Slashdot Mirror
Stephen Fry Helps GNU Celebrate 25th Birthday
Virgil Tibbs writes "The GNU operating system is turning 25 this year, and the Free Software Foundation has kicked off its month-long celebration of the anniversary by releasing 'Happy Birthday to GNU,' a short film featuring the English humorist, actor, novelist and filmmaker Stephen Fry. In the five-minute film, Fry compares the free software operating system to 'good science' and contrasts it with the 'kind of tyranny' imposed by the proprietary software produced by companies like Microsoft and Apple that it replaces. He encourages people to use free GNU/Linux distributions like gNewSense and free software generally, for freedom's sake."
Fine-figured Fry
In vanishing kilt
Suffered no hair get by
The gladius hilt
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
...is awesome. A breath of fresh air amongst a smog of thick idiots on UK TV.
That's the way to do it!
Red Leader Standing By!
Fortunately, utube have it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dcxtEKShXA
Red Leader Standing By!
Of course, this is also the Stephen Fry who paid dearly for his rash idealism in "V for Vendetta". Did he learn nothing?
Video via YouTube
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Is he by any chance related to Philip J. Fry?
Make mine a stiff one Stephen.
Sounds like an improvement over the FREE software song.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiAK0AQDXu8
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
thank god he's advising the public to use gNewSense instead of something they might find difficult to get along with
That's gNews to me.
Oh, wait, it's just Stallman pretending like he did it all himself again.
But Stallman does seem to think he's directly responsible for any and all software which is released under the license. 25 years old my a**.
I surprised no one has mentioned the connection between Stephen playing Jeeves (the best version in history) and the old search engine Ask Jeeves.
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
The GNU OS? What, Herd?
Oh, we're talking about Linux. You know, I'm not sure if Linus has changed his tune, but last I heard he didn't even like calling it Gnu/Linux (and as he's the kernel's primary author and maintainer, I tend to give his point of view some respect on that issue). Going the extra step and taking Linux out of the name altogether, though, is just plain intellectual dishonesty. Linux is not a GNU OS -- much less "The GNU OS". It is an OS that uses GNU utilities.
Has HURD, er, GNU/HURD been released for a while now?
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
If I hadn't already posted, and if I had mod-points, I'd do it myself.
I figure, if we're celebrating a 25th anniversary of the GNU OS, then I should've seen an announcement for HURD.
Am I wrong?
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
>"The GNU operating system is turning 25 this year" Hate to break it to you, but "GNU" is not an operating system. You can make one with lots of GNU tools and after many years with no kernel, you could even use HURD. But the 25 years is a celebration of a PROJECT, not an OS. If they had a compelling kernel all those years ago, then it is likely Linux would never have existed. In any case, I am very glad GNU exists! Happy birthday!
Well, nor the Internet as such but Arpanet, thanks to this little document:
Title: Host Software
Author: Steve Crocker
Installation: UCLA
Date: 7 April 1969
Network Working Group Request for Comment: 1
Does anyone else think that April 7 should be some kind of world-wide special day, "Internet day"?
Perhaps particularly relevant given that the music, movie, TV, and telecoms industries are doing their very damnedest to shut down the free Internet and install some kind of corporate filtered, locked down, pay-per-packet imitation.
My blog
When I read "The GNU operating system" I thought it meant Hurd. In fact Hurd is only 24 years old, and is evidently still not ready for production use. When will this baby grow up!
Can someone tell me what GNU free software replaces what Apple proprietary software ? Thinking at the Apple software catalog i don't seem to find too many GNU alternatives.
Thanks.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
s/operating system/collection of softwares (that may help you to make maybe an operating system)/
The striking resemblance between Stephen Fry and the Gnu logo. On the Gnu main page they have pictured him from an angle that maximises this resemblance.
1. The music at the end comprises a load of Apple GarageBand loops. These are not Free - you're allowed to incorporate them royalty-free but not distribute them on their own.
2. Fry's wrong about motives. Many businesses and individuals contribute for fame or fortune, unlike science where so much is publicly funded with fixed wages.
3. The aim of science is good research, the aim of almost all GNU projects is good engineering.
I watched this and felt it was an opportunity lost. While Stephen's presentation was as impeccable as always, the content was distinctly lacking.
Firstly it was provided in the Ogg format. Yes, I know that's a "free" format, but what it isn't is a populist format. If you want to introduce new people to the tenets of GNU then providing them with a file format that is only used by the faithful is utterly pointless. Multiple formats including ogg would be the only sensible way to do this. I dare say more sensible people will distribute it in other formats, but it's an indicative triumph of pedantry over good sense.
Then the editing itself was somewhat amateurish. Those cuts to still photographs were pointless, irritating, and somewhat random. Even where they were somewhat pertinent (stephen talking about his first computer) they didn't seem to be correct (I may be wrong, but I doubt he started out with an IBM PC).
