Ken Brown Responds to His Critics

An anonymous reader writes "Yes, I know it's getting boring by now, but the truth must be told... the latest Unix celebrity to come forward and criticise Ken Brown/ADTI is Unix pioneer Dennis Ritchie. The gist is that Brown is claiming an 'extensive interview' with Ritchie but this was actually limited to a single email exchange and a follow-up call from one of Brown's lackeys checking one or two facts." Reader markrages writes "Ken Brown (of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution) replies to his critics. Dr. Tanenbaum is an 'animated, but tense individual about the topic of rights and attribution'. The GNU/Linux naming issue also makes an appearance."

Comments

The GNU/Linux naming issue, as I see it.

[byolinux]

GNU project sets out to create Free Software OS.

Various parts are already complete, a la X.

Kernel needed, as GNU project kernel not finished... ... along comes Linux kernel, under GPL.

GNU project could have just taken this as their official kernel, but they'd put too much work into Hurd to stop really, and Hurd is a better design, so they choose GNU/Linux, to offer credit to themselves and all the work they've done in creating a Free Software OS, but also to Linus Torvalds.

It's not X/GNU/Apache/MySQL/Linux/etc because non of those other things ever set out to make a Free Operating System, not even Linus.