I hardly think that geeks are seeking "public transport". The California Bay Area sucks when it comes to mass transit. Traffic jams are ubiquitous. Yet it is the biggest geek magnet anywhere.
A company in Silicon Valley was thinking of moving to Oregon or Idaho. One of their employees was bitching to me about it. I thought it would be a great move. A $60-120K job in those places would be the good life. Places where you can actually buy a home instead of wishing all your life you could afford one. However, this friend said that the number one reason he wanted to stay in Silicon Valley was not the money. He wanted to stay because it was 100% job security. Lose a job in the morning and you can get hired for a better one in the afternoon.
City councils don't attract people. People are attracted to the city by the city itself, not whatever government happens to be in charge. Attractions include job prospects, economic climate, culture and atmosphere, friends and family, etc. Some of these things can be influenced by the city council, but the more they pass regulations and pass out tax funds to special interests, the less attractive overall it becomes. People don't move to New York because of Ed Koch or Rudy Guliani. They move to New York because it's New York.
A city council *can* attract industry, but only through bribes of some sort. If a given company is intent on building a new factory, it will do so. But if Pittsburg (for example) bribes the industry in through any sort of preferential treatment, it doesn't help the industry, but instead screws over Baltimore, Philadelphia and all other cities that the industry was considering. City governments cannot create jobs. They can only relocate them.
A better way to attract jobs, people and geeks, is through good government. Stay out of the everyday lives of people. Ensure equitable justice. Keep the peace. Limit spending, and thus taxation, to what is necessary.
The sad situation is that most people won't read their manuals. Proof of this can be seen by observing the millions of VCR's that steadily blink 00:00:00. Not reading manuals is human nature. To read a manual is to enter the "student" mode, and people want to stay in their "user" mode. Hackers and geeks are not normal people. We are always in the "student" mode, so reading the manual is second nature.
Not reading the manual is not confined to Linux, as we all know. I've seen quite a few people running Windows on a 20" monitor at 640x480 resolution. Or using Excel for wordprocessing because "it has columns already for me". Over Christmas, I was playing Freecell on my Aunt's computer. She was very surprised that there were games on her computer, even though she's had it for two years.
When the average person does decide that they do need to read the manual, they refuse to read it all the way through, and instead try to find that one piece of information they currently need. This stratagem never works, of course, since they have no foundation to base that information on.
However, there are a couple of simple things that can ease a newbies transition to Linux. First of all, don't ignore or flame a newbie question on the lists. Take some time out of every week to hit the lists and gently reply to newbie questions. Don't tell them to RTFM, but instead direct them to a more appropriate list if the question is off-topic. If it's already covered in the FAQ, patiently explain it all over again, then show them the FAQ.
No, that is not the "standard way to do things in unix". Programs that are part of the same project may have different version numbers, but the project still has it's own version. KDE 1.1.2 contains KMail 1.0.28, KFM 1.167.2.21, etc., but all the user needs to do is to download KDE 1.1.2.
However, with Gnome, it can be very frustrating to download. Don't just use it off of a distro, but go out and actually download all the parts. Say, you're trying to upgrade to a fictious "december Gnome". Do you need to upgrade libxml as well? What about ORBit? If you're one of the fortunate people with fast connections, you'll probably just download it all, but those of us with 56K or slower modems (I reckon the majority) don't want to spend five hours downloading everything in the repository.
I haven't downloaded Gnome in a few months, but the last time I did, I checked the online documentation that listed what was required, downloaded it all, and then found out that several packages were too old.
The easiest installation I ever had was with Slackware 7.0. It was simply a charm! Straight forward. Bare bones. Simple. Of course, you needed a bit of computer savvy, but you need more of it with NT/W2K. The next easiest was Mandrake 6.0.
The worst installation I ever had was Caldera 2.2. It was the only graphical installer I ever used. I didn't like my video card, so I had to revert to Lisa. Next up was Debian (why are you installing nonfree packages by default!?!?).
But the real key to Linux is not ease of installation. If we succeed in the marketplace, then everyone will be getting it preinstalled anyway. The real key is setup and maintenance. In this area, Slackware really shines. It's because there's no broken linuxconfs or single-minded Yast's in the way.
Now, understand that I'm not recommending Slackware for the absolute newbie. Certainly not. But once you've got a certain modicum of knowledge under your belt, Slackware is a breath of fresh air.
Only the copyright holder is entitled to sue for copyright infringement. This is basic law in virtually every nation. You can't sue your neighbor across the street for stealing the apples of your neighbor down the way. Only the person who is damaged can sue.
