I flipped over to another virtual desktop and found that GNOME has already provided me with a trashcan. (More like Mac than Windows.) I never use it, though.
If this is a trashcan for command-line rf, I can see how some people might want to use it. Not me, though.
You're right! What was I thinking! Call it Linux! I can't believe I never thought of this point before!
I get to rename Linux
Linux is a kernel. An operating system, in the same sense as Windows, consists of much more than a kernel. GUI, utilities, etc. (Yes, in another sense, an operating system means just a kernel.)
"Rename" is a misnomer, too. The first Linux distribution, Yggdrasil, billed itself as "Linux/X11/GNU" (check groups.google.com for the original announcement).
The point is this: the GNU project believed in software freedom and started writing a free OS. Someone who did not believe in software freedom provided a kernel that would work with that OS and complete it. Most people who come to that OS have never heard of software freedom. RMS is asking everyone who believes in software freedom to say "GNU/Linux" so that people who are using that OS will say, "Huh? What is GNU?" and provide an opportunity for someone to tell them about software freedom and try to point people back at GNU's original goals.
You probably don't believe in software freedom. Most people here don't. I thought it was a crackpot idea when I first heard it. (And about the next thirty times I heard it after that.) That's okay; no one is going to force you to call it "GNU/Linux." The FAQ even says that. (Stallman believes in free speech.) But some of us are going to go on saying GNU/Linux, and every so often, someone else will come on over to the software freedom bandwagon.
Meanwhile, if you don't believe in software freedom, it's those goals that allow you to take GNU's code and make a working OS in conjunction with the Linux kernel. Yes, you can use non-GNU utilities (ever heard of Perl power tools? Someday I'm going to try to build a system out of a kernel, Perl, and those.:) ), but not if those utilities don't give you the freedoms GNU believes in.
Doesn't mean better at all. You probably wouldn't want to use one without the other, unless you are using an embedded Linux with smaller non-GNU alternatives to the basic utilities.
But the request is to acknowledge that GNU has contributed more.
And actually the reason they are making that request and asking for that acknowledgement is to expose people to their ideology.
I had an Oracle trainer once tell me he fell asleep every night by reading from the the gargantuan Oracle documentation set. Seemed to actually work well for him.
Thanks, I just noticed that in another message, which quoted the actual emacs changelogs where "lignux" was used.
I'm a little disturbed that my brain was able to follow the same patterns as Stallman's in this respect... Maybe I heard it somewhere and remembered it subconsciously, yeah, that's the ticket!
It's in the FAQ, for one thing. Did you read it?:)
The FAQ says: "Since a long name such as GNU/X11/Apache/Linux/TeX/Perl/Python/FreeCiv becomes absurd, at some point, you will have to set a threshold and omit the names of the many other secondary contributions. There is no one obvious right place to set the threshold, so wherever you set it, we won't argue against it."
OK? You read that too before bitching at me, right? So my questions (which were to Perens specifically, BTW) remain asked: Where does one stop?
If you stop at one item, you'd have GNU. If you stop at two, you'd have GNU/Linux. (Or maybe GNU/XFree86, according to my other post.:) ) If you stopped at three, you'd have GNU/X11/Linux (which, by the way, is what Yggdrasil, the first "Linux" distro called itself in its original announcement (check groups.google.com).
Did you read the FAQ? I was hoping a few folks would and think about the ideas presented, even if they don't agree.
I did a little experiment today; I downloaded all the source code for Linux From Scratch, and moved all the GNU code into a directory. The uncompressed GNU code takes up 341648 bytes. The uncompressed Linux code (counting the kernel, the manpages, and modutils) takes up 155872 bytes.
Since you mentioned X, I uncompressed XFree86 4.1.0 and counted it: 289624 bytes. (I was actually surprised; I expected X to be bigger than GNU.)
For the record, this is not all the GNU software, either. Emacs, for example, is not counted (that would've put it way over the top), and LFS chooses many alternatives where GNU packages exist.
Now, when you talk about the tail wagging the dog, if you want to call GNU the tail, the tail is bigger than the dog.:)
Is the kernel the OS, or are the utils the OS?
