7 ms·

I feel like probably half the people who insist on calling it "GNU/Linux" don't even really understand why.

by jokr004 10y ago

AsyncAwait 10y ago
Same as the people who insist on calling it Linux when talking about the desktop.
- TallGuyShort 10y ago
  If you wouldn't mind referring to the desktop by it's more appropriate name, K/Mozilla/Apache/GNU/Linux, that would be great.
  - AsyncAwait 10y ago
    You forgot C in there :-) Anyway, this misses the point of the FSF in insisting on calling it GNU/Linux. The point of the GNU is not to name every application that runs on your system, but to say that you're running the Linux kernel AND the GNU userland to have a functional system, i.e. that GNU is the second half of a complete system, GNU/Linux. You don't need Apache to have a functional system. You do need libc etc. to have a functional system and when these are provided by GNU, I think it's fair to call it GNU/Linux.
    - xj9 10y ago
      yeah, okay. --- No, Richard, it's 'Linux', not 'GNU/Linux'. The most important contributions that the FSF made to Linux were the creation of the GPL and the GCC compiler. Those are fine and inspired products. GCC is a monumental achievement and has earned you, RMS, and the Free Software Foundation countless kudos and much appreciation. Following are some reasons for you to mull over, including some already answered in your FAQ. One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS -- more on this later). He named it 'Linux' with a little help from his friends. Why doesn't he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff -- including the software I wrote using GCC -- and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. You don't want to be known as a nag, do you? (An operating system) != (a distribution). Linux is an operating system. By my definition, an operating system is that software which provides and limits access to hardware resources on a computer. That definition applies wherever you see Linux in use. However, Linux is usually distributed with a collection of utilities and applications to make it easily configurable as a desktop system, a server, a development box, or a graphics workstation, or whatever the user needs. In such a configuration, we have a Linux (based) distribution. Therein lies your strongest argument for the unwieldy title 'GNU/Linux' (when said bundled software is largely from the FSF). Go bug the distribution makers on that one. Take your beef to Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware. At least there you have an argument. Linux alone is an operating system that can be used in various applications without any GNU software whatsoever. Embedded applications come to mind as an obvious example. Next, even if we limit the GNU/Linux title to the GNU-based Linux distributions, we run into another obvious problem. XFree86 may well be more important to a particular Linux installation than the sum of all the GNU contributions. More properly, shouldn't the distribution be called XFree86/Linux? Or, at a minimum, XFree86/GNU/Linux? Of course, it would be rather arbitrary to draw the line there when many other fine contributions go unlisted. Yes, I know you've heard this one before. Get used to it. You'll keep hearing it until you can cleanly counter it. You seem to like the lines-of-code metric. There are many lines of GNU code in a typical Linux distribution. You seem to suggest that (more LOC) == (more important). However, I submit to you that raw LOC numbers do not directly correlate with importance. I would suggest that clock cycles spent on code is a better metric. For example, if my system spends 90% of its time executing XFree86 code, XFree86 is probably the single most important collection of code on my system. Even if I loaded ten times as many lines of useless bloatware on my system and I never excuted that bloatware, it certainly isn't more important code than XFree86. Obviously, this metric isn't perfect either, but LOC really, really sucks. Please refrain from using it ever again in supporting any argument. Last, I'd like to point out that we Linux and GNU users shouldn't be fighting among ourselves over naming other people's software. But what the heck, I'm in a bad mood now. I think I'm feeling sufficiently obnoxious to make the point that GCC is so very famous and, yes, so very useful only because Linux was developed. In a show of proper respect and gratitude, shouldn't you and everyone refer to GCC as 'the Linux compiler'? Or at least, 'Linux GCC'? Seriously, where would your masterpiece be without Linux? Languishing with the HURD? If there is a moral buried in this rant, maybe it is this: Be grateful for your abilities and your incredible success and your considerable fame. Continue to use that success and fame for good, not evil. Also, be especially grateful for Linux' huge contribution to that success. You, RMS, the Free Software Foundation, and GNU software have reached their current high profiles largely on the back of Linux. You have changed the world. Now, go forth and don't be a nag. Thanks for listening.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - AsyncAwait 10y ago
        > One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS -- more on this later). He named it 'Linux' with a little help from his friends. Why doesn't he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff -- including the software I wrote using GCC -- and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. The proper name of "Linux" (the kernel) is indeed Linux, because Linus has said so and everyone, including RMS agrees, no one insists on calling Linux (the kernel) GNU/Linux, as there's no GNU in there and it would be pretty silly on insisting on calling it GNU/Linux. Also, GCC is hardly the only critical GNU component that modern GNU/Linux systems rely on, but even so, it's not that anyone wants to name your program GNU/something just because it was compiled with GCC, rather is that Linux is the kernel, GNU is the userland. To make a functional system, you do need a kernel (Linux) and the userland (ie GNU), so if you're using both components and one is called GNU and the other Linux, it's fair to call the result GNU/Linux.
        xj9 10y ago
        userspace is really easy to swap out. linux is the actual important part. what is gnu without linux? nothing. i can use suckless coreutils, llvm, and musl and still have a functional linux system. i don't need gnu for anything.
        AsyncAwait 10y ago
