That I totally agree with, but since when is not allowing a name slapped on something ungrateful?

Like for a real world example the GP2X is Linux based, in says NO WHERE on the box about it, it is not called LINUX/GP2X and the only thing that was wrong is they failed to give out the source, (they have fixed this issue) I have yet to see a Linux user say GP2X (gamepark holdings) is ungrateful.

If you look at the man pages (witch I might add everyone will sooner or later) GNU is slapped everywhere, this I don't mind, but to rename the title of an OS because it uses GNU's environment is a little too much, I mean look at it another way, every time you write a test or write out a document do you put <name of pen company>/<you name here>? I know I don't even though I used that pen and without that pen I couldn't write out whatever it is I had to write out, it is no way means I'm ungrateful.

But nobody wants to rename the title of a OS because it uses the GNU environment. The basic utilities/tools that are needed to function as a operating system is GNU and the kernel is linux and that together IS the operating system. Nobody is renaming anything, only giving credit where credit is due.

If the pen play a major role in the event, why not, and Torvalds acknowledge gcc features were a key to his success.
More generally to stay in your analogy: if one write out a document by cutting and pasting a large part of it from an unfinished document on the very same subject written by someone else, not giving credit to the original author is plagiarism. I'm not accusing Linus Torvalds of plagiarism though, given the fact Gnu material is copyleft.

That is correct, but that doesn't mean that the title of the document would be renamed to <sources name/document name> when I look at the name Linux, until Patrick V (the maintainer of Slackware) starts calling his distro Slackware GNU/Linux then I'll call it that... Same with SUSE Linux, I want SUSE GNU/LINUX, I don't care what the LFS people follow because I don't follow half the standards in that book, I do things the old skool way. And I deffentilly don't care about Debian either, there so GNU oriented they do call it GNU/LINUX, if GNU would disappear it would be the first distro to bomb.

I don't care about following GNU standards, I am trying to create a more UNIX like distro, I don't care about file harchey or what should or shouldn't be... those are my descions and no GNU is gonna tell me differernt. if i want glibc's speical libs in /usr/libexec thats where there going, and there is nothing no one can do about it.

Seriously I am going to go to work and since our whole company depends on (4) guys I will demand they rename the plant name and company name after us.. I'll see how far I get with that....

Actually the file system hirachy is controlled by the Linux Base Standards group or something like that

I call it Linux because while technically the OS is more than just the kernel, it's ridiculous to name every component needed to create the OS and Linux is the actual piece of software that's manipulating the system, managing memory, making CPU calls, and running binaries. When I write an application I'm compiling it for Linux, not for GNU. It's a Linux binary because it only works with the Linux kernel. GNU is just a series of userspace programs and it is also cross platform. Stallman should be advocating the use of GNU/Windows and GNU/FreeBSD as well since it has been ported to other systems.

There, I've settled the debate. You can stop fighting now. You're welcome by the way. Also, if you're dumb enough to listen to Stallman, he recommends you commit suicide if you get caught with Marijuana to make a political statement.

Thanks Darkhack your post is very much welcomed! (I am saying this because I may seem ungrateful) and Now I will rename my posts in this thread Darkhack/Debunking the GNU!!! j/k

But I was having soo much fun "shoosting" statements down!

Main goal is to make Free Operating System which respect users freedom. Users should be able to study source code,copy program,make changes to source code and redistribute changed version of program.

If we call system GNU/Linux we put lights on those freedoms and Free Software Foundation who promote those freedoms.If we call the system GNU/Linux we give credit to people who made 85% of our operating system and also philosophical concept of Free Software and we don't forget people who made 15% (but the most important 15%) of the system.Those two groups are only two groups whose names should be in the name of system.(KDE and other programs are ok but should not be in the name of system bacause they are not so important as GNU and Linux).Linux+GNU or GNU+Linux are ok too.Only names of the most important part of system and foundation which made the most of programs (85%),and gave us that great philosophical concept, should be in the name of the system.There is no fundamentalism or extremism in that.Just demand for software freedom.

If we call system just Linux we forgot to give credit to FSF and people who made the most of software,but what is more important we ignore philosophical concept of Free Software and put the lights off the freedoms that every computer program should give to us as users.Stallman and FSF did not only made 85% of our system ,they made,which is more important than percentage, philosophical concept of Free Software which should be pointed out in the name of system so people who use it will know ,from beginning, that they use different software ,not only because it is better than other but also software which respect their freedom and which is not proprietary software. And all of that with just 3 letters GNU!

By calling system Linux we will end up not talking about freedoms anymore instead of that we will end up talking about software convenience,open source and we will,I am afraid,miss the point and lose our freedom.And why ? Because indolence to speak 3 letters GNU !

We will hardly be able to convert anyone who use proprietary software to change that because our only argument will be my software is better than yours (which is not true for every free program).He would probably reply us my software is good enough for me! Don't bother me with that Linux thing anymore!Or even he would be angry on us and try to convince us that his software is better and we will start unholy war and pointless discussion in which we will not be in right on every point because some proprietary programs are sadly better than free programs !

