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Stallman Claims Linux Trademark Doesn't Matter
Tontoman writes "ZDNet UK reports on an interview with Richard Stallman with the Sydney Morning Herald. From the article: '"Free software means you're free to run it, study it, change it, redistribute it, and distribute modified versions the way cooks do with recipes. What names you're allowed to call a program is a side issue." The Linux trademark became an issue last month after a lawyer acting on behalf of Linux creator Linus Torvalds wrote to 90 Australian companies asking that they sign a statutory declaration waiving exclusive rights to the trademark's use.'"
So Linux is open for modification and distribution..... as long as Linus feels that you aren't harming his trademark? [sarcasm] Wow, that's certainly open.[/sarcasm]
How does the trademark stop you from modifying and distributing Linux freely? The only thing it stops you from is using the name "Linux" commercially in ways he doesn't like.
Big. Difference.
You can't make your own OSS spreadsheet program either and name it "Microsoft Excel".
I guess with Linux's userbase (both corporate and private) continuing to grow, Linus (or at least a lawyer working on his behalf) feels that perhaps they need to begin regulating Linux a bit more closely.
FYI: "Linux" was trademarked in 1996 by a lawyer who didn't have anything to do with Linux and then proceeded to ask for royalties from companies using it.
After a legal scuffle, Linus Torvalds was assigned the copyright in 1997 (So this is news?), and has licensed it since. The Linux Mark Institute has been around for years as well. (Can't recall exactly when they started, but archive.org dates their page to at least 2002).
"Linux" is a term with commercial potential. If Linus didn't own the trademark, someone else would (and did). And they would hardly charge any less.
Because 100% of the C/C++ programs are built with gcc, including the MIT/KDE software. People are forgetting that the FSF not only contributed the standard utilities and libraries, but ALSO gcc.
Without gcc being available to Linus, it is doubtful whether there would even have been a kernel to compile. Linus would have had to resort to a commercial compiler, which back then typically cost around $500.
The most common ones then came from either SCO or ATT.
The widespread adoption of Linux would've been slowed significantly if people had to fork over $500 for a development kit, and probably another $200-500 for a commercial OS, just so they could run Linux.
This is why we're indebted to the FSF for their efforts. And they are right to insist upon credit for themselves. Without the FSF, Linux wouldn't be nearly as far along as it is today. Giving the FSF due recognition seems quite appropriate; and frankly, I just don't see people giving the FSF the respect it deserves (witness your comments), let alone due credit.
And don't forget that it was RMS himself who encouraged Linus to adopt the GPL for his kernel. Without the GPL, it is also questionable how far along Linux would be today.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Before you start lecturing other people on how to use the language, you might want to do a little brushing up of your own skills. The word you are looking for is probably 'retarded,' unless you are really trying to imply that the recursive acronyms in general, and GNU in particular, have been 'tarted,' through the addition of tart flavours, twice. That's not a word you're likely to find in any dictionary, but at least it would make some sense (by analogy to 'sweetened.) But retarded doesn't really work here either, it means slowed, hindered, or set back, none of which make much sense in this context.
Most likely I would think you were actually trying to say 'stupid' but 'retarded' is not really a synonym for stupid. In relation to a person, we might say that they are 'mentally retarded' as an explanation for their stupidity, of course, which is probably where you got the idea the two words are synonyms, but if true this is just a further sign of sloppy thinking.
The contention that recursive acronyms are grammatically incorrect is unsupported, incorrect, and generally leads me to suspect (particularly in context, next to the repeated use of 'retarted') that you might be mentally retarded to some degree yourself.
Perhaps because explorer was never a project to create an operating system, but simply a shell which runs as part of several OSs, on two entirely different types of kernel?
Perhaps because Darwin doesn't use the BSD kernel? It uses the XNU kernel, and a good deal of BSD userland, so a much better analogy would be calling Darwin the 'BSD/XNU OS.' Unlike what you posted, that would make some sense, and be recognisable as referring to something real, albeit in an unusual way. Of course it's not necessary, because in that case you have no ambiguity, but it would make sense to clarify things if Darwin somehow wound up with no proper name, and people were running around referring to the entire OS as 'XNU.'
No, GNU was a project with the explicit goal of creating a Free Operating System, which had progressed a very long ways already and produced everything required except a functional kernel. People were already running the GNU OS, on top of proprietary unix kernels, but without a Free kernel you still had to buy a proprietary system and then replace the userland to make a GNU system, so it was obviously important to get that last piece made. The GNU toolchain made linux possible, and linux completed the GNU OS in return.
Obviously in addition to the mental/linguistic difficulties noted earlier, your understanding of history is a bit deficient as well.
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