        Not totally true, ie you still very much need GCC to compile the kernel, but sure - you can also do the reverse with Linux and run the GNU userland on a different kernel, then it will not be called GNU/Linux, (see Debian & Android), however WHEN you're using the GNU user land with Linux, it'll be nice to call it properly as GNU/Linux, that's all. It's still the most popular free set of packages, (there's a reason even MS used the GNU userland in LSFW), and thus giving it some credit for starting and substantially contributing to the free software movement by adopting the GNU/Linux naming convention, (Only when GNU is indeed used, of course), is the least thing we could do. The reason RMS wants people to do this is not to take more credit for himself than is due, but to bring more attention to "free software", (which GNU promotes), as opposed to just "open-source" (which Linus promotes).
    - nine_k 10y ago
      I wonder if something running busybox + musl on top of a Linux kernel is still any "GNU" in this sense.
      - bonzini 10y ago
        Of course not, and hence RMS would not call it GNU/Linux.
        AsyncAwait 10y ago
        Absolutely, that's indeed the reason behind GNU/Linux as opposed to GNU Linux. Linux is not a GNU package and hence not GNU Linux, however when it includes the GNU userland, it runs many GNU packages, hence GNU(userland)/Linux(kernel). RMS is not taking credit for Linux and does not want anyone to call the kernel GNU/Linux, but rather the whole system IF it is using GNU userland.
        TallGuyShort 10y ago
        But my original point is that the overwhelming majority of Linux systems include a lot of non-GNU software to achieve basic functionality. Why not include all that when referring to the operating system?
        AsyncAwait 10y ago
        Because GNU/Linux is the very core you need to have even a remotely functional system, i.e. you need both GNU and Linux to even have an OS of some sort, the other parts are used to make the OS even more useful, but they're not the parts without which your system will fail to boot into a reasonable state to even get these other pieces working. In Windows there is lots of software not written by Microsoft, then there's the NT kernel, (which by itself does not make an OS) and the userland (which together with the kernel makes a basic OS that you can install all the other nice pieces onto to have a great experience, but the core is NT + userland)
        smitherfield 10y ago
    - TallGuyShort 10y ago
      For a very specific definition of functional that's true. But you can (and many people do) have a functional Linux system without GNU userland, and you could hand a GNU/Linux to most people and it would be practically non-functional for them. Pretty arbitrary line.
      - joe563323 10y ago
        Name a system that is used commercially by non-tech people and they are not aware of it.
        yellowapple 10y ago
        Android, last I checked. Also, the vast majority of consumer network hardware (that ain't running VxWorks, at least). Both of these categories of Linux distribution typically use Busybox instead of the GNU userland, and more often than not use an embedded-friendly libc instead of glibc. The only significant GNU component remaining - GCC - is usually counted as part of the distribution's build environment rather than as part of the distribution itself, so it'd be a significant stretch to count it.
    - Rayearth 10y ago
      Also there's now a thing called "GNU/NT", or as Microsoft calls it, "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows".
      - nattmat 10y ago
        "GNU\NT", FTFY
        pjmlp 10y ago
        Win32 actually accepts both. :)
    - dec0dedab0de 10y ago
      Anyway, this misses the point of the FSF in insisting on calling it GNU/Linux. The point of the GNU is not to name every application that runs on your system, but to say that you're running the Linux kernel AND the GNU userland to have a functional system, i.e. that GNU is the second half of a complete system, GNU/Linux. I thought the point was to bring attention to the idea of Free Software as a philosophy. Where as Open Source is more of a marketing tool.
      - snambi 10y ago
        Totally true. What is the purpose of opensource anyway? somehow most corporations believe that opensource is good for them.
      - AsyncAwait 10y ago
        Totally, by association with the GNU Project, you'll certainly come across FSF and their work to promote free software, which is the ultimate goal.
  - mikegerwitz 10y ago
    Most don't understand the history of the GNU Operating System: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html GNU contains a lot of non-GNU-written software because, to create a fully free OS, the only portions that needed to be written were the portions that did not have free replacements.
    - xj9 10y ago
      make a distro, call it gnu/linux, problem solved.
      - teddyh 10y ago
        Why not make a GNU distribution of Linux (sic) and call that GNU/Linux? https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#gnudist https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#gnudist All the “Linux” distributions are actually versions of the GNU system with Linux as the kernel. The purpose of the term “GNU/Linux” is to communicate this point. To develop one new distribution and call that alone “GNU/Linux” would obscure the point we want to make. As for developing a distribution of GNU/Linux, we already did this once, when we funded the early development of Debian GNU/Linux. To do it again now does not seem useful; it would be a lot of work, and unless the new distribution had substantial practical advantages over other distributions, it would serve no purpose. Instead we help the developers of 100% free GNU/Linux distributions, such as gNewSense and Ututo.
- xj9 10y ago
  I run arch linux and nixos. I've never heard of a distribution called gnu/linux, is it new?
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy
  - Koshkin 10y ago
    Despite downvotes, this, admittedly sarcastic, question makes perfect sense. The name of a "distribution" is the name of the OS. It may not even be a "distribution", like Android. Nobody calls Android "Linux".
    - nattmat 10y ago
      Linux is the operating system, the distribution is only a collection of apps running on top of the operating system. Ubuntu does not handle stuff like memory allocation or scheduling.
      - teddyh 10y ago
        An operating system is a different concept from a kernel. What you are describing is a kernel, not an operating system.
- joe563323 10y ago
  Not same. People who call GNU/Linux knows atleast linux is just kernel.