Did you read the FAQ? This issue is addressed. There's some truth to both views.
Does kernel32 or command.com makes Windows the "Windows OS"?
That's what GNU is saying. Most people would say the Windows OS consists of those pieces, plus the GUI, plus many utilities. And when you say you got RedHat Linux, do you mean you got the version of Linux, the kernel, distributed by RedHat, or do you mean you got an OS comparable to Windows? Which sense are you using the term OS in there?
However, the Linux kernel itself was made by Linus, not the GNU/FSF. Though Linus licensed Linux under the GPL, that doesn't mean that he should call it GNU/Linux or GPL/Linux. There's no reason to call every piece of software licensed unde rthe GPL GPL/Software. Hence, there is no reason why Linux itself should be called "GNU/Linux". Just call it Linux.
Yes, that's exactly what the FAQ says. The FSF is more careful about distinguishing Linux, the kernel, from the entire operating system than just about anybody else, I'd say.
Can't wait to see all the moderation abuse in this discussion...
You mean like here where I got modded down for agreeing with RMS?
Everybody is pretty much with you. Plenty of GNU/comments (those aren't redundant?) and very little evidence that anyone actually glanced at, much less read, that FAQ.
Did you read the FAQ? You might completely disagree with it, but did you read it?
A car is not a copyrighted work. Your analogy is poor and misleading.
Copyright exists to make easily reproduced items, like movies and books, work more like less easily reproduced items, like cars. It does not exist because copyright is a fundamental sacred religious doctrine or something.
If you google for "Cruithne," the name of the second "moon," you'll find that researchers think there are two other objects in strange orbits like Cruithne's. That would make this new discovery the fifth.
The reason you don't get to moderate is probably because you read too much. I had the exact same problem until I went out of town for two weeks early this year. When I came back, I got to moderate for the first time. It happened again after two other trips, and I finally got the idea that I was in the top percentage of active readers, and tried reading less. It was hard, but I started getting to moderate more frequently.
At the same time, though, we see the "Red Hat = Microsoft?" articles and the subtle opposition to anything that is 'tainted' by capitalism
Go back and look at the discussion on that article. Nearly everything that was posted expressed support for Red Hat. Even though many of us personally use different distros, most of us have no problem with the Red Hat company. Some of us even admire them.
So in general, no, even though a vocal minority of free software advocates are anti-capitalism, it's not true for the whole. As Richard Stallman says, "Selling Free Software can be okay".
Yeah, I'm thinking an object of that size hitting you after falling through the entire atmosphere ought to have been going fast enough to go right through her foot. Every time I've visited the deep canyons of the western United States, I've seen warnings all over the place not to throw even small rocks over the edge, as they will be going fast enough by the time they reach the bottom to seriously injure someone. Think about the size of a bullet and then contemplate that this rock should have been moving even faster than that.
-9.80665 m/s^2: it's not just a good idea, it's the law!:)
Plus you have all the hassles of having your own business. If you were making less than $46K somebody comes along and offers you $50K to be a clock punching 9-5 employee, just to code with no responsibility for sales or accounting or that other stuff, what would you do?
That's exactly why I don't consult. More power to you guys who do, though.
Thank you for this post. It really brought home a lot of lessons and ought to be required reading for anyone thinking of ditching that 9-5 job and going it on their own. Not everyone is cut out to do that.
Does the fact that so many people seemed to think I was serious (particularly about the BSD license) mean that I just produced some really good sarcasm here, or does it mean that most people around here don't understand sarcasm?
I don't get it.
Anyways; I've never had a post modded eight times before. One guy even came back at 8:30 this morning to knock one last point off. (I could care less. I enjoy attracting all the attention.)
Slashdot Mirror
So what's the verdict on Null or Bluecurve or whatever it's called? Good idea, bad idea?
You just like waving a red flag in front of a bull, don't you?
I've got the same gripe. The best format I could get was 10:21 AM -- Tuesday October 01 2002.
I flipped over to another virtual desktop and found that GNOME has already provided me with a trashcan. (More like Mac than Windows.) I never use it, though.
If this is a trashcan for command-line rf, I can see how some people might want to use it. Not me, though.