If your software is not in the public domain, then please, please, don't claim that you have given it away or are not the owner. This will be used against you in court. "Your honor, the plaintiff has an entire website arguing that he doesn't own the vimacs software..."
So what happens with Megasloth infringes upon the license of John Q. Hacker's tiny perl script? Without John's permission, the FSF, Slashdot readers, OSI, or anyone else is allowed to initiate a lawsuit. However, John Q. Hacker can initiate the suit. And anyone who subitted copyrighted code to the project can join in. Then funds are gathered from all the indigant bystanders from the FSF, Slashdot, OSI, etc.
I have the choice of purchasing The Complete and Official GNU Software Collection for several thousand dollars, or downloading it for free. Same warranties, support and functionality. I suspect that the number of people who purchased that package without any intention of charity of donation approaches 0.025%. This is not to belittle RMS though. He does provide a valuable service through GNU in that you can pay for custom versions or ports of GNU software.
However, every existing item of Free or Open Source Software that's for sale is also available as a "Free Beer" download. If an item of software is unavailable as a free download, even temporarily, then RMS does not like it and will readily tell you so. If you then have the temerity to use the words "free" or "open" in proximity to such a product, you will reap upon yourselves unending scorn.
Just ask Troll Tech, Aladdin, Apple, Sun, or a host of other companies. In Sun and Apple's case, they have earned a far greater wrath from GNU advocates than if they had never attempted the open their products to begin with.
"Basically, they're a bit parasitic to the community."
What have you given back to the community? A slashdot posting?!? 99% of the community has never written software, submitted a bug report, written documentation, or even mailed a polite thank you note to any developer. But you call ORA the parasite for providing documentation and funding? I don't know where you GNU fanatics buy your dictionaries, but someone needs to sue that bookseller for fraud!
"When they hold free software events, they make it a policy to explicitly not invite some of the original community members (Stallman was not invited to the Summit, for instance)."
RMS is the only one they refuse to invite. And they have good reason not to. He continually refuses to adhere to decorum and rules of order. He is in the habit of ignoring the time limits on talks, ignoring the topic at hand (the topic which attendees paid to hear), and verbally assaulting reporters who use the word "Linux" in his presence.
"However, O'Reilly tries to paint themselves as really big free software/open source supporters, while in reality acting to maximize profit, sometimes sabotaging the movement. This hypocracy pisses me off, and presumably, the FSF as weal."
And what is wrong with trying to maximize one's profit? Isn't that what YOU do every day at work? If that is RMS's big concern, then he should come right out and declare money to be immoral and be done with it, instead of beating around the bush saying how it's okay for Free Software to be commercial.
And precisely how has ORA sabotaged the Open Source movement? Was it by not following the FSF dictates to the letter? If anything, they have helped Open Source by letting it be known that RMS does not hold a monopoly on software ideology.
In case you have forgotten, RMS was not opposed to non-free documentation, and even encouraged selling documentation as a means to finance free software, until ORA started publishing books about GNU software. Then, and only then, did he decide that ORA was evil.
I received an email the other day from gnu.org (it was not RMS). It was an attempt to set me straight on a few points. What struck me as hilarious, which I did not point out in my reply, was that the arguments were almost word or word identical to those of Richard Stallman as posted on www.gnu.org. Furthermore, the writer kept refering to himself as "we".
Suffice it to say, I did not get the impression that this writer had original thoughts or questioned what RMS says. Rather, I could almost imagine him asking Richard "how high."
Boy, was I off by a few years! I just pulled out a 11/23 copy of CUJ. Under Austin Code Works, they were selling "InfoMagic Unix" containing three free unices, Linux, 386BSD and NetBSD. Yggdrasil was listed as Linux/GNU/X. I'm not sure if this was Yggdrasil's name or Austin's. Bunches of GNU and BSD code were available, in roughly equal proportions. But there no "GNU System".
Ooh! A few pages later on there's an add for LSL Linux 0.99. A 30 disk distro! Boy, was I way off:-( Includes X11R5, UUCP, Perl, emacs, joe, 4 shells, etc.
"I really don't understand why so many people seem to take such deep offense at what comes down to a naming issue."
I don't take offense at people calling it GNU/Linux. I don't throw tirades at reporters when they call it GNU/Linux. I don't interrupt people in mid-sentence to correct the misuse of GNU/Linux. However, one extremely influential individual takes great exception at the term Linux. Are you saying it's okay for him to state his opinions but I'm off base in stating mine?
