From kragen@dnaco.net Thu Aug 27 08:01:21 1998 Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 08:01:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Kragen To: "Bradley M. Kuhn" cc: clug-user@clug.org Subject: Re: Renaming of the group, CLUG -> CGLUG In-Reply-To: <19980826205804.C2300@ebb.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Keywords: X-UID: 1480 Status: O X-Status: I should begin this by saying: I think GNU/Linux is a decent name, and I would be in favor of the group changing its name. But I usually call it just plain Linux, and I don't intend to change. On Wed, 26 Aug 1998, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote: > Thus spoke Richard Westcott: > > Bradley M. Kuhn wrote: > > > - Linus supports the name "GNU/Linux". > > > > Quoth Sir Linus in an interview with Hiroo Yamagata[1]: > > Sir? When was he knighted? When he wrote Linux. :) > > > - The FSF has asked that people call the system GNU/Linux. > > > > Linus Torvalds is of a different opinion. > > Not exactly. Your quote is what he tells people to call it. It doesn't > make him right. I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying "Linus Torvalds is not exactly of a different opinion"? If so, I think it's pretty clear that Linus's opinion is (a) naming isn't very important, (b) to avoid division, just call it Linux. > He only wrote a small part of the system, so he doesn't get > sole privilege to name it. I haven't noticed any of the other major developers trying to rename it "Coxix" or "Millerix" or "Alexeyix". The idea would be ridiculous. > Not really. Linux is just a kernel, not a system. For example, SunOS is > just a kernel, and the whole system is not called Solaris. Yes, but almost nobody outside of Sun's marketing department knows this. To most people -- including a fair number of Sun employees -- SunOS is what came before Solaris 2, and Solaris is what came after. And I probably ought to call the Solaris box at work GNU/SunOS instead, by the FSF's logic, and the FreeBSD CD set I just got should be GNU/FreeBSD. :) > Sure it does. GNU is the system that sought out to make a free software > replacement for Un*x in the mid-80's, long before the Linux kernel was > started. The Linux kernel is the last piece of a large system---the GNU > system. The Linux kernel is not now, and never has been, part of the GNU project. Just because Linux succeeded in doing what the FSF failed to do doesn't make it an FSF product. The GNU Hurd is the last piece of the GNU OS. It's starting to get usable now. > This statement makes no sense. GNU/Linux (and the Linux kernel in > particular) is all free software. What point is there to use GNU/Linux if > you are not interested in using free software? Indeed, if free software is > not the goal, then why don't we simply rename ourselves to the Cincinnati > Un*x-like OS User's Group? What point is there to use Linux if you're not interested in free software? Well, it's robust, fast, memory-efficient, has excellent hardware support, and is getting better all the time. I'd use it even if I wasn't able to copy or modify it. OTOH, I *do* like open-source software. Kragen -- Kragen Sitaker We are forming cells within a global brain and we are excited that we might start to think collectively. What becomes of us still hangs crucially on how we think individually. -- Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web