I know the feeling. :)
But, hey, you would have gotten 3 karma for the story, and you got 4 karma for the post. :)
(Slaps forehead.)
You're right! What was I thinking! Call it Linux! I can't believe I never thought of this point before!
I get to rename Linux
Linux is a kernel. An operating system, in the same sense as Windows, consists of much more than a kernel. GUI, utilities, etc. (Yes, in another sense, an operating system means just a kernel.)
"Rename" is a misnomer, too. The first Linux distribution, Yggdrasil, billed itself as "Linux/X11/GNU" (check groups.google.com for the original announcement).
The point is this: the GNU project believed in software freedom and started writing a free OS. Someone who did not believe in software freedom provided a kernel that would work with that OS and complete it. Most people who come to that OS have never heard of software freedom. RMS is asking everyone who believes in software freedom to say "GNU/Linux" so that people who are using that OS will say, "Huh? What is GNU?" and provide an opportunity for someone to tell them about software freedom and try to point people back at GNU's original goals.
You probably don't believe in software freedom. Most people here don't. I thought it was a crackpot idea when I first heard it. (And about the next thirty times I heard it after that.) That's okay; no one is going to force you to call it "GNU/Linux." The FAQ even says that. (Stallman believes in free speech.) But some of us are going to go on saying GNU/Linux, and every so often, someone else will come on over to the software freedom bandwagon.
Meanwhile, if you don't believe in software freedom, it's those goals that allow you to take GNU's code and make a working OS in conjunction with the Linux kernel. Yes, you can use non-GNU utilities (ever heard of Perl power tools? Someday I'm going to try to build a system out of a kernel, Perl, and those. :) ), but not if those utilities don't give you the freedoms GNU believes in.
Doesn't mean better at all. You probably wouldn't want to use one without the other, unless you are using an embedded Linux with smaller non-GNU alternatives to the basic utilities.
But the request is to acknowledge that GNU has contributed more.
And actually the reason they are making that request and asking for that acknowledgement is to expose people to their ideology.
Kilobytes, actually. Thank you. :)
I had an Oracle trainer once tell me he fell asleep every night by reading from the the gargantuan Oracle documentation set. Seemed to actually work well for him.
Thanks, I just noticed that in another message, which quoted the actual emacs changelogs where "lignux" was used.
I'm a little disturbed that my brain was able to follow the same patterns as Stallman's in this respect... Maybe I heard it somewhere and remembered it subconsciously, yeah, that's the ticket!
It's in the FAQ, for one thing. Did you read it? :)
Okay, you read the FAQ. :) You missed something.
The FAQ says: "Since a long name such as GNU/X11/Apache/Linux/TeX/Perl/Python/FreeCiv becomes absurd, at some point, you will have to set a threshold and omit the names of the many other secondary contributions. There is no one obvious right place to set the threshold, so wherever you set it, we won't argue against it."
OK? You read that too before bitching at me, right? So my questions (which were to Perens specifically, BTW) remain asked: Where does one stop?
If you stop at one item, you'd have GNU. If you stop at two, you'd have GNU/Linux. (Or maybe GNU/XFree86, according to my other post. :) ) If you stopped at three, you'd have GNU/X11/Linux (which, by the way, is what Yggdrasil, the first "Linux" distro called itself in its original announcement (check groups.google.com).
Hi, I'm the article submitter. :)
where does one stop with the attributions?
Did you read the FAQ? I was hoping a few folks would and think about the ideas presented, even if they don't agree.
I did a little experiment today; I downloaded all the source code for Linux From Scratch, and moved all the GNU code into a directory. The uncompressed GNU code takes up 341648 bytes. The uncompressed Linux code (counting the kernel, the manpages, and modutils) takes up 155872 bytes.
Since you mentioned X, I uncompressed XFree86 4.1.0 and counted it: 289624 bytes. (I was actually surprised; I expected X to be bigger than GNU.)
For the record, this is not all the GNU software, either. Emacs, for example, is not counted (that would've put it way over the top), and LFS chooses many alternatives where GNU packages exist.
Now, when you talk about the tail wagging the dog, if you want to call GNU the tail, the tail is bigger than the dog. :)
Is the kernel the OS, or are the utils the OS?
Did you read the FAQ? This issue is addressed. There's some truth to both views.
Does kernel32 or command.com makes Windows the "Windows OS"?
That's what GNU is saying. Most people would say the Windows OS consists of those pieces, plus the GUI, plus many utilities. And when you say you got RedHat Linux, do you mean you got the version of Linux, the kernel, distributed by RedHat, or do you mean you got an OS comparable to Windows? Which sense are you using the term OS in there?
However, the Linux kernel itself was made by Linus, not the GNU/FSF. Though Linus licensed Linux under the GPL, that doesn't mean that he should call it GNU/Linux or GPL/Linux. There's no reason to call every piece of software licensed unde rthe GPL GPL/Software. Hence, there is no reason why Linux itself should be called "GNU/Linux". Just call it Linux.
Yes, that's exactly what the FAQ says. The FSF is more careful about distinguishing Linux, the kernel, from the entire operating system than just about anybody else, I'd say.
Can't wait to see all the moderation abuse in this discussion...
You mean like here where I got modded down for agreeing with RMS?
Everybody is pretty much with you. Plenty of GNU/comments (those aren't redundant?) and very little evidence that anyone actually glanced at, much less read, that FAQ.
Did you read the FAQ? You might completely disagree with it, but did you read it?
A car is not a copyrighted work. Your analogy is poor and misleading.
Copyright exists to make easily reproduced items, like movies and books, work more like less easily reproduced items, like cars. It does not exist because copyright is a fundamental sacred religious doctrine or something.
Dead on! The current Clark is spectacular in the role.
If you google for "Cruithne," the name of the second "moon," you'll find that researchers think there are two other objects in strange orbits like Cruithne's. That would make this new discovery the fifth.
Beat that, Jupiter!
The reason you don't get to moderate is probably because you read too much. I had the exact same problem until I went out of town for two weeks early this year. When I came back, I got to moderate for the first time. It happened again after two other trips, and I finally got the idea that I was in the top percentage of active readers, and tried reading less. It was hard, but I started getting to moderate more frequently.
Right on! And don't let them forget it!
At the same time, though, we see the "Red Hat = Microsoft?" articles and the subtle opposition to anything that is 'tainted' by capitalism
Go back and look at the discussion on that article. Nearly everything that was posted expressed support for Red Hat. Even though many of us personally use different distros, most of us have no problem with the Red Hat company. Some of us even admire them.
So in general, no, even though a vocal minority of free software advocates are anti-capitalism, it's not true for the whole. As Richard Stallman says, "Selling Free Software can be okay".
Yeah, I'm thinking an object of that size hitting you after falling through the entire atmosphere ought to have been going fast enough to go right through her foot. Every time I've visited the deep canyons of the western United States, I've seen warnings all over the place not to throw even small rocks over the edge, as they will be going fast enough by the time they reach the bottom to seriously injure someone. Think about the size of a bullet and then contemplate that this rock should have been moving even faster than that.
-9.80665 m/s^2: it's not just a good idea, it's the law! :)
10 to 1 we never see a follow-up, and never know.
I'm guessing one of the reasons 90% of Americans don't have a broadband connection is because a huge percent of them don't want broadband.
Plus you have all the hassles of having your own business. If you were making less than $46K somebody comes along and offers you $50K to be a clock punching 9-5 employee, just to code with no responsibility for sales or accounting or that other stuff, what would you do?
That's exactly why I don't consult. More power to you guys who do, though.
Thank you for this post. It really brought home a lot of lessons and ought to be required reading for anyone thinking of ditching that 9-5 job and going it on their own. Not everyone is cut out to do that.
You might want to have a look at this article which highlights some of the ways in which Perl 6 is not changing.
So if we duplicated your brain and the data in it, could we have two of you?
Does the fact that so many people seemed to think I was serious (particularly about the BSD license) mean that I just produced some really good sarcasm here, or does it mean that most people around here don't understand sarcasm?
I don't get it.
Anyways; I've never had a post modded eight times before. One guy even came back at 8:30 this morning to knock one last point off. (I could care less. I enjoy attracting all the attention.)