LXer: A Kernel of all things!
 

Published at LXer:

Just finished watching “Revolution OS” again, after a year or more. I still can’t believe that with all the work the GNU Project put into the GNU operating system, that Linus Torvalds could come along, with a Kernel of all things, and take the credit away from the Free Software Foundation, and thus, also taking away the credit from the X.Org, Apache, etc. developers.

[Cue flamethrowers and asbestos undies... - Sander]



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Did he REALLY take any credit away from those groups? It seems like he just wrote what turned into the best kernel to facilitate the use of all of those groups' work.

If the FSF had already produced a nice, usable, flexible kernel before Linux was written, it probably would've been adopted instead.

Plus, I mean, the name is just cool. "Linux" . . . it just kinda rolls right off the tongue. And that penguin, I mean, that just sealed the deal right there. I mean, come on, the guy looks like he just finished eating some fish for God's sake!

Freax?

Hmmm... Very interesting.

I'm sure if this guy and RMS ever met, RMS would give him a big bear hug. Other than that, nothing to see here.

Personally I think the Linux kernel is perhaps the greatest feat of software engineering the world has ever known and maybe will ever know. Sure, we should call it GNU/Linux, but just Linux is fine with me. Without Linux, GNU may have ceased to exist or its development been severely hampered. Without the Linux kernel, GNU would not be what it is today.

On my Fedora 11 (Preview) installation a uname -o returns GNU/Linux. So, at least for Fedora, the OS name is "GNU/Linux."

His complaint/comment/whatever is, therefore, not valid for all distributions.:tisk:

(Should "GNU/Linux" be pronounced "New Linux?" Then we could tell people the, "I'm using the New Linux operating system!")

Same here, I think it always shows that.

Technically it is GNU/Linux with all distros (unless someone found a way to run the kernel without the GNU tools). However, I agree with H- calling it Linux is just fine by me. (I've seen some really flaming arguments over that, and it's just silly, IMHO.)

ROFL- Now, there's an idea! ;)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
Technically only if you are a part of the FSF.
"The GNU contribution is the basis for the Free Software Foundation's preferred name GNU/Linux."

When GNU decides to compile their own distro, they may name it as they see fit. I use Slackware Linux not Slackware GNU/Linux.

You're correct that it's a silly argument. I'm just tired of Richard Stallman trying to force feed people his ideals.

Just as a side note, why not Linux/GNU?
I'm pretty sure with some extreme code hacking you could get Linux to run with more BSD tools than GNU, thus making the Linux portion more important and therefore should prefix that naming convention. ;)

As for uname -o, you can easily change to that to what ever you want. (i.e. Mine does not show the GNU/ prefix to my Linux OS.)

I stand corrected- Thank you for pointing that out, I've never looked it up.

RMS is a bit of an extremist, isn't he? Even Linus doesn't seem to like him very much.

Now that raises a serious question: Why do you never see updated files labeled 'GNU'? They always have the Unix or BSD name attached. :scratch: I'm not so sure the 'code hacking' would have to be that extreme. ;)

Cheers

Well ... that's definitely an understatement.

Just for anyone curious to know how to change the propaganda code.
If you download the coreutils from the GNU site and open the m4/host-os.m4 macro file, you will see:
os='GNU/Linux';;

Just change what's between the single quotes to whatever you wish, and recompile + install.

About Stallman being an extremist, he's more of a hypocrite.
He blabs about all software being "free", but what he really means is; all software should be free the way he sees fit.
(Truly free software wouldn't come with any license restrictions.)

I don't take him seriously, nor should anyone else; I'm not a politician.
Let's just hope he doesn't read this forum. ;)

Yeah, I was trying to be nice. :D I also like to give credit where credit is due:

Back in the 'good old days', we had 8-bit/1MHz cpus with a max of 64K RAM. There were no HDDs, only 'dino-floppies', which had a nasty reputation for wearing out. Bad enough that software was expensive, but it also came with 'copy protection', which made your drive sound like it was flying apart. Didn't do much for the longevity of the disk, either...

Richard Stallman's ideals sounded pretty darn good, back then. Damn shame they didn't materialize into anything useful before IBM & MS took the stage; Perhaps RMS wouldn't still be preaching about it. ;)

Cheers

Lets just call it "GLinux" and end all arguments. Its a waist of time.

We had a TI 99er 4a back in the early 80s complete with tape deck to save your programs. Ours only had 16k RAM so programs were a PITA.

As for the "GLinux" comment, this isn't the 90s anymore were people lacked creativity in naming things...
oh wait, Apple still thinks it is... since they put "i" on everything. (I mean come on, iPod? iPods didn't have internet connectivity back then...[referring to the "i' in Internet Macintosh')

It's annoying enough to press something like "g" then tab in bash and see "Display all 136 possibilities?"

Anyways, I'm getting off track of this topic :(

I use:
http://www.slackware.org/~msimons/sl...d/SWtuxgnu.png

Why not Hardy and Laurel? Why these constant personal attacks on Stallman? We've had threads like this before.