that old GNU/Linux argument

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Jul 20, 2008, "Mikkel L. Ellertson" <mikkel at infinity-ltd.com> wrote:

> No - just that I think the argument is equivalent is like complaining
> about someone calling a Mustang a car, instead of calling it a Ford
> Mustang.

We're not talking of a "is-a" relationship, but rather of a "part-of"
relationship.

How about calling a Mustang a tire?  That would be the correct
parallel.  Because, you know, following the Linux-is-an-OS logic, the
tires are pretty important, and the car really wouldn't run without
them, and it's the last part you add to a car before it runs, so let's
call it tire, even though there are more important parts of the car
that took far more work to build, such as the motor.

There's a reason why custom racing cars (say Formula 1) are most often
identified not only by the pilot's name, but also by the team, the
motor and the tires.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
FSFLA Board Member       ¡Sé Libre! => http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}