"RMS' point about attaching GNU to Linux to accentuate the freedom that comes along with GNU/Linux..."
But the freedom he is talking about applies equally well, or more so, to the non-GNU components of Linux. Furthermore, the GNU and FSF websites say a whole lot more about a particular political and economic philosophy than they do about freedom. If Richard really wants to promote Free Software through a distribution's name, he should insist on "Free/Linux" instead. If you read through "Open Sources", you'll find that all of the authors believe in Free Software, but only one adheres to the GNU philosophy. Yet every one of these authors was instrumental in bringing Linux to where it is today.
"even if we were solidly able to nail down what percentage of code was ever written by, sanctioned by, looked at by, or breathed on by RMS, we still wouldn't be able to say, "Ok, at X% we can officially call it GNU/Linux"."
RMS clearly defines what he means by "The GNU System", and Linux is certainly not it.
"I think that that comes in here in that people want to rebrand GNU/Linux to suit their political motivations..."
Nonsense. No one is renaming Linux other than Richard Stallman! No one. It was called "Linux" from day one. RMS didn't start insisting on the GNU/Linux name long after Linux made a foothold in the hacker camp. Indeed, it is Richard Stallman himself who is rebranding Linux to suit his political motivations!
"The first wants to talk about freedom, and the second wants the software to be popular."
I want to talk about freedom. But I am not so ignorant as to equate this freedom with political liberty, free speech or human rights. I don't misidentify it with a philosophy. I don't delude myself into thinking that Solaris will enslave me. Businesses have no problem with the concept of freedom, but they do have problem equating freedom with the "thou shalt not" uttered by RMS.
Gee, every magazine and newspaper in the country lambasted Quayle for not spelling Potato(e) correctly. If it's good enough for Danny it's good enough for Al.
Hmmm, Richard is still personally offended by the mention of Linux in his presence. To paraphrase, "no one should own software, but if you don't call I claim is mine by the name I prefer, I will take great umbrage".
No, I wasn't involved in the creation of any of the original Linux distributions. I never rolled my own OS with linux 0.99. But I can make some educated guesses as to what that primordial atmosphere was like.
First of all, there was no GNU System in 1993-94. All there was from the GNU camp was a collection of software. Linus managed to get some GNU software running under his linux prototype. No big deal, and certainly not sufficient to call the result "GNULinux". After all, at the same time, I was using gcc, emacs and some other GNU software under OS/2.
So then Linus gets his kernel working. Added to this were some core OS parts like lilo. Missing is a central C library. Linus wanted to use GNU's. But it didn't work with Linux! It was Linus and Co., *not* RMS Esq., that ported glibc to Linux. Bear this in mind, GNU was ported to Linux, and not the other way around.
Add in a few naughty non-GNU stuff like a filesystem, drivers, etc., and you still don't have a workable OS. Throw in some GNU software, some BSD software, and a few other miscellaneous pieces, and you now have something that can be called an OS. Where are we, 1995? There is still no GNU Sytem. But a lot of GNU software is vastly improved however, the beneficiary of a thousand prying eyes. A new paradigm had arisen not seen before. It didn't come from the ivory towers or dank dungeons of MIT, but from the trenches of Finland, Norway, India, Brazil, United States, Germany, and other equally important locations too numerous to mention.
Enter the first ur-distro. Probably only three or four floppy disks given to a neighbor. From this humble creature with the bravery to crawl up from the antediluvian sludge into the bright sunlit atmosphere, arose all of the distributions we know today.
And what did this ur-distro contain? Four basic parts: kernel, infrastructure, libraries and apps. The kernel was Linux, and included some non kernel stuff like drivers and lilo. The infrastructure was provided by the ur-distro and included stuff like init scripts and messy bits. The libraries, for the most part, originated from GNU. But remember that they were ported to Linux. Finally, there were the applications. Stuff like bash, gcc, lprd, slipd, etc. Most of the front end apps were GNU. Most of the back end were BSD. However, none of the apps were truly necessary for an operating system.
As I see it, this ur-distro does not resemble the GNU System as envisioned by the FSF. The only essential part of the distro is glibc, and that had to be ported to get it to work. The other GNU software are not essential. Of all of them, only bash is the universal default of the various distributions, but it can be trivially replaced by any other shell.
In short, contrary to the claims of RMS, the Linux kernel was NOT inserted into the GNU System as its final missing piece. Rather, pieces of GNU were inserted into what its creator named "Linux" to add functionality.
