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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.'"
I've always wondered, if you've got Acrobat on your system, would Stallman want you to call it Adobe/GNU/Linux?
:P
No, he would want you to remove it immediately and install a free PDF reader instead. Or, preferably, to stop using formats like PDF altogether in favour of something that's not so tied to a particular proprietary implementation.
That aside, the point is that the average "Linux" distribution does rely on a GNU foundation in a way that it doesn't rely on X, or Gnome, or KDE, or TeX, or any of the other major software packages that people like to cite when arguing against the GNU/prefix. You can run the Linux kernel without any of those, and a lot of people do. But it's pretty difficult to get a Linux kernel at all without using the GNU compiler collection, and it's pretty unusual to use Linux without the GNU userland.
Sure, you could try to compile the kernel with Intel's compiler instead, if you only want to run it on x86. And you could replace most or all of the GNU userland with the BSD equivalents, or with another alternative such as BusyBox. But firstly, most people don't; and secondly, RMS doesn't insist that such systems be called GNU/Linux anyway. The fact is that the Linux system, in its best-known configuration - the one configuration that RMS demands people refer to as GNU/Linux - is fundamentally reliant on the work of the many collaborators in the GNU project.
It's true that "GNU/Linux" is ugly, and it's true that hardly anyone uses that name, and it's even true that RMS appears to be obsessed with this minor issue well beyond the bounds of what's reasonable. But you can't deny that he has a valid point - even if, like most people, you choose to reject the conclusion he draws from it.
A bit of MIT/LCS lore here.
RMS used to live on the 7th floor of LCS. That's where he used to have his office before he resigned in protest over the commercialization of something or another. But they let him keep his office, and he lives there, because he refuses to have an apartment. (Given the rent rates in Cambridge, the assholeness of most landlords, I don't blame him. Rather than live in my office, I chose to move to Texas, and the change in rent rates and lack of state income tax resulted in an immediate %25 pay raise. RMS doesn't have that option because we have the death penalty for people like him down here.)
Anyway, RMS has or had a number or geek chick groupies. I wouldn't call any of the ones I've seen "hot", really -- well except for this one little psycho jewish undergrad from NYC. He would sleep with them on the sofa in his office. That's why he got kicked out off floor 7, and down to the 3 floor, is that the cleaning staff complained about pulling used condoms out from behind the sofas. No joke. You can use this information for trolling if you wish, but it's all true.
RMS has a phobia of water that prevents him from showering. This is part of this post I know from first hand experience, because I myself have observed him taking a sponge bath in the 3d floor mens room in LCS. Apparently once he had a girlfriend who he was totally in love with, and she convinced him to take one shower a week. It was a traumatic experience for him each time.
RMS also has a phobia of spider plants. When RMS starts bothering a grad student and going to his office and talking to him constantly and getting him to spend all his time writing free software, the grad student will complain to someone on the floor, and they'll let them in on the secrete -- get a spider plant in your office. The next time RMS drops by, his eyes will bulge a little and he'll say " Umm. . . I wanted to talk to you about hacking some elisp code . . . why don't you stop by my office sometime ?" and make a hasty exit.
One of his more nasty habits is picking huge flakes of dandruff out of his hair while talking to you. At least he doesn't eat them, like some people I know.
Now, I know everyone loves to make fun of RMS, and I'm feeding that a bit here, so I'd just like to say that I think he really is a genius, on the order of Socrates (another filthy slob who couldn't keep a normal living arrangement, and lived in a barrel) or Ghandi or Ezekiel. Everything he has ever said to me, while sounding naive and idealistic and stupid at the time, turned out to later be correct.
The only thing I fear in his philosophy is his interest in reducing population growth. Everyone else I know of who was obsessed with that "problem" turned out to have facist or totolitarian tendencies, and I think that the problem will solve itself as more and more of the world moves into a middle class type existence.
But on everything else, bitter experiences have taught me he is right. I will not use any non-GPLd or lGPLd software, and I look forward to being able to buy only "open" hardware. I would like to see software patents completely eliminated, and with the development of digitial communication, I see no reason why shouldn't simply repeal all of Title 17 and do away with all copyrights. They just aren't needed. I expect to spend much of my life being paid to write software, and I just don't see copyrights has helping me in anyway.
Free Software / OSS should be a licensing model, not a philosophy. As a licensing model it has clear advantages and disadvantages over other licensing models.
