that old GNU/Linux argument

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Jul 22, 2008, Timothy Murphy <gayleard at eircom.net> wrote:

>> Look at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu.  You'll find a lot of software
>> there, that is all part of the GNU Operating System.  Follow the link
>> to The GNU System, in the README.  That page describes what the GNU
>> Operating System is.

> I didn't find a file called README at that URL.

Sorry, I meant the text displayed before the directory list, which ftp
servers generally take from a file named README or somesuch.

> At a quick glance, the term "GNU operating system" does not appear in it.

Oh, I assumed you knew that GNU is just the name of an operating
system, and a lot of its software is in the URL over there.  You'll
see that www.gnu.org's heading is "GNU Operating System".

GNU is not a random collection of Free Software, it's the name of a
Free Operating System.

> you are using the term "the GNU operating system" to mean
> "any operating system that uses GNU software".

Not quite.  It's more like "any operating system that is a minor
variation of the GNU operating system".

It helps, but isn't strictly necessary, that GNU be a larger part than
any other single part in the operating system.

Using a few GNU packages doesn't make an operating system GNU.  Using
pretty much everything that makes GNU GNU does.

> Personally, I have never heard anyone except you
> refer to "the GNU operating system".

And this is precisely the problem.  It's precisely the reason why
those fanatics renamed GNU to the name of their kernel.  So that you
wouldn't hear about why GNU and Free Software even exist.  So that you
would think they created it all.  So that you would regard it as an
attack on them when we asked you to help us to stop this attack on us.

> If someone did, I would assume they meant a system using the Hurd
> kernel.

That would be a valid guess, but not necessarily correct, for the GNU
operating system runs on several different kernels.  That GNU runs on
top of Linux (among several kernels) doesn't make "GNU" be "Linux",
any more than that Linux runs on top of an x86 (among several
processors) makes "Linux" be "x86".

-- 
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}