The tedious "Gnu/Linux" thing came up again. The childish demands that we call it that make the FSF look petty. It isn't accurate either - I have at least as much Apache, MIT, Mozilla, and BSD software on this machine as GNU and I'm damned if I'm going to pick a less elegant name just for Stallman's self-aggrandizement. We call it Linux because that's the major distinguishing feature. We'd call it GNU if they'd written a complete operating system. They didn't, so we don't. Get over it.
Finally as apparently novice users we are pointed to gNewSense, a distribution with virtually no mind-share and little community to support neophytes.
Loud klaxon, -100 points. Perhaps Alan Davies can take a swing at it?
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
After all, no gnus is good gnus, with Gary Gnu.
The Gary Gnu Show.
... and there was me thinking Stephen Fry was your regular computer luddite. Hah! Of course, all he said could have been scripted. 'Lynas Torvalds, or Linus, as SOME people call him'?
Anyhow, good man, Stephen! Although I can see your average computer user glazing over within about 10 seconds of Stephen mentioning words like kernel and gNewSense.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
To be young and idealistic. Don't worry GNU, the world will break you by 30.
Look, Stallman might still be bitter that he couldn't create a complete OS in time. Torvalds, however, has made a small (but significant, ofcourse!) part that tied the whole thing together.
Funny, that the whole OS is called Linux, as the kernel is such a small part of it.
My take on this is that both RMS and LT need a reality check and that the unixy OS they both like has been made possible by thousands upon thousands of contributors and that by themselves could never have gotten that for. It is a community effort. It would go on without both of them.
Having met both of them in person, I rather spend time with Richard (he is fun and friendly, albeit a bit "intense") than Linus (who is a real prick).
has anyone noticed the striking resemblance between the Hurd Logo and a circle-jerk?
As far as I can determine, GNU/FSF has nothing whatever to do with freedom.
If I use it, I have to obey the licensing conditions. Therefore I am no more free to benefit from it than I am free to benefit from commercial software.
If I become dependent on updates, I will be forced to accept future GPLs, and they just keep getting bigger, with increasing restrictive clauses. Therefore I am locked in just as with certain commercial vendors.
If I choose to write innovative software and others choose to buy it for money, I may find myself prevented from continuing this business model when someone duplicates the innovation and distributes it under the GPL (eg Linux/Minix).
If I want to create a product or application that combines multiple technologies, the GPL will prevent me from doing so, due to its viral nature.
If I want to find a free (eg BSD) project to use or contribute to, I cannot because GPL projects have tempted away developers with misleading political propoganda.
In a free community, leaders are selected by the people. Stallman is the dictator of the FSF, not removable either via a ballot or wallet voting. And the FSF owns all the most important GPL software.
Oh, and it's not free as in beer either.
When the post above talked about "thick idiots" I bet he didn't realise it was a premonition about one of the posts to come.
Stephen Fry
The second person in Europe to own an Apple II (after his good friend Douglas Adams). Steve Jobs is also a personal friend, apparently.
America, Home of the Brave.
As much as I love Stephen Fry, doesn't the video look like he's just reading some Stallman propaganda? It surely does..
You just got troll'd!
Wasn't that an AirBook beside his chair? So why was he bashing Apple then?
But then at least the Darwin kernel is open source [1] and with MacPorts [2] he could himself a GNU/Darwin open source system.
Just kidding of course...
Martin
[1] http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/
[1] http://www.macports.org/
That toolset is what GNU, at first at least was. All the thousands of utilities that people think made up the OS once, in the days of the commandline OS.
Today it is far more complex, does a graphical shell, such as OSX, Windows, KDE count as part of the OS, or is it program that is run under the OS? Perhaps to make it clear is that until recently Microsoft had the graphical shell run on top of DOS. In the various GNU/Linux distro's this is still the case although quite a few distro's try to hide this by hiding the kernel output so that the user never sees anything but a number of graphical displays until they are in their favorite window manager.
So depending on your definition of what IS an operating system the statement in the movie that the GNU OS is 25, is correct.
Car anology, you use the steering wheel to operate the wheels, this is obvious and clear cut, but where you draw the line between the part that control the wheels and the wheels themselves? Is there even a line because you could also say that the wheel+wheels together allow you to control the car.
But of course, the trolls now are happily hammering on the fact that Hurd is still a dream and that Richard Stallman is claiming things that aren't true. Well they have to of course because they can't put a dent into the fact that GNU tools are an essential part of linux, BSD, OS-X. We forget just how often we use simple GNU tools every day we use one of these operating systems.
It is like a car nut who thinks the rubber on his wheels is not important.
