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Ask Slashdot: Is It Linux or GNU/Linux? (linuxjournal.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Should the Linux operating system be called "Linux" or "GNU/Linux"? These days, asking that question might get as many blank stares returned as asking, "Is it live or is it Memorex?" Some may remember that the Linux naming convention was a controversy that raged from the late 1990s until about the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Back then, if you called it "Linux", the GNU/Linux crowd was sure to start a flame war with accusations that the GNU Project wasn't being given due credit for its contribution to the OS. And if you called it "GNU/Linux", accusations were made about political correctness, although operating systems are pretty much apolitical by nature as far as I can tell.
The brouhaha got started in the mid-1990s when Richard Stallman, among other things the founder of the Free Software Movement who penned the General Public License, began insisting on using the term "GNU/Linux" in recognition of the importance of the GNU Project to the OS. GNU was started by Stallman as an effort to build a free-in-every-way operating system based on the still-not-ready-for-prime-time Hurd microkernel. According to this take, Linux was merely the kernel, and GNU software was the sauce that made Linux work. Noting that the issue seems to have died down in recent years, and mindful of Shakespeare's observation on roses, names and smells, I wondered if anyone really cares anymore what Linux is called. For once and all, I wanted to ask Slashdot crowd what they think.
The brouhaha got started in the mid-1990s when Richard Stallman, among other things the founder of the Free Software Movement who penned the General Public License, began insisting on using the term "GNU/Linux" in recognition of the importance of the GNU Project to the OS. GNU was started by Stallman as an effort to build a free-in-every-way operating system based on the still-not-ready-for-prime-time Hurd microkernel. According to this take, Linux was merely the kernel, and GNU software was the sauce that made Linux work. Noting that the issue seems to have died down in recent years, and mindful of Shakespeare's observation on roses, names and smells, I wondered if anyone really cares anymore what Linux is called. For once and all, I wanted to ask Slashdot crowd what they think.
This is one of those pointless topics. like Mac versus PC.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Rms was never relevant to the likes of you. to all others he is kassandra, and if your flavour of linux consists of the kernel and glibc, its gnu/linux.
> And it's not perfect but since you can review the code you can figure out exactly where and how it doesn't do what it's supposed to do.
That's super important to me. I virtually ALWAYS find and fix any issue at all on an open source system by using one consistent method - trace the program, let look at the source to see exactly what's going on. If the issue is that I have to pass a different argument to the program, I can see that clearly. It'll say right in the source:
if (option.be_sane) {
do_what_ray_wants();
}
If there is a bug in the program, I can see it and fix it.
Whatever the problem, the solution is always the same - go look at the portion of the code that handles that and see exactly what's going on.
For the last couple of weeks a co-worker and I have been trying to enable WMI on a Windows 10 box. According to all the documentation we can find, that should be a simple 3-minute process. Yet it doesn't work. No matter what we try, Windows just returns an undocumented and apparently irrelevant error code. The Windows logs show nothing. All we can do at this point is make random guesses and try different things which are not documented to be needed. There is no process which will solve problems on Windows, or any proprietary software, because we can't look at the source and see what's going on. We can only guess at random and hope we eventually hit the Windows jackpot and happen across the lucky set of registry settings and reboots that makes it work, for no apparent reason.
GNU hitched their wagon to Linux instead of building Hurd and that has been markedly poor decision for a couple of reasons:
Firstly it means that the core component of the system used to advance the FSF ideology is one that not only does not share that ideology. Linus is in favour of Tivoization and against the idea of the GPLv3 for example. Also the kernel's license preamble explicitly overrides parts of the GPL that would make applications that use kernel services derived works so it isn't actually GPLv2. In addition, unlike many other GPL free software projects, kernel contributions are not subject to copyright assignment to the FSF.
Secondly the valuable piece in terms of the operating system is the kernel, that is what hardware vendors write drivers for and what ultimately gives Linux operating systems such a wide variety of hardware support making it so versatile. GNU does not provide that fundamental functionality and can be replaced, as we have seen with Android and ChromeOS. So while Linux systems have seen explosive growth in users over recent years GNU has not.
It would be an uphill battle but the FSF should really put all effort behind building Hurd and getting industry support for it before GNU is completely marginalized in the context of Linux.