If RMS wants to see a genuine GNU System, then it is up to him to make it. He has all the parts. Just finish hurd, and release a new distro called "GNU". Or use the Linux kernel temporarily and call it "Linux/GNU". But until I can download a workable version from ftp.gnu.org, there is no such thing as the GNU System.
Re:Let's have more integration between *BSD and Li
on
Intel using FreeBSD
·
· Score: 2
Well, since Gnome claims it works on all X11 boxes, it up to Gnome to back it up. After all, GTK/Gnome works on more platforms than Qt/KDE...wait...it doesn't?...aaargh...they lied to me... again!
Re:Let's have more integration between *BSD and Li
on
Intel using FreeBSD
·
· Score: 2
Last night I tried to recompile Enlightenment, only to find that someone had come into my home and stolen it off of my hard drive. Lousy bastards!
p.s. Anyone else wonder why Gnome started dumping all of Rasterman's stuff the second he quit Redhat?
Every other Unix uses man pages. To ignore them in favor of their own "proprietary" format is wrong. Considering that groff is used to create info pages to begin with, why not use groff to create the identical man pages as well? No extra work, but now you have documentation that everyone can use.
Or convert ALL of the documentation to info pages. It's absolutely boneheaded to have to guess which format your help is in.
Besides which, man is much easier (and quicker) than info. Maybe all you GNUites memorize every gcc option, but the rest of us don't. If I need to look one up, I want to find it fast! I don't want to wade through pages of hyperlinks to find it. I want to do "man gcc" and have it before my eyes.
I'm not saying throw out info, I'm just saying use the *standard* as well.
I think your political biases are showing by comparing Zhirinovsky to Buchanan...
Comparing the real life statements of Zhirinovsky to a parody of Buchanan is absurd. Perhaps you should grab a dictionary and look up "parody".
Zhirinovsky is an expansionist. He wishes to expand Russia to the Indian Ocean and reclaim the independent states. He is an economic socialist with nationist flavoring. Buchanan, on the other hand, is an isolationist. The opposite, in other words. He does not advocate making war on any nation. He is an economic capitalist with protectionist flavoring.
Re:Let's have more integration between *BSD and Li
on
Intel using FreeBSD
·
· Score: 2
"Personally I don't like the idea of a company taking code I write, and then selling it without me getting a piece of the action."
The solution is simple, don't make it free! Otherwise you'll get into the situation I was in last month.
You see, Mrs. McGillicuddy told me I was free to pick apples out of her apple tree. This was very generous, I though prematurely. So I picked a quarter bushel of apples and made a bunch of pies. One of these pies I took to the church bake sale. The court date is next week.
Re:could it be they like the BSD license better?
on
Intel using FreeBSD
·
· Score: 2
"I would say it is closer 45%, and that is being optimistic."
I would say you are being extremely generous. Here are some of my favorite GNUisms:
1) [insert favorite distro here] is distributed under the GPL.
2) People shouldn't own software, so I put mine under the GPL.
3) The GPL means you can't make money off of it.
4) The GPL is the most free because there are restrictions against [insert pet peeve here].
Gee, according to your GPL, other people aren't allowed to sell your stuff at all anyway. Of course, they could sell "copies" instead, launch an IPO, and make billions, but you still don't get your beloved "cut".
Freedom is not fairness. If more "fair" the FSF tries to make the GPL, the less free it becomes. After all, if all you want is a "cut" of the profits, stick with a proprietary license that demands it.
Throughout the centuries, anti-censorship movements have always been directed against the government control of information. However, I see this new anti-censorship movement as being directed against voluntary individuals who choose not to view every form of information available.
Censorware programs, though misnamed, are very different from real censorship in that their use is 100% voluntary for the viewer of the information. The possibility of government mandated "voluntary" self rating systems is an entirely different matter. The current US television rating system is not voluntary, but the movie rating system is.
Do you consider truly voluntary rating systems as censorship in the same way that mandated systems are? Of course, there is the even bigger question, what is wrong with self-censorship?
No, I am not kidding. I find that UPS frequently is cheaper than USPS for packages. I don't see why they couldn't be able to do the same for first class mail as well.
USPS is not losing money. They may not be making much either, but take away the bureaucratic layer and they could be quite lucrative as a company. Hell, keep them on as a government agency, just don't deny other companies from entering the mail business. It is utter hypocrisy for the US government to bring Microsoft to court on monopoly charges only to turn around and forbid UPS and FedEx to compete against it's own ventures.
