[Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux
- From: thescriptdevil@xxxxxxxxx (Ashok Gautham)
- Date: Sat Jun 5 14:41:05 2010
On 6/4/10, Kenneth Gonsalves <lawgon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
is that Linus is entitled to decide - not RMS. After all Linus has given
full
credit to the GNU team - even to the extent that he has licensed the kernel
under the GPL - and afaik has also licensed git under that. What more do you
want?
0) Was that totally unselfish? A non GPL compatible license couldn't
have used the GNU OS tools anyway.
Tolvards has given us a really good kernel. Agreed. But
1) The Linux kernel is not really very advanced. It just does things
right. Which is good for most purposes. If Stallman were to hack
together a monolithic kernel at that point of time, his group would
have achieved it. They wanted to get a real microkernel running. I
agree HURD is a failed effort even though some people are trying to
resuscitate it with Viengoos(Spelt right?) and Coyotos.
2) I think I am going to get flamed for this. But *a lot* of non-Linux
Free Operating System users (Read BSD or OSol) feel that Linux has
received undue credit because of heavy corporate backing and power
plays by organizations with deep pockets. I am not saying it is evil,
but Linux has not grown by itself. If the companies had been so
philanthrophic when the GNU OS was being developed, HURD
might have come out faster.
3) About the how many others have created "2 killer apps" question.
Look at Stallman's efforts
a) gcc
b) gdb
c) *Emacs*
Thats atleast 3 killers. "Vi"zards can call it 2 killers :P
4) A few years ago, a few Debian users raised furore for Ubuntu did
not
a) Mention Debian anywhere
b) Did not give anything back to Debian
Now
-> Ubuntu put in effort to make the distro usable by dummies. So,
can they claim that it was them who gave GNU/Linux a name and so it is
Debian that is living in their shadow and not the other way round?
After all this, I feel that the Linux distros will not lose too much ink
by adding the letters GNU/ in front.
*It is not a necessary thing. But it is most certainly very polite.*
--- Ashok `ScriptDevil` Gautham
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