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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