.)
>   
I'll grant this, although I think it was the GNU tools. My knowledge of 
Linux didn't come `til about kernel 1.2.13. I should clarify that, by 
admission, a lot of this argument is semantics. I am not even (and in 
reference to your point below) attempting to downplay the role that the 
GNU tools have played in the development of Linux as an ... ecosystem - 
probably a better term in trying to encapsulate. The whole OS was a 
dream of RMS, but the kernel has kinda slipped. A lot of the tools 
played, and still play, an integral role, it's just that that ecosystem 
has grown from a small plantation into an Amazonian rainforest.
>> There are many, many other contributors to the Linux project, 
>>     
>
> If by the Linux project you mean the kernel, I'm not about to claim that
> Linus Torvalds still writes every line of code.
>
> If you're using the term "Linux" to refer to more than just the kernel,
> then it *is* established fact that the GNU operating system was almost
> done when Linus Torvalds released the first version of the Linux kernel.
>   
True. But now, 20+ years later, it still sits, 'almost done'. Though in 
that time the GNU tools have grown leaps and bounds, too.
> What you call a "Linux" system really has much more GNU software on it
> than you give them credit for.
>   
Not necessarily 'more credit' - although admittedly this wasn't 
something I mentioned. They are very important.
>> And the terms under which Linux is released is most certainly 
>> not GPL. Certain elements, yes.
>>     
>
> One has nothing to do with the other. In fact, most of the Linux kernel
> is released under the GPL, I think parts may actually be BSD licensed. I
> don't know, I haven't needed to actually go digging in the source code
> in ages, thank $DEITY.
>   
More the point that the GNU tools, by definition, are GPLed, and by 
saying that Linux is GNU, it gets coopted into what is, let's face it, 
more than a simple license, and into an ethos.

Robert