Slashdot Mirror
I hardly think that geeks are seeking "public transport". The California Bay Area sucks when it comes to mass transit. Traffic jams are ubiquitous. Yet it is the biggest geek magnet anywhere.
A company in Silicon Valley was thinking of moving to Oregon or Idaho. One of their employees was bitching to me about it. I thought it would be a great move. A $60-120K job in those places would be the good life. Places where you can actually buy a home instead of wishing all your life you could afford one. However, this friend said that the number one reason he wanted to stay in Silicon Valley was not the money. He wanted to stay because it was 100% job security. Lose a job in the morning and you can get hired for a better one in the afternoon.
City councils don't attract people. People are attracted to the city by the city itself, not whatever government happens to be in charge. Attractions include job prospects, economic climate, culture and atmosphere, friends and family, etc. Some of these things can be influenced by the city council, but the more they pass regulations and pass out tax funds to special interests, the less attractive overall it becomes. People don't move to New York because of Ed Koch or Rudy Guliani. They move to New York because it's New York.
A city council *can* attract industry, but only through bribes of some sort. If a given company is intent on building a new factory, it will do so. But if Pittsburg (for example) bribes the industry in through any sort of preferential treatment, it doesn't help the industry, but instead screws over Baltimore, Philadelphia and all other cities that the industry was considering. City governments cannot create jobs. They can only relocate them.
A better way to attract jobs, people and geeks, is through good government. Stay out of the everyday lives of people. Ensure equitable justice. Keep the peace. Limit spending, and thus taxation, to what is necessary.
The sad situation is that most people won't read their manuals. Proof of this can be seen by observing the millions of VCR's that steadily blink 00:00:00. Not reading manuals is human nature. To read a manual is to enter the "student" mode, and people want to stay in their "user" mode. Hackers and geeks are not normal people. We are always in the "student" mode, so reading the manual is second nature.
Not reading the manual is not confined to Linux, as we all know. I've seen quite a few people running Windows on a 20" monitor at 640x480 resolution. Or using Excel for wordprocessing because "it has columns already for me". Over Christmas, I was playing Freecell on my Aunt's computer. She was very surprised that there were games on her computer, even though she's had it for two years.
When the average person does decide that they do need to read the manual, they refuse to read it all the way through, and instead try to find that one piece of information they currently need. This stratagem never works, of course, since they have no foundation to base that information on.
However, there are a couple of simple things that can ease a newbies transition to Linux. First of all, don't ignore or flame a newbie question on the lists. Take some time out of every week to hit the lists and gently reply to newbie questions. Don't tell them to RTFM, but instead direct them to a more appropriate list if the question is off-topic. If it's already covered in the FAQ, patiently explain it all over again, then show them the FAQ.
No, that is not the "standard way to do things in unix". Programs that are part of the same project may have different version numbers, but the project still has it's own version. KDE 1.1.2 contains KMail 1.0.28, KFM 1.167.2.21, etc., but all the user needs to do is to download KDE 1.1.2.
However, with Gnome, it can be very frustrating to download. Don't just use it off of a distro, but go out and actually download all the parts. Say, you're trying to upgrade to a fictious "december Gnome". Do you need to upgrade libxml as well? What about ORBit? If you're one of the fortunate people with fast connections, you'll probably just download it all, but those of us with 56K or slower modems (I reckon the majority) don't want to spend five hours downloading everything in the repository.
I haven't downloaded Gnome in a few months, but the last time I did, I checked the online documentation that listed what was required, downloaded it all, and then found out that several packages were too old.
The easiest installation I ever had was with Slackware 7.0. It was simply a charm! Straight forward. Bare bones. Simple. Of course, you needed a bit of computer savvy, but you need more of it with NT/W2K. The next easiest was Mandrake 6.0.
The worst installation I ever had was Caldera 2.2. It was the only graphical installer I ever used. I didn't like my video card, so I had to revert to Lisa. Next up was Debian (why are you installing nonfree packages by default!?!?).
But the real key to Linux is not ease of installation. If we succeed in the marketplace, then everyone will be getting it preinstalled anyway. The real key is setup and maintenance. In this area, Slackware really shines. It's because there's no broken linuxconfs or single-minded Yast's in the way.
Now, understand that I'm not recommending Slackware for the absolute newbie. Certainly not. But once you've got a certain modicum of knowledge under your belt, Slackware is a breath of fresh air.
Only the copyright holder is entitled to sue for copyright infringement. This is basic law in virtually every nation. You can't sue your neighbor across the street for stealing the apples of your neighbor down the way. Only the person who is damaged can sue.
