XPost: comp.os.linux.advocacy, alt.religion.emacs
So what? Are these tools free or is there a secret price in dollops of >admiration? If the bloke who thinks others shouldn't be paid for their >intellectual creations also expected nothing for his own, or if,
expecting something for himself, promoted a licence that gave
something to others, we might at least give him the credit for being
sincere. As it is, bleating on year after year that he didn't get any
kudos for his own work, he deserves nothing.
Seems like you misunderstand Stallman. Stallman does not care about
price, he only cares about freedom. If you make free (as in freedom)
software and then sell it for a very high price then Stallman would
approve of that.
AFAIK Stallman always credits people for their work, there would be
no hypocrisy in him wanted to be credited like he credits others.
But actually, Stallman does not even try to get credited in the name.
He wants to name the system after the GNU project, not after himself.
This is important because if the system is named after the GNU project
then it would lead people to the GNU website and that in turn would
cause people to understand the issues of software freedom.
So the whole point of having GNU in the name is that that would help
with promoting software freedom. Torvalds is the one without cause
trying to name the entire system after himself just because he plugged
his kernel into it.
But of course it isn't a "so what?" situation. Linux would be nowhere
without the apps such as X, just as the GNU tools would be nowhere
without the Linux kernel.
That is not necessarily so. For example, if Linux did not exist then
the GNU project would probably not have cancelled Hurd,
thus possibly finishing it; and if X did not exist then the GNU project
would probably have made their own windowing system. Just because GNU
used something that existed and was usable, to save time and resources
does not mean that they could not have made it themselves if they had
to make it themselves.
(After all the noise about hurd or whatever,
it was Linux the public wanted.)
Wrong. The decision to use Linux instead of Hurd was made by Stallman
during development of the GNU system. The public had nothing to do with
it, the GNU system was not even used by the public and neither was
Linux.
Stallman cancelled the Hurd project and went with Linux because Linux
was already there so using it instead of developing their own kernel
would save time and resources.
The whole lot, contributions of tens
of thousands of people, all hangs together, and to sourgrape that the
name should recognise your little bit and not all the rest is quite >insupportable.
So why then insist on calling it "Linux"? the Linux part of the system
is typically much smaller than the GNU part of the system too. So if the problem is that the GNU part is too tiny, then that problem goes all the
more for the Linux part.
Also, why even name the Linux kernal after Linus Torvalds? He only
started the project, just like Stallman started the GNU system, but
Linux now contains the work of many more developers than just
Torvalds. By your logic, GNU/Linux should not be named after Linux and
Linux should not be named after Torvalds.
You should research the history of the project. The system started
as the GNU system, all other parts were plugged into the GNU
system. Does Windows stop being Windows when I install Libreoffice? Does
it then become windows/Libreoffice? At what point do you think that the
GNU system stopped being GNU? This is the ship of GNUseus.
Also, Why is Google allowed to name their entire system while GNU has to
credit Linux in the name or is not allowed to name their system at all?
Android uses the Linux kernel just as much as GNU does, both system are
equally "Linuxy". Yet Google gets the leniency of being allowed to pick
the entire name despite them using Linux while GNU must use "Linux" as
their name because they use Linux.
It seems that for you to be consistent with your expressed views you
must refer to Android as "Linux" because Android is a full-fledged
Linux system no less than GNU/Linux is.
For me, considering the history of the project and the significance that
the GNU part of GNU/Linux plays in the system, I find it very fair to
call the system "GNU/Linux".
In addition to that, I like to promote free software and I like the
clarity of distinguising GNU/Linux from just the kernel, from Android,
and from non-GNU GNU-like Linux systems such as Alpine.
If it contains glibc and coreutils then it is GNU to me.
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