I feel like probably half the people who insist on calling it "GNU/Linux" don't even really understand why.

by jokr004 10y ago

I feel like probably half the people who insist on calling it "GNU/Linux" don't even really understand why.

AsyncAwait 10y ago

Same as the people who insist on calling it Linux when talking about the desktop.

TallGuyShort 10y ago
If you wouldn't mind referring to the desktop by it's more appropriate name, K/Mozilla/Apache/GNU/Linux, that would be great.
- AsyncAwait 10y ago
  You forgot C in there :-) Anyway, this misses the point of the FSF in insisting on calling it GNU/Linux. The point of the GNU is not to name every application that runs on your system, but to say that you're running the Linux kernel AND the GNU userland to have a functional system, i.e. that GNU is the second half of a complete system, GNU/Linux. You don't need Apache to have a functional system. You do need libc etc. to have a functional system and when these are provided by GNU, I think it's fair to call it GNU/Linux.
  - xj9 10y ago
    yeah, okay. --- No, Richard, it's 'Linux', not 'GNU/Linux'. The most important contributions that the FSF made to Linux were the creation of the GPL and the GCC compiler. Those are fine and inspired products. GCC is a monumental achievement and has earned you, RMS, and the Free Software Foundation countless kudos and much appreciation. Following are some reasons for you to mull over, including some already answered in your FAQ. One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS -- more on this later). He named it 'Linux' with a little help from his friends. Why doesn't he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff -- including the software I wrote using GCC -- and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. You don't want to be known as a nag, do you? (An operating system) != (a distribution). Linux is an operating system. By my definition, an operating system is that software which provides and limits access to hardware resources on a computer. That definition applies wherever you see Linux in use. However, Linux is usually distributed with a collection of utilities and applications to make it easily configurable as a desktop system, a server, a development box, or a graphics workstation, or whatever the user needs. In such a configuration, we have a Linux (based) distribution. Therein lies your strongest argument for the unwieldy title 'GNU/Linux' (when said bundled software is largely from the FSF). Go bug the distribution makers on that one. Take your beef to Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware. At least there you have an argument. Linux alone is an operating system that can be used in various applications without any GNU software whatsoever. Embedded applications come to mind as an obvious example. Next, even if we limit the GNU/Linux title to the GNU-based Linux distributions, we run into another obvious problem. XFree86 may well be more important to a particular Linux installation than the sum of all the GNU contributions. More properly, shouldn't the distribution be called XFree86/Linux? Or, at a minimum, XFree86/GNU/Linux? Of course, it would be rather arbitrary to draw the line there when many other fine contributions go unlisted. Yes, I know you've heard this one before. Get used to it. You'll keep hearing it until you can cleanly counter it. You seem to like the lines-of-code metric. There are many lines of GNU code in a typical Linux distribution. You seem to suggest that (more LOC) == (more important). However, I submit to you that raw LOC numbers do not directly correlate with importance. I would suggest that clock cycles spent on code is a better metric. For example, if my system spends 90% of its time executing XFree86 code, XFree86 is probably the single most important collection of code on my system. Even if I loaded ten times as many lines of useless bloatware on my system and I never excuted that bloatware, it certainly isn't more important code than XFree86. Obviously, this metric isn't perfect either, but LOC really, really sucks. Please refrain from using it ever again in supporting any argument. Last, I'd like to point out that we Linux and GNU users shouldn't be fighting among ourselves over naming other people's software. But what the heck, I'm in a bad mood now. I think I'm feeling sufficiently obnoxious to make the point that GCC is so very famous