If your software is not in the public domain, then please, please, don't claim that you have given it away or are not the owner. This will be used against you in court. "Your honor, the plaintiff has an entire website arguing that he doesn't own the vimacs software..."
So what happens with Megasloth infringes upon the license of John Q. Hacker's tiny perl script? Without John's permission, the FSF, Slashdot readers, OSI, or anyone else is allowed to initiate a lawsuit. However, John Q. Hacker can initiate the suit. And anyone who subitted copyrighted code to the project can join in. Then funds are gathered from all the indigant bystanders from the FSF, Slashdot, OSI, etc.
I have the choice of purchasing The Complete and Official GNU Software Collection for several thousand dollars, or downloading it for free. Same warranties, support and functionality. I suspect that the number of people who purchased that package without any intention of charity of donation approaches 0.025%. This is not to belittle RMS though. He does provide a valuable service through GNU in that you can pay for custom versions or ports of GNU software.
However, every existing item of Free or Open Source Software that's for sale is also available as a "Free Beer" download. If an item of software is unavailable as a free download, even temporarily, then RMS does not like it and will readily tell you so. If you then have the temerity to use the words "free" or "open" in proximity to such a product, you will reap upon yourselves unending scorn.
Just ask Troll Tech, Aladdin, Apple, Sun, or a host of other companies. In Sun and Apple's case, they have earned a far greater wrath from GNU advocates than if they had never attempted the open their products to begin with.
"Basically, they're a bit parasitic to the community."
What have you given back to the community? A slashdot posting?!? 99% of the community has never written software, submitted a bug report, written documentation, or even mailed a polite thank you note to any developer. But you call ORA the parasite for providing documentation and funding? I don't know where you GNU fanatics buy your dictionaries, but someone needs to sue that bookseller for fraud!
"When they hold free software events, they make it a policy to explicitly not invite some of the original community members (Stallman was not invited to the Summit, for instance)."
RMS is the only one they refuse to invite. And they have good reason not to. He continually refuses to adhere to decorum and rules of order. He is in the habit of ignoring the time limits on talks, ignoring the topic at hand (the topic which attendees paid to hear), and verbally assaulting reporters who use the word "Linux" in his presence.
"However, O'Reilly tries to paint themselves as really big free software/open source supporters, while in reality acting to maximize profit, sometimes sabotaging the movement. This hypocracy pisses me off, and presumably, the FSF as weal."
And what is wrong with trying to maximize one's profit? Isn't that what YOU do every day at work? If that is RMS's big concern, then he should come right out and declare money to be immoral and be done with it, instead of beating around the bush saying how it's okay for Free Software to be commercial.
And precisely how has ORA sabotaged the Open Source movement? Was it by not following the FSF dictates to the letter? If anything, they have helped Open Source by letting it be known that RMS does not hold a monopoly on software ideology.
In case you have forgotten, RMS was not opposed to non-free documentation, and even encouraged selling documentation as a means to finance free software, until ORA started publishing books about GNU software. Then, and only then, did he decide that ORA was evil.
I received an email the other day from gnu.org (it was not RMS). It was an attempt to set me straight on a few points. What struck me as hilarious, which I did not point out in my reply, was that the arguments were almost word or word identical to those of Richard Stallman as posted on www.gnu.org. Furthermore, the writer kept refering to himself as "we".
Suffice it to say, I did not get the impression that this writer had original thoughts or questioned what RMS says. Rather, I could almost imagine him asking Richard "how high."
Boy, was I off by a few years! I just pulled out a 11/23 copy of CUJ. Under Austin Code Works, they were selling "InfoMagic Unix" containing three free unices, Linux, 386BSD and NetBSD. Yggdrasil was listed as Linux/GNU/X. I'm not sure if this was Yggdrasil's name or Austin's. Bunches of GNU and BSD code were available, in roughly equal proportions. But there no "GNU System".
:-( Includes X11R5, UUCP, Perl, emacs, joe, 4 shells, etc.
Ooh! A few pages later on there's an add for LSL Linux 0.99. A 30 disk distro! Boy, was I way off
Uh, read the thread. He supposedly mispronounced "router".
Ever read "The True Believer"?
"Now, contrasted with Linux, which IS about freedom, free software, and choice, GNU/Linux makes sense."
FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and yes, even FreeDOS are about freedom. Should we then call them GNU/FreeBSD, GNU/OpenBSD, GNU/NetBSD, and GNU/FreeDOS?