As a philosophy it is fraught with problems, the most significant problem being the utter destruction of much of the financial incentives that exist today for people to sit down and build software. It is hypocritical to enjoy the fruits of someone's capitalist labor and then attempt to take those fruits (a form of looting) and claim some philosophical justification.
Amazing magic tricks
GNU as a trademark for computer software has been registered by the FSF for a number of years.
RMS' point was that it doesn't matter what it's called because the code's still there and improving. Microsoft could grab a copy, release it with source and call it Microsoft Rainbow. I could grab a copy and call it the Shieldwolf System. That's the strength of all that GPL software, and the quality of all the software is the source of the GPL's strength. He probably doesn't like seeing resources diverted to defending a trademark when they could be, in his opinion, better used in some other way. Which is a fair enough point of view.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Linux is a kernel, right?
;-)
When did Linux become the operating system?
I must have missed something, or was it just mass media brain washing that has caught on? But last time I looked, when I installed something like SuSE, Red Hat, or Debian, it was an operating system built on open source tools, which compirsed of the linux "kernel", some variant of the unix file system, a whole suit of gnu replacements for unix commands, and a range of open source packages from folk like Apache and such?
If we were to talk about perhaps Solaris, then indeed, we are talking about the Solaris kernel, the Solaris operating system tools which were all written from scratch, alebit with access to the source from BSD and SYS V variants, and agian a unix file system and some packages from folk like Apache and such, but in this case it's a complete solution from Sun and it's called Solaris.
The same can be said surely for the likes of OpenBSD, NetBSD, and FreeBSD, where they are complete systems, built around kernels, from scratch, although in each case they too lean heavity on the GNU replacements for Unix commands and tools.
Windows for example once refered to itself as Windows NT, where the NT part was essentially the kernel, designed and built by some smart folk who had a hand in the likes of OS/2 and VMS kernels and operating systems if I recall corrently, but it was clear that Windows was the GUI and NT was the underlying kernel.
Mac OS X even now is pretty open about the split between it's Mach kernel, Darwin core, and BSD / NeXT Step tools, but we don't call Mac OS X "Mach" do we - nope, it's OS X, or if you're like me and you favour what uname -a tells you, it's Darwin
I think Stallman summed it up pretty well when he ended the piece with:
quote:
Stallman thinks the issue of naming the product is not so clear cut. "Most of the time, when people call something 'Linux', it's the GNU system with Linux as the kernel. Maybe this policy will encourage people to call it GNU," Stallman told the Sydney Morning Herald. "I prefer to say GNU/Linux' so as to give the kernel's developer a share of the credit."
Now I do agree that GNU/Linux is perhaps a mouthfull, but on the other hand, I think it's particularly lame to refer to the GNU/Linux operating system as just Linux, so perhaps it's time for a new name, label, whatever, for whatever it is many of us run.
It could be like the Musician formerly known as Prince, now known as some Egyptian hyrogliph - we could have the operating system formerly known as Linux, now known as #$%^&#!?
It might actually be worth many of you taking time to read Stallman's FAQ on GNU/Linux over at:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html
It does go a long way to answering and clearing up much of what is in this horribly messy series of threads and sub threads, basically emotive and guess work, rather than fact.
For example, from that URL:
quote:
Why do you call it GNU/Linux and not Linux?
Most operating system distributions based on Linux as kernel are basically modified versions of the GNU operating system. We began developing GNU in 1984, years before Linus Torvalds started to write his kernel, and we developed a larger part of the resulting system than any other project. In fairness, we ought to get equal mention.
quote:
Why is the name important?
Although the developers of Linux, the kernel, are contributing to the free software community, many of them do not care about freedom. People who think the whole system is Linux tend to get confused and assign to those developers a role in the history of our community which they did not actually play. Then they give inordinate weight to those developers' views.
Calling the system GNU/Linux recognizes the role that our idealism played in building our community, and helps the public recognize the practical importance of these ideals.
quote:
--- Dez Blanchfield http://WebSearch.COM.AU "Will work for bandwidth.."
Apparently Stallman only says GNU Linux. I think Leo Laporte invited him to be on TWiT podcast. He insisted that everyone only say GNU/Linux or he wouldn't come. I believe after that requirement, the TWiT crew cancelled their invitation.
Stallman also made of fool of himself on Leo's old show, "The Screen Savers" on TechTV before it was raped by G4. Apparently, Stallman forced everyone to say GNU/Linux, so Leo got his revenge by having Stallman sing the Free Software Foundation ditty. Although Stallman didn't see the humor in it, the viewers sure did.