and, yes, so very useful only because Linux was developed. In a show of proper respect and gratitude, shouldn't you and everyone refer to GCC as 'the Linux compiler'? Or at least, 'Linux GCC'? Seriously, where would your masterpiece be without Linux? Languishing with the HURD? If there is a moral buried in this rant, maybe it is this: Be grateful for your abilities and your incredible success and your considerable fame. Continue to use that success and fame for good, not evil. Also, be especially grateful for Linux' huge contribution to that success. You, RMS, the Free Software Foundation, and GNU software have reached their current high profiles largely on the back of Linux. You have changed the world. Now, go forth and don't be a nag. Thanks for listening.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - AsyncAwait 10y ago
      > One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS -- more on this later). He named it 'Linux' with a little help from his friends. Why doesn't he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff -- including the software I wrote using GCC -- and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. The proper name of "Linux" (the kernel) is indeed Linux, because Linus has said so and everyone, including RMS agrees, no one insists on calling Linux (the kernel) GNU/Linux, as there's no GNU in there and it would be pretty silly on insisting on calling it GNU/Linux. Also, GCC is hardly the only critical GNU component that modern GNU/Linux systems rely on, but even so, it's not that anyone wants to name your program GNU/something just because it was compiled with GCC, rather is that Linux is the kernel, GNU is the userland. To make a functional system, you do need a kernel (Linux) and the userland (ie GNU), so if you're using both components and one is called GNU and the other Linux, it's fair to call the result GNU/Linux.
      - xj9 10y ago
        userspace is really easy to swap out. linux is the actual important part. what is gnu without linux? nothing. i can use suckless coreutils, llvm, and musl and still have a functional linux system. i don't need gnu for anything.
        AsyncAwait 10y ago
        Not totally true, ie you still very much need GCC to compile the kernel, but sure - you can also do the reverse with Linux and run the GNU userland on a different kernel, then it will not be called GNU/Linux, (see Debian & Android), however WHEN you're using the GNU user land with Linux, it'll be nice to call it properly as GNU/Linux, that's all. It's still the most popular free set of packages, (there's a reason even MS used the GNU userland in LSFW), and thus giving it some credit for starting and substantially contributing to the free software movement by adopting the GNU/Linux naming convention, (Only when GNU is indeed used, of course), is the least thing we could do. The reason RMS wants people to do this is not to take more credit for himself than is due, but to bring more attention to "free software", (which GNU promotes), as opposed to just "open-source" (which Linus promotes).
  - nine_k 10y ago
    I wonder if something running busybox + musl on top of a Linux kernel is still any "GNU" in this sense.
    - bonzini 10y ago
      Of course not, and hence RMS would not call it GNU/Linux.
      - AsyncAwait 10y ago
        Absolutely, that's indeed the reason behind GNU/Linux as opposed to GNU Linux. Linux is not a GNU package and hence not GNU Linux, however when it includes the GNU userland, it runs many GNU packages, hence GNU(userland)/Linux(kernel). RMS is not taking credit for Linux and does not want anyone to call the kernel GNU/Linux, but rather the whole system IF it is using GNU userland.
        TallGuyShort 10y ago
        But my original point is that the overwhelming majority of Linux systems include a lot of non-GNU software to achieve basic functionality. Why not include all that when referring to the operating system?
        AsyncAwait 10y ago
        Because GNU/Linux is the very core you need to have even a remotely functional system, i.e. you need both GNU and Linux to even have an OS of some sort, the other parts are used to make the OS even more useful, but they're not the parts without which your system will fail to boot into a reasonable state to even get these other pieces working. In Windows there is lots of software not written by Microsoft, then there's the NT kernel, (which by itself does not make an OS) and the userland (which together with the kernel makes a basic OS that you can install all the other nice pieces onto to have a great experience, but the core is NT + userland)