"I really don't understand why so many people seem to take such deep offense at what comes down to a naming issue."
I don't take offense at people calling it GNU/Linux. I don't throw tirades at reporters when they call it GNU/Linux. I don't interrupt people in mid-sentence to correct the misuse of GNU/Linux. However, one extremely influential individual takes great exception at the term Linux. Are you saying it's okay for him to state his opinions but I'm off base in stating mine?
"RMS' point about attaching GNU to Linux to accentuate the freedom that comes along with GNU/Linux..."
But the freedom he is talking about applies equally well, or more so, to the non-GNU components of Linux. Furthermore, the GNU and FSF websites say a whole lot more about a particular political and economic philosophy than they do about freedom. If Richard really wants to promote Free Software through a distribution's name, he should insist on "Free/Linux" instead. If you read through "Open Sources", you'll find that all of the authors believe in Free Software, but only one adheres to the GNU philosophy. Yet every one of these authors was instrumental in bringing Linux to where it is today.
"even if we were solidly able to nail down what percentage of code was ever written by, sanctioned by, looked at by, or breathed on by RMS, we still wouldn't be able to say, "Ok, at X% we can officially call it GNU/Linux"."
RMS clearly defines what he means by "The GNU System", and Linux is certainly not it.
"I think that that comes in here in that people want to rebrand GNU/Linux to suit their political motivations..."
Nonsense. No one is renaming Linux other than Richard Stallman! No one. It was called "Linux" from day one. RMS didn't start insisting on the GNU/Linux name long after Linux made a foothold in the hacker camp. Indeed, it is Richard Stallman himself who is rebranding Linux to suit his political motivations!
"The first wants to talk about freedom, and the second wants the software to be popular."
I want to talk about freedom. But I am not so ignorant as to equate this freedom with political liberty, free speech or human rights. I don't misidentify it with a philosophy. I don't delude myself into thinking that Solaris will enslave me. Businesses have no problem with the concept of freedom, but they do have problem equating freedom with the "thou shalt not" uttered by RMS.
Gee, every magazine and newspaper in the country lambasted Quayle for not spelling Potato(e) correctly. If it's good enough for Danny it's good enough for Al.
Hmmm, Richard is still personally offended by the mention of Linux in his presence. To paraphrase, "no one should own software, but if you don't call I claim is mine by the name I prefer, I will take great umbrage".
No, I wasn't involved in the creation of any of the original Linux distributions. I never rolled my own OS with linux 0.99. But I can make some educated guesses as to what that primordial atmosphere was like.
First of all, there was no GNU System in 1993-94. All there was from the GNU camp was a collection of software. Linus managed to get some GNU software running under his linux prototype. No big deal, and certainly not sufficient to call the result "GNULinux". After all, at the same time, I was using gcc, emacs and some other GNU software under OS/2.
So then Linus gets his kernel working. Added to this were some core OS parts like lilo. Missing is a central C library. Linus wanted to use GNU's. But it didn't work with Linux! It was Linus and Co., *not* RMS Esq., that ported glibc to Linux. Bear this in mind, GNU was ported to Linux, and not the other way around.
Add in a few naughty non-GNU stuff like a filesystem, drivers, etc., and you still don't have a workable OS. Throw in some GNU software, some BSD software, and a few other miscellaneous pieces, and you now have something that can be called an OS. Where are we, 1995? There is still no GNU Sytem. But a lot of GNU software is vastly improved however, the beneficiary of a thousand prying eyes. A new paradigm had arisen not seen before. It didn't come from the ivory towers or dank dungeons of MIT, but from the trenches of Finland, Norway, India, Brazil, United States, Germany, and other equally important locations too numerous to mention.
Enter the first ur-distro. Probably only three or four floppy disks given to a neighbor. From this humble creature with the bravery to crawl up from the antediluvian sludge into the bright sunlit atmosphere, arose all of the distributions we know today.
And what did this ur-distro contain? Four basic parts: kernel, infrastructure, libraries and apps. The kernel was Linux, and included some non kernel stuff like drivers and lilo. The infrastructure was provided by the ur-distro and included stuff like init scripts and messy bits. The libraries, for the most part, originated from GNU. But remember that they were ported to Linux. Finally, there were the applications. Stuff like bash, gcc, lprd, slipd, etc. Most of the front end apps were GNU. Most of the back end were BSD. However, none of the apps were truly necessary for an operating system.
