4 ms·

It's really interesting to see GNU writing their own version of everything so that it adheres to its own principles. It reminds me of China. Both reinvent thing

It's really interesting to see GNU writing their own version of everything so that it adheres to its own principles. It reminds me of China. Both reinvent things based on questionable motivations, both seem to really not "get" every-day people (e.g. understand their needs and wants), and both end up with products that just feel lower-quality and half-put-together than the products they're cloning on principle.

ymse 11y ago
I'm curious, which products are you referring to? In most cases the GNU version predates the alternative by a large margin. E.g. screen vs tmux, squid vs varnish, wget vs curl, net-tools vs iproute2 etc. Of more recent software "clones", there is guix vs nix, mcron vs vixie-cron, shepherd vs systemd, gnutls vs openssl, all high-quality implementations of good ideas. Sure, lsh has a way to go before it's a viable alternative to OpenSSH, but I wouldn't say it's low-quality. I don't think I've come across a GNU project which felt "half-put-together", rather the opposite. The GNU projects' motivation is very clear-cut and not at all different from e.g. the BSD camp or suckless. How are they questionable?
- rekado 11y ago
  > Of more recent software "clones", there is guix vs nix, mcron vs vixie-cron, shepherd vs systemd, gnutls vs openssl, all high-quality implementations of good ideas. Shepherd is hardly a clone of systemd. It's older and has much fewer features. They are both init systems. The relationship of Guix and Nix is also not that of rivalry. Guix uses the Nix daemon and subscribes to the idea of functional package management, but everything else is quite different. (I realise you put "clone" in quotes and wrote "all high-quality implementations of good ideas", but I thought I should clarify anyway.)
rekado 11y ago
I can only shake my head at your cardboard cutout of "China" and your take on GNU. I'm working on GNU because I share its vision of providing more computing freedom to people, blurring the lines between admins and users as is the case with Emacs (self-documenting, trivially extensible and modifiable), Guix (trivial inspection and modification of all packages on a system, a large step towards freedom from system administrators, independent software profiles giving each user what they want), and the Hurd (even more freedom from sys admins). I'm not even talking about the many compilers in GCC, which make it feasible to build a completely free system (such as GuixSD). You seem to misunderstand the GNU project, and I find it unpalatable to reduce what you call "China" to a cardboard cutout for the sake of a flawed analogy.

ymse 11y ago

I'm curious, which products are you referring to? In most cases the GNU version predates the alternative by a large margin. E.g. screen vs tmux, squid vs varnish, wget vs curl, net-tools vs iproute2 etc. Of more recent software "clones", there is guix vs nix, mcron vs vixie-cron, shepherd vs systemd, gnutls vs openssl, all high-quality implementations of good ideas. Sure, lsh has a way to go before it's a viable alternative to OpenSSH, but I wouldn't say it's low-quality. I don't think I've come across a GNU project which felt "half-put-together", rather the opposite. The GNU projects' motivation is very clear-cut and not at all different from e.g. the BSD camp or suckless. How are they questionable?

rekado 11y ago
> Of more recent software "clones", there is guix vs nix, mcron vs vixie-cron, shepherd vs systemd, gnutls vs openssl, all high-quality implementations of good ideas. Shepherd is hardly a clone of systemd. It's older and has much fewer features. They are both init systems. The relationship of Guix and Nix is also not that of rivalry. Guix uses the Nix daemon and subscribes to the idea of functional package management, but everything else is quite different. (I realise you put "clone" in quotes and wrote "all high-quality implementations of good ideas", but I thought I should clarify anyway.)

rekado 11y ago

I can only shake my head at your cardboard cutout of "China" and your take on GNU. I'm working on GNU because I share its vision of providing more computing freedom to people, blurring the lines between admins and users as is the case with Emacs (self-documenting, trivially extensible and modifiable), Guix (trivial inspection and modification of all packages on a system, a large step towards freedom from system administrators, independent software profiles giving each user what they want), and the Hurd (even more freedom from sys admins). I'm not even talking about the many compilers in GCC, which make it feasible to build a completely free system (such as GuixSD). You seem to misunderstand the GNU project, and I find it unpalatable to reduce what you call "China" to a cardboard cutout for the sake of a flawed analogy.