It is philosophical concept which is powerful argument for people to migrate.If you say to people My software is not perfect ,maybe there are few bugs in it like in yours or in almost every software , but my software is not proprietary it is free,you can copy it ,change it,redistribute changed versions.You can not end up in jail for copying or modifying free software as you can doing this with proprietary software ! Those are powerful arguments for migration.

Thats why FSF and GNU should be mentioned in OS name.
Don't be lazy there are just 3 more letters GNU and one character + or / in GNU/Linux, and those 4 characters make big difference.Those 4 characters are big as FREEDOM !

Maybe even better solution would be :FSL or FSLinux (Free Software Linux) ,or FAIF Linux (Free as in Freedom Linux).People would know at once,from the name,that it is free software and that it is different than proprietary software.

After reading this thread, I'm now calling it GNU/AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs.

Do you have a source for that 85 percent? You seem to be forgetting that a vast majority of GNU software is made up of userspace applications that aren't necessary for an OS. Linux 2.6.23 contains more than 8.5 million lines of code. Plus I can strip out GNU and still have an OS. There are lots of components that can act as replacements for GNU.

What makes them less important than GNU? It's completely possible to have a Linux operating system without GNU. Most distributions just so happen to choose GNU software because it is the most mature and has a strong development team behind it, but I can easily run a Linux based OS without it.

Again, most GNU software is userspace and we are debating on a name for the operating system. Unless you can specify which components are necessary for an OS (certainly not all of GNU is) and count their lines of code, then I'll listen.

Free software has been around decades before the Free Software Foundation. The reason the foundation was even started was because for the first time in computer history (in the 80s) software was starting to become non-free.

RMS is that you? Linux is under GPLv2. It respects your freedom just as much as the rest of the GNU system unless you want to bring the GPLv3 into discussion which is a very recent development compared to Stallman's radical opinion of calling it GNU/Linux.

Linux *is* free software! Where did you get the idea that it wasn't? You can talk about freedom all you want without having to mention GNU. Hell, BSD is more free than GNU.

All of which Linux has.

Where do you come up with this idea? Those 4 characters don't make a rat's ass difference in whether or not the OS is free.

or I can just say "Linux is free (as in speech) software" and be done with it.

Clearly you got sucked into Stallman's mindless rant. I've been a Linux user for a long time and while Stallman's arguments seem interesting, they only remain so if you continue living under his rock. I'm sure Hitler sounded like a great guy if all you've known your whole life was what was taught to you in Nazi Germany.

Now you're being silly. Hell, I'm still trying to get people to understand what Linux even is. Call it GNU/Linux if you wish, but let's not try to complicate something that doesn't need to be complicated. Linux will always be released freely under the GPL, so calling it "Free Software Linux" just sounds unnecessary and redundant.

agreed. :)

Ok wait a minute... You can run Linux compiled binary code on HURD without a Linux server? No you cannot and on the website it says it can't. So allthough it may be compiled with GCC it does not run on GNU/HURD. And don't say that it can be recompiled for it because even Windows apps can be recompiled for *NIX with Wine+the original MS Windows DLL's.

It was developped so it could be used for MINIX. It was not dependant on MINIX, so that means that Linux is a independant kernel so you just confirmed my statement. The reason I said this was because I was trying to say that it is not dependant on GNU. I don't understand how this could have triggered a discussion.

I for one welcome our GNU overlords!

You misread my answer. I wasn't talking about just running a compiled binary but about installing a whole distribution. Also this isn't on top of Hurd but a another non Linux kernel.

Let me ask it a different way.

Which one would be "more" Linux to you:

A genuine Red-Hat/Debian/whatever distribution running on top of a non Linux kernel (this works fine) ?

An AIX distribution running on top of a Linux kernel (just hypothetical) ?

Slackware And no it won't "run fine" if this where the case the people at LinuxFromScratch would have named the project HurdFromScratch or GNUFROMSCRATCH so obviously it wouldn't work fine! And Debian would indeed scrap the linux kernel for hurd if it worked fine.. but it doesn't.

What would be more UNIX like would be LFS + BSD startup scripts and file hierarchy + LILO + UFS file system.


As for another kernel, the answer is maybe.. it would have to have some the the same features the Linux kernel has, it would have to support ELF or A.OUT binarys, there is a lot more "stuff" that needs to be similier to the point they the functions are supported under this new kernel, you also have to make sure software can talk to the kernel to accolate memory, so the interfaces have to be the same, it is highly unlikely that such a kernel would exist because the number of things that would have to be near the same thing would be staggering, it wouldn't be worth someone's time to attempt to try this, look at the BSD kernel there are options init to make Linux binarys run, but not all binarys will work, so you will have compatibility issues with software, (this is the last thing we need)

Distro's will have incompatibly if they use different kernels, drivers and anything that hooks into the kernel interface will also have issues, we don't want another windows scenario on our hands (you know win 3.1, 95,98 software failing to run on vista) Stick to one kernel and thats that.