25 years ago, when nobody had yet heard of Linus Torvald, long before DRM and the RIAA, one guy had a vision of free software, software not controlled by anyone company but by the community. It was a revolutionary idea in a time when you rented all your computer access and most people still thought computers where things in big boxes that bleeped and one company even thought that the market for the PC could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Long before Microsoft and WGA, Richard Stallman saw that free software might be the only way to give us some measure of control over who owned the information age.
That is an achievement and something to celebrate. So, the GNU kernel is still missing in action, that is why this movie talks about both GNU the OS and Linux the kernel working together.
But I suppose it is the nature of trolls to latch onto one tiny details and then blow it out of proportion.
Congrats GNU, here is to the next 25 years of software free from whatever the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs wish to impose on us next.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I hope the Macbook Air next to him is running Free software! This is a major endorsement, well done to all those involved.
Alan Fry, physicist and erstwhile manufacturer of control systems. Personally, I suspect all the technical stuff is actually written by Fry Senior...all right, that's unlikely to be true, but in this case the apple has fallen a lot closer to the tree than most people here seem to realise. Esther Dyson doesn't surprise us, why should Stephen Fry?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Fry is rapidly building his geek-cred. He was great friends with Douglas Adams and the Monty Pythons, and now he promotes GNU. And wasn't he a character in some animated geek series?
That's not Picasso, that's Kandinsky!
stupid name for an OS. Why don't we all agree to use Ubuntu and give linux a hope of cracking the mainstream..
Because this is about GNU, not linux. There is a very real and important difference. Linux is a kernel, GNU is a set of tools that you can use NOT just with linux but with all sorts of unixes including of course BSD.
But because a lot of people have no idea about what GNU is, we should pamper to them and call it something completely different, adding a couple of years to a linux distro. If they had celebrated the 25th birthday of Linux you would no doubt be pointing out that linux ain't 25.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Apache is a huge thing, which is often compiled using the Gnu toolchain, but uses a different license. Hence, not GNU/Apache.
The Gnu toolchain can be used on many operating systems. When I have to use Windows, I use cygwin, which is compiled using the toolchain. But, of course, Windows is not under the GPL.
You're right, of course, that not everything released under the GPL is claimed by Stallman, but it is interesting that Linux, an OS which happens to be released under the GPL (something that he was going to get around to doing, but never quite got to), is claimed by him, publicly, repeatedly, contentiously, pointlessly.
And don't start on the Hurd. If it's so fantastic, what the hell does he need to claim Linux for?
Well, I would estimate about 30% - 40% of MacOS X is free. The Kernel of course and then a few dozed under the hut tools like Postfix, Fetchmail, the X Server and so on. Check http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html for details.
Martin
Because this is about GNU, not linux.
It wouldn't be about Linux if they hadn't brought up the subject.
If the FSF want to proudly point to Linux as one of the things that their organisation and license have helped to happen, that's fine by me. If they want to talk about how great GNU is, that's also fine by me.
Bringing up the GNU/Linux name, however, is at best confusing, at worst petty, and most importantly it's completely unnecessary, nay damaging, in a short video with the ostensible purpose of introducing new people to GNU.
If they had celebrated the 25th birthday of Linux you would no doubt be pointing out that linux ain't 25.
Yes, no doubt I would. So what?
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
What, we are celebrating 25 years of Hurd being in prealpha state?
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
We can agree to disagree, but to me, even this acknowledgment, which you have to dig deep to find, intimates that Linux is a little thing, and all the terribly hard work of adding it to a real OS was done by Stallman or under his direction.
Straight away, they have to spoil things:
"GNU's kernel wasn't finished, so GNU is used with the kernel Linux. The combination of GNU and Linux is the GNU/Linux operating system, now used by millions. (Sometimes this combination is incorrectly called Linux.)"
Trying to re-write history ("so GNU is used with the kernel Linux"), while those of us old enough to remember how it really happened are still around, will continue to make them look like petulant children.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Note that while he's criticizing Apple, there's a MacBook Air sitting on the table to his right with his prompts.
In know that there are GNU tool OS X and certainly I know about bash. That's because "chsh /bin/zsh" was one of the first commands I typed into "Terminal" once I got my Mac.
Martin
... that has already been observed here on /.
I clicked on the link and watched it, with the completely stock Firefox 3 included in Ubuntu Hardy. It viewed just fine. I had wondered what video format they would use, since I don't have a Flash plugin (GNASH really isn't there yet). But the viewing experience was completely seamless and crap-free, much better than the experiences I've had watching Youtube.
Whether everyone knows what UNIX is or why they should or shouldn't call it GNU/Linux, seems relatively insignificant. I thought it did a reasonable job of conveying the idea of freedom, which in my opinion is the most important goal of such a production.
You obviously haven't ever used it.
I encountered this debate, and to solve it, reviewed it!
I found it pretty good!
You now can get IceCat.