As I see it, this ur-distro does not resemble the GNU System as envisioned by the FSF. The only essential part of the distro is glibc, and that had to be ported to get it to work. The other GNU software are not essential. Of all of them, only bash is the universal default of the various distributions, but it can be trivially replaced by any other shell.
In short, contrary to the claims of RMS, the Linux kernel was NOT inserted into the GNU System as its final missing piece. Rather, pieces of GNU were inserted into what its creator named "Linux" to add functionality.
If RMS wants to see a genuine GNU System, then it is up to him to make it. He has all the parts. Just finish hurd, and release a new distro called "GNU". Or use the Linux kernel temporarily and call it "Linux/GNU". But until I can download a workable version from ftp.gnu.org, there is no such thing as the GNU System.
Well, since Gnome claims it works on all X11 boxes, it up to Gnome to back it up. After all, GTK/Gnome works on more platforms than Qt/KDE...wait...it doesn't?...aaargh...they lied to me... again!
Last night I tried to recompile Enlightenment, only to find that someone had come into my home and stolen it off of my hard drive. Lousy bastards!
p.s. Anyone else wonder why Gnome started dumping all of Rasterman's stuff the second he quit Redhat?
Every other Unix uses man pages. To ignore them in favor of their own "proprietary" format is wrong. Considering that groff is used to create info pages to begin with, why not use groff to create the identical man pages as well? No extra work, but now you have documentation that everyone can use.
Or convert ALL of the documentation to info pages. It's absolutely boneheaded to have to guess which format your help is in.
Besides which, man is much easier (and quicker) than info. Maybe all you GNUites memorize every gcc option, but the rest of us don't. If I need to look one up, I want to find it fast! I don't want to wade through pages of hyperlinks to find it. I want to do "man gcc" and have it before my eyes.
I'm not saying throw out info, I'm just saying use the *standard* as well.
I think your political biases are showing by comparing Zhirinovsky to Buchanan...
Comparing the real life statements of Zhirinovsky to a parody of Buchanan is absurd. Perhaps you should grab a dictionary and look up "parody".
Zhirinovsky is an expansionist. He wishes to expand Russia to the Indian Ocean and reclaim the independent states. He is an economic socialist with nationist flavoring. Buchanan, on the other hand, is an isolationist. The opposite, in other words. He does not advocate making war on any nation. He is an economic capitalist with protectionist flavoring.
"Personally I don't like the idea of a company taking code I write, and then selling it without me getting a piece of the action."
The solution is simple, don't make it free! Otherwise you'll get into the situation I was in last month.
You see, Mrs. McGillicuddy told me I was free to pick apples out of her apple tree. This was very generous, I though prematurely. So I picked a quarter bushel of apples and made a bunch of pies. One of these pies I took to the church bake sale. The court date is next week.
"I would say it is closer 45%, and that is being optimistic."
I would say you are being extremely generous. Here are some of my favorite GNUisms:
1) [insert favorite distro here] is distributed under the GPL.
2) People shouldn't own software, so I put mine under the GPL.
3) The GPL means you can't make money off of it.
4) The GPL is the most free because there are restrictions against [insert pet peeve here].
5) The GPL doesn't allow the author to...
6) It's Open Source so it's under the GPL...
Gee, according to your GPL, other people aren't allowed to sell your stuff at all anyway. Of course, they could sell "copies" instead, launch an IPO, and make billions, but you still don't get your beloved "cut".
Freedom is not fairness. If more "fair" the FSF tries to make the GPL, the less free it becomes. After all, if all you want is a "cut" of the profits, stick with a proprietary license that demands it.
Throughout the centuries, anti-censorship movements have always been directed against the government control of information. However, I see this new anti-censorship movement as being directed against voluntary individuals who choose not to view every form of information available.
Censorware programs, though misnamed, are very different from real censorship in that their use is 100% voluntary for the viewer of the information. The possibility of government mandated "voluntary" self rating systems is an entirely different matter. The current US television rating system is not voluntary, but the movie rating system is.
Do you consider truly voluntary rating systems as censorship in the same way that mandated systems are? Of course, there is the even bigger question, what is wrong with self-censorship?
No, I am not kidding. I find that UPS frequently is cheaper than USPS for packages. I don't see why they couldn't be able to do the same for first class mail as well.
USPS is not losing money. They may not be making much either, but take away the bureaucratic layer and they could be quite lucrative as a company. Hell, keep them on as a government agency, just don't deny other companies from entering the mail business. It is utter hypocrisy for the US government to bring Microsoft to court on monopoly charges only to turn around and forbid UPS and FedEx to compete against it's own ventures.