__/ [ The Ghost In The Machine ] on Friday 30 June 2006 01:00 \__
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Erik Funkenbusch
> <erik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote
> on Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:49:54 -0500
> <mrlccj9au26t.dlg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>> On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 20:13:51 +0100, Mark Kent wrote:
>>
>>> Actually, this more or less starts from a fact, which is very very
>>> unusual in this particular debate, see here:
>>>
>>> The patriarch of the GNU system, Richard M. Stallman, is vocally
>>> opposed to calling the operating system by the name of its kernel
>>> alone. He insists on using the term "GNU/Linux" or "GNU+Linux",
>>> in recognition of the thousands of developers who have worked
>>> on the GNU system over the years.
>>>
>>> I see no problem with that myself, but there we go. The kernel is most
>>> certainly Linux, of course, not GNU/Linux, but the distros should be
>>> GNU/Linux.
>>
>> The thing is, it's quite possible to replace most of that gnu software
>> with
>> BSD and other alternatives, and achieve the same results. gcc would be
>> about the only piece that would have difficulty.
>>
>> So is it still Linux if you replace all the GNU with non-GNU stuff that
>> does the same thing?
>
> That part's not Linux to begin with. That's GNU stuff.
>
>> Then i'd say it's more Linux than Gnu/Linux.
>
> I'll admit to being of several minds of all this.
>
> Pedantic: It's GNU/Open/Linux. Linux, the kernel. GNU,
> the utilities. Open, for the X server. There might be
> other stuff, especially if one wants to add KDE or Gnome
> or whatnot; in my case nvidia is part of the equation as
> well, to my annoyance. GNU/Open/Linux is already slightly
> unwieldly but at least it's somewhat accurate.
>
> Expedient: It's Linux. Live with it.
>
> Multifaceted: I'll admit I'd love to try to reinstall FreeBSD someday,
> on a spare system, and try to get as much of the functionality running
> as I can that I currently have on my Linux systems. That would be a
> GNU/Open/FreeBSD system in that case.
>
> Ditto for HURD, which would actually be mostly GNU, since HURD is a GNU
> offering. However, X is still Open Group in that case, assuming an X
> server has been ported to HURD yet.
This opens the door to arguments such as that an O/S is a stack (well, of
course it is) and should also be referred to in that way. Rather than say
Linux servers, one should maybe speak of LAMP(PHP, Perl, Python), with the
possibility of other databases or even something like LiteSpeed in place of
Apache. Imagine a situation where BSD and HURD gain steam and the stacks
then earn their own name, as to avoid confusion. And what if a parallel
movement rose to compete with GNU, or even the FSF?
Perhaps the use of the word "Linux" alone is the best way to go, at the
expense of 'political correctness'. Maybe even something catchy like an
existing name would do, e.g. Macintosh (*cough* DRM, Intel, closed-source
kernel).
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