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I've never really understood the FSF's incessant need to claim GNU as the operating system which happen to be running on x kernel. There are operating systems r

by ake1 11y ago

I've never really understood the FSF's incessant need to claim GNU as the operating system which happen to be running on x kernel. There are operating systems running the linux kernel without any GNU software. The operating system is whatever is between the hardware and my application. The lines are somewhat blurred in my opinion, is /bin/ls part of the operating system? (both rhetorical and not...) Granted, free software would not be where it is today had it not been for GNU and the FSF and they do deserve a lot of credit for their hard work from which i am benefiting every day.

drdaeman 11y ago
Well, GNU Project had written a whole userspace stack (glibc, bash, gcc, ...). Most of this was before Linux, they started in '84, while Linux was only born in '91. However, GNU Project had no kernel for their OS, so they took Linux (which wasn't/isn't a part of GNU Project) while they had worked on their kernel (HURD, started in '90). But sadly - some may argue - HURD had never really happened. So, isn't it fair to give GNU Project some attribution for the OS that they made, that no one dares to call by its name but calls it by the kernel's name instead? It's somewhat like as everyone would've called "Dropbox" as "Amazon" because they've used EC2 and S3 as an important parts of their infrastructure (I know, I know, they've moved, doesn't really matter).
- mwfunk 11y ago
  Names aren't attributions though. Names are somewhat arbitrarily-chosen words people use to refer to specific things. Some names contain indicators about the history of the thing they refer to, but when that happens it's due to historical and/or sociological accident, and is usually not a conscious attempt to give attribution to one entity or take it away from another. On top of that, their obsession with names and attribution (for non-legal reasons) is almost comically immature and obsessive. The GNU/Linux kerfluffle in the '90s (continuing to this day!) might as well be a giant billboard advertising to the world that they are people obsessed with trees but blind to forests. When people get that emotionally invested in what is truly just distracting minutiae, it's hard not have fundamental questions about their basic rationality.
  - drdaeman 11y ago
    I'm not sure how to do it otherwise, if not by name. Say, we do call certain web server "nginx" (but probably nobody would object if we'd say "that server by Igor Sysoev et al", it's just quite cumbersome this way), and it probably won't feel right if we'd call it, say, "fastcgi". Yet, for some reason we don't call a certain OS called "GNU" by that name, or author names or any other name at all, but say it like it's a part of other project (of which it isn't part of - here's the problem!). I don't think it's unreasonable that FSF/GNU Project feel that it's not right. They did a large project, and it had "lost" its name, like their project doesn't exist or is irrelevant. I surely can't speak for GNU Project authors, but I believe, for authors, that may probably feel unfair if not even offensive. I'm not sure what's the "trees" (must be naming) or "forest" (?) here, when they just want their fair share of recognition for something that they did but that's not ever called by its name. Is it really immature? And, duh, it's not like they're asking something unreasonable or unnecessarily complicated, so, personally for myself, I had decided I have no reasons to not respect this request. Edit: added about forest/trees - not sure what you meant of those.

by ake1 11y ago

drdaeman 11y ago

Well, GNU Project had written a whole userspace stack (glibc, bash, gcc, ...). Most of this was before Linux, they started in '84, while Linux was only born in '91. However, GNU Project had no kernel for their OS, so they took Linux (which wasn't/isn't a part of GNU Project) while they had worked on their kernel (HURD, started in '90). But sadly - some may argue - HURD had never really happened. So, isn't it fair to give GNU Project some attribution for the OS that they made, that no one dares to call by its name but calls it by the kernel's name instead? It's somewhat like as everyone would've called "Dropbox" as "Amazon" because they've used EC2 and S3 as an important parts of their infrastructure (I know, I know, they've moved, doesn't really matter).

mwfunk 11y ago
Names aren't attributions though. Names are somewhat arbitrarily-chosen words people use to refer to specific things. Some names contain indicators about the history of the thing they refer to, but when that happens it's due to historical and/or sociological accident, and is usually not a conscious attempt to give attribution to one entity or take it away from another. On top of that, their obsession with names and attribution (for non-legal reasons) is almost comically immature and obsessive. The GNU/Linux kerfluffle in the '90s (continuing to this day!) might as well be a giant billboard advertising to the world that they are people obsessed with trees but blind to forests. When people get that emotionally invested in what is truly just distracting minutiae, it's hard not have fundamental questions about their basic rationality.
- drdaeman 11y ago
  I'm not sure how to do it otherwise, if not by name. Say, we do call certain web server "nginx" (but probably nobody would object if we'd say "that server by Igor Sysoev et al", it's just quite cumbersome this way), and it probably won't feel right if we'd call it, say, "fastcgi". Yet, for some reason we don't call a certain OS called "GNU" by that name, or author names or any other name at all, but say it like it's a part of other project (of which it isn't part of - here's the problem!). I don't think it's unreasonable that FSF/GNU Project feel that it's not right. They did a large project, and it had "lost" its name, like their project doesn't exist or is irrelevant. I surely can't speak for GNU Project authors, but I believe, for authors, that may probably feel unfair if not even offensive. I'm not sure what's the "trees" (must be naming) or "forest" (?) here, when they just want their fair share of recognition for something that they did but that's not ever called by its name. Is it really immature? And, duh, it's not like they're asking something unreasonable or unnecessarily complicated, so, personally for myself, I had decided I have no reasons to not respect this request. Edit: added about forest/trees - not sure what you meant of those.