I don't find gNewSense any more hard to get along with than $foo distribution.
www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
Does anyone else think that April 7 should be some kind of world-wide special day, "Internet day"?
Absolutely, we should mark the occasion by browsing the Web all day, instead of doing any real work.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
If you want open source only use Debian (and stay away from the non-free parts), otherwise use Ubuntu. Why the hell would anyone want to use gNewSense which is just a hobbled Ubuntu? Maybe there are a few FSF diehards who might but the vast majority will go with Ubuntu or another dist which make pragmatic use of free commercial software when it serves a purpose.
all the bullshit and bickering around the distros, licenses, names and foundations aside, the free software has come a loong way in the last 15 years.
instead of bickering with each other, we should try to improve the situation further by concentrating on best sides of everything, and patching or helping patching the weak sides.
for, great strides are made in that manner.
Read radical news here
The second person in Europe to own an Apple II (after his good friend Douglas Adams). Steve Jobs is also a personal friend, apparently.
No, he was the second person in Europe (supposedly) to own an Apple Macintosh, Douglas Adams being the first.
My blog
Media whoring skills, no.
Calling bullshit on media manipulation and media whoring skills, yes.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
do you ask how to change your Intel x86 to a PPC without reinstalling?
Why would you even WANT to?
GNOME - the graphical environment, and gstreamer - the multimedia encoding/decoding subsystem? (maybe the latter is not a GNU project though, I'm not sure).
Is GNOME still the GNU Object Model Environment? I assumed they had jettisoned the GNU trappings when they started to rely on .NET for core services.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry
I'm a fan of Stephen Fry and I certainly appreciate the work of FSF. However, since Stephen thinks its so great to give one's work away for free instead of receiving royalties, does he also give away copies of his own writings and performances for free or the cost of materials? Or, does he expect to be paid royalties? Just asking.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
d'oh.
You still have the original BSD code under the BSD license, so you have "lost" nothing. At least as far as BSDers consider "losing code" to be when it's set in a closed source software system.
BSD lets that happen.
Like it or put up with it. Or don't use BSD if you don't want someone slapping a GPL license on it. But stop complaining.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm moderated "-1, Troll".
At the same time, look what kind of replies this posting has attracted. Look. Butthurt BSD fanboys and astroturf GNU GPL bashers repeating the same old misconceptions and lies over and over again.
Oh you people.
"""
GNU's kernel wasn't finished, so GNU is used with the kernel Linux. The combination of GNU and Linux is the GNU/Linux operating system, now used by millions. (Sometimes this combination is incorrectly called Linux.)
"""
The GNU/Linux OS is sometimes - even more incorrectly - called the GNU OS.
I guess somebody likes paying for their bandwidth... Strange.
Ahh, but did you see the screen? For all you know he was running linux on his mac!
Since when is GNU 25 years old? Is this story for real? They were not around in the 80's and didn't even get their domain (or any related domain) until 1995-11-24. So where do they get this number from? Move this to the HOAX area.
Is this the answer to Seinfeld? Fail.
How awesome! I actually noticed the other day while over at the FSF website that a "Stephen Fry" was a major contributor/patron and had my suspicions it was him. Not long ago I watched an engaging speech he delivered on the BBC Parliament channel where one of the topics he discussed was technology and the media. To paraphrase: "If I can view something on my computer I can rip it, encode it and bittorrent it". It was the kind of talk that I imagine has Mark Thompson waking in cold sweats..
All fawning and starry-eyed admiration aside, as an advocate for the cause of software Freedom, you could not wish for a more amenable or erudite man. Legend.
....Quite interesting. :)
I first saw Stephen Fry as "Lord Snot" on the 80's show "The Young Ones." episode "Bambi" Fry was side-splittingly brilliant. Hugh Laurie was there as well as "Lord Monty." THe Young ones were competing against Footlites College Oxbridge in "University Challenge"
"funnier than hell"
I've often wondered about that phrase. It'd take a mighty effort of depravity and perversion to be something that wasn't funnier than hell. One could almost label it a tautology.
Sorry, just my absent-minded rambling.
I notice that the massive list of people thanked in the video credits for contributing to the GNU(/Linux) operating system does not include Linus Torvalds. Ouch.
Does anyone else think that April 7 should be some kind of world-wide special day, "Internet day"?
Absolutely, we should mark the occasion by browsing the Web all day, instead of doing any real work.
I thought that's what slashdotters did 365 days a year?
Stephen Fry is said to like to take regular back-ups.
Let me fix that for you: Stephen Fry is said to like to take it up the back regularly.
gnu (bash etc) is also used in many other platforms and RMS doesn't go about insisting that those should get called GNU/xxx.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The Podcast, Freedom Socks, has released an interview with Matt Lee, FSF campaigns manager, on the subject of the Stephen Fry video.
It's interesting, the hosts put some interesting questions to him about the video.
www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net