      - smitherfield 10y ago
  - TallGuyShort 10y ago
    For a very specific definition of functional that's true. But you can (and many people do) have a functional Linux system without GNU userland, and you could hand a GNU/Linux to most people and it would be practically non-functional for them. Pretty arbitrary line.
    - joe563323 10y ago
      Name a system that is used commercially by non-tech people and they are not aware of it.
      - yellowapple 10y ago
        Android, last I checked. Also, the vast majority of consumer network hardware (that ain't running VxWorks, at least). Both of these categories of Linux distribution typically use Busybox instead of the GNU userland, and more often than not use an embedded-friendly libc instead of glibc. The only significant GNU component remaining - GCC - is usually counted as part of the distribution's build environment rather than as part of the distribution itself, so it'd be a significant stretch to count it.
  - Rayearth 10y ago
    Also there's now a thing called "GNU/NT", or as Microsoft calls it, "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows".
    - nattmat 10y ago
      "GNU\NT", FTFY
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        Win32 actually accepts both. :)
  - dec0dedab0de 10y ago
    Anyway, this misses the point of the FSF in insisting on calling it GNU/Linux. The point of the GNU is not to name every application that runs on your system, but to say that you're running the Linux kernel AND the GNU userland to have a functional system, i.e. that GNU is the second half of a complete system, GNU/Linux. I thought the point was to bring attention to the idea of Free Software as a philosophy. Where as Open Source is more of a marketing tool.
    - snambi 10y ago
      Totally true. What is the purpose of opensource anyway? somehow most corporations believe that opensource is good for them.
    - AsyncAwait 10y ago
      Totally, by association with the GNU Project, you'll certainly come across FSF and their work to promote free software, which is the ultimate goal.
- mikegerwitz 10y ago
  Most don't understand the history of the GNU Operating System: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html GNU contains a lot of non-GNU-written software because, to create a fully free OS, the only portions that needed to be written were the portions that did not have free replacements.
  - xj9 10y ago
    make a distro, call it gnu/linux, problem solved.
    - teddyh 10y ago
      Why not make a GNU distribution of Linux (sic) and call that GNU/Linux? https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#gnudist https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#gnudist All the “Linux” distributions are actually versions of the GNU system with Linux as the kernel. The purpose of the term “GNU/Linux” is to communicate this point. To develop one new distribution and call that alone “GNU/Linux” would obscure the point we want to make. As for developing a distribution of GNU/Linux, we already did this once, when we funded the early development of Debian GNU/Linux. To do it again now does not seem useful; it would be a lot of work, and unless the new distribution had substantial practical advantages over other distributions, it would serve no purpose. Instead we help the developers of 100% free GNU/Linux distributions, such as gNewSense and Ututo.
xj9 10y ago
I run arch linux and nixos. I've never heard of a distribution called gnu/linux, is it new?
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy
- Koshkin 10y ago
  Despite downvotes, this, admittedly sarcastic, question makes perfect sense. The name of a "distribution" is the name of the OS. It may not even be a "distribution", like Android. Nobody calls Android "Linux".
  - nattmat 10y ago
    Linux is the operating system, the distribution is only a collection of apps running on top of the operating system. Ubuntu does not handle stuff like memory allocation or scheduling.
    - teddyh 10y ago
      An operating system is a different concept from a kernel. What you are describing is a kernel, not an operating system.
joe563323 10y ago
Not same. People who call GNU/Linux knows atleast linux is just kernel.