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Stallman Meets KDE Team for Tea
fishermonger writes "Trying to imoprove relations, the french KDE team invited RMS to tea at Linux Solutions 2003. From the piece: 'He asked whether KDE people were saying "Gnu/Linux" or just "Linux", and Open Source or Free Software. I told him some of us are using KDE/Gnu/Linux which pleased him as an answer.' Many pearls in the article."
i always just call it linux no matter what kind I'm using.. do people actually call it gnu/linux rather than linux? or even KDE/Gnu/Linux ??
do you just type it, or actually say "I use gnu linux"
I (sometimes) use KDE under FreeBSD. And I know people that use it with Solaris, and OSX. KDE doesn't require GNU or Linux, it requires QT (which usually implies X11) X/QT/KDE is more accurate.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I sometimes just call GNU/Linux GNU and leave off the Linux, depending on the context. When someone is talking about kernels, or drivers, or something in comparison with a GNU/Linux OS, calling it just 'Linux' is appropriate since the kernel is what may be the most important component. But when speaking of higher level things like development, one can say, "I like GNU OSs more than Microsoft ones for writing perl." without a hitch. When speaking of the system fit together as a whole, GNU/Linux is fine. But, the obvious pronounciation nuisance justifiably keeps people from shouting GNU/Linux in the streets :)
Anyone see any parallels to what Hans Reser was suggesting just a few articles ago? Stallman wants credit for GNU (mostly to further his political agenda) and Reser wants them slapped everywhere for everyone.
:)
I use GNU/Linux, but only in writing. Of all the distributions out there, only Debian and Mandrake seem to actually do that as well. Debian's obviously strongly attached to the free software philosophy. Mandrake, while a commercial entity, is struggling to keep everything in it's distribution free too. Their installer even sports a GNU logo.
Red hat is the only major distribution that has stayed truly free in addition to them.
You can deduce a lot from whether or not someone uses GNU/Linux in an official manner. It's instantly says something about their values. You won't see even Linux strapped on distributions like Lindows that want no part of the free software thing and would like to lead the public to believe that they're not even selling Linux, but something better they've come up with all by themselves.
This is true up until the point of what most people say when they're downloading linux-2.5.68.tar.gz.
Virtually everyone I've known says "Linux kernel", "the kernel", or just "2 5 68" in that context. Why? Because you need to be more specific since almost everyone uses "Linux" to refer to either. That includes kernel developers (certainly not all of them, I've heard GNU/Linux there too, although not especially often). Like many brand names, the "Linux" term was (long ago) stretched to cover a wide array of products when they are collectively running on top of Linux.
But, if people want to look a little silly (not a huge deal, to each his own) and call things GNU/Linux, that's their right. Just don't behave like the bloody thought police. I've had people send me notices asking me to change web pages, other persons have even declined to work with the Linux Standard Base project on the basis of the name (since it covers libraries above the kernel), etc.
My pet peeve isn't that people call it GNU/Linux. It's the people who tell me what to call it.
*sigh*
I agree with almost everything you wrote, except that the kernel is most important. The kernel really doesn't have that much to do with which software runs. I'd guess that the C library has a much great role. At any rate all of these things are fairly modular. That's why FreeBSD can run KDE, Gnome, and most other stuff that GNU/Linux folks use.
On the other hand, the kernel has a *lot* to do with what hardware can be reasonably controlled. For instance, getting a USB serial converter to work under FreeBSD (at least as of a few months ago) was nearly impossible. Under Linux you'll have better luck. Under a Windows kernel with vendor-supplied drivers, you may have even better luck.
If the software that runs is the determining factor, then there are a lot of GNU systems out there. Even the proprietary UNIX and BSD systems often offer GNU tools as an alternative to their own tools. On a GNU/Linux system, just about everything depends on GNU software at some point, whether through gcc, glibc, ld, bash/sh, or command-line tools. FreeBSD systems even depend in large part on GNU tools, but not nearly to the extent of GNU/Linux distributions.
-Paul Komarek
The instant somebody starts telling you to use one word instead of another, you're no longer communicating. You're proselytizing.
Quick, what part of the world is "Palestine"? Is the inheritance tax really the "death tax" or the other way around? Homicide bombers or suicide bombers? Terrorists or freedom fighters? Burma or Myanmar?
You see, what words are appropriate depend very much on a point of view. Language is not static with respect to the world; the names we use for different things influence very much how we think about them.
Now, in this case I think Stallman is stubbornly fighting a losing battle, but to hear him tell it the savaging he gets on slashdot every time this topic comes up is less significant than the opportunities that the occasionaly use of the phrase gnu/linux creates for people to hear about the freedom part of free software.
Perhaps you could make a more constructive suggestion about how RMS & co. could get their point across in a less annoying abut equally or more effective fashion?
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
No, the intention of the GPL is to *lower programmer's wages*. Stallman freely states this.
No, he doesn't. Cite one place where he's ever said this.
Now, granted, that's not ALL workers, but given he's a communist
He describes himself as a liberal, not a communist. Of course to some right-wing nutjobs that's the same thing.
- yes, the ideals behind the GPL are communism, no matter how much many out there would prefer to deny it.
So, the ideal of not buying cars with their hoods welded shut is "communist" too, is it?
Or the ideal of having techies paid for services - technical support, and custom programming (which is what a large part of the programming workforce does anyway - most professional programmers aren't paid to work on Office or OpenOffice.) - is "communism"?
If you're not trolling, then you're just a whiner who doesn't realise that no-one gave you the right to have a job handed to you on a silver platter. If someone makes a free replacement for MS Office which is so good that everyone switches over to it - they have just put all the MS Office programmers out of work. Tough. They can now do something more productive with their lives. It doesn't make moral or financial sense to pay them to produce a product which no-one will buy. And that is not "communist" either - that is just free market logic. Same thing happens every year with all kinds of product every year - this is not at all specific to the GPL.
(And I stand by all these points, even though I am pretty much a communist!)
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