[Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux [was] Google drops Windows in their workplace
- From: lawgon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Kenneth Gonsalves)
- Date: Fri Jun 4 18:13:00 2010
as per request of the admin, subject changed (please drop the 'was' part in
reply)
On Friday 04 June 2010 12:37:00 bhuvanesh kumar wrote:
THAT IS NOT EXACTLY THE REASON FOR THE NAMING BEHIND GNU/Linux.
no need to shout!
I suggest
you people to see the film "Revolution OS" , or read some good books on the
history of free software.He wanted to call linux systems GNU/Linux because
linux is only a kernel and is not a complete operating system. A complete
os is a bundle of kernel and userland tools which is developed by GNU
project. Therefore he wants to call these combination GNU/Linux there is
NOTHING WRONG in people taking credit for their own work. Basically he
wanted people to take a look at why they took the pain to develop GNU and
think about the issues affecting software users and strive for freedom.
that is all RMS's viewpoint. Why does everyone give so much weight to him and
none at all to Linus (who not only wrote and maintained the kernel all these
years, but also has come up with another killer app in git - how many people
can you point to who have come up with *two* killer apps in a lifetime?). And
yet I am still to see one post or person on this list in any way either trying
to understand linus's viewpoint or propagate it. Why?
Anyway, RMS summarises his views in this article:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html
to put it shortly, RMS and company thought of writing a kernel long before
linus did - but could not (in fact they have been trying to do so for nearly
30 years now but have utterly failed). Linus wrote it. So GNU people say 'we
thought of it first so we want our share of credit'. No problem. But in our
world the person who first implements anything gets the main credit and usually
gets to name the outcome. Others cannot force a name on it. If Linus had
agreed, no one would have any problem. He did not agree. So to foist the name
and even refuse to talk to anyone who does not use the name as foisted is the
height of childishness and is tantamount to petty jealousy. In the article
mentioned above, there is a very amusing paragraph:
<quote>
If we tried to measure the GNU Project's contribution in this way, what would
we conclude? One CD-ROM vendor found that in their ?Linux distribution?, GNU
software was the largest single contingent, around 28% of the total source
code, and this included some of the essential major components without which
there could be no system. Linux itself was about 3%. (The proportions in 2008
are similar: in the ?main? repository of gNewSense, Linux is 1.5% and GNU
packages are 15%.) So if you were going to pick a name for the system based on
who wrote the programs in the system, the most appropriate single choice would
be ?GNU?.
</quote>
linux is only 1.5%!! might as well remove it (and certainly with only a 1.5%
share it has no right to find itself in any part of the name!) But the most
important point is that linux and GNU combined are only 16.5% - a small
minority. What about giving credit to the people who contributed the remaining
83.5%? why are they ignored? who are they? why are their leaders not crying
for credit in the name? one possible reason is that they are not jobless and
are busy refining and adding to their contributions ;-)
let us look at it from another angle - what would have happened if Linus had
not developed the kernel (it is known that he just did it for kicks and not
part of the great scheme of freedom framed by RMS). Then GNU would have been
useless and we would all still be using windows. ILUGC would not have come
into existence - without a kernel GNU tools are of no use (and GNU people have
proved that they are incapable of writing a usable kernel). So if anything
Linus would be justified in insisting that GNU be called Linux/GNU. And do not
forget that it is only because of the success of linux that RMS, GPL and GNU
became famous. Without linux no one would have heard of them.
No doubt RMS is a visionary - a good thing. We need visions - but if he cannot
implement his visions he has no right to grab credit from those who can
implement them. Case to point: he was the first to conceive of a free
encyclopedia (he called it GNE - GNE is not an encyopedia). It was a failure -
Wales implemented the wikipedia which was a success. No doubt RMS would have
like to call it the GNE/wikipedia - but it won't work because it is an URL and
if you type GNE/Wikipedia in the address bar you will not get wikipedia. He
also had visions of a DVCS - but GNU Arch was another flop - whereas linus
quietly produced git without any fanfare.
We owe a tremendous debt to Linus - and it is fitting that the OS is named
after him (he did not name it). We also owe something to RMS and his friends -
there are lots of things named after GNU - more than enough to keep any
reasonable person happy. But this kind of renaming is not reasonable. I
request those of us here who have benefited from the work of Linus Torwalds to
take some time out and also find out his views on the matter and respect them.
Or if you really want to further the cause of GNU, please make hurd usable and
use arch for version control.
--
regards
kg
http://livejournal.com/lawgon
Other related posts:
