On 2007-03-31, Kier <vallon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 14:53:08 -0400, amicus_curious wrote:
>
>>
>> "Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:1571682.vuBSc91NbA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> You are in control with free software, Internet guru says
>>>
>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>> | Richard Stallman doesn't own an MP3 player. He doesn't own a
>>> | mobile telephone. In fact, this techno-visionary -- a founder
>>> | of the Free Software Foundation -- doesn't use any of the usual
>>> | computer programs many people use.
>>> `----
>>>
>>> http://www.mcall.com/entertainment/all-stallmanmar30,0,2372169.story
>>>
>> "Stallman also admonished his audience on a technical point: Refer to the
>> accessible basic operating system he helped create 20 years ago correctly.
>> Linux, as it's commonly called, forms a small part of the overall system, he
>> says. The Linux is the kernel, a small but important element that helps the
>> computer allocate resources. The much larger section is called the GNU,
>> pronounced GA nu , which Stallman and others helped write more than 20 years
>> ago.
>>
>> ''If you could just do that one small thing, to take a second to type those
>> few extra letters, it would make a difference,'' Stallman said."
>>
>> Kind of pathetic, his begging for attention, eh?
>
> Not at all. He has every right to feel that way. Personally, I think he's
> a mite pedantic about it, but he did write many of the tools. It's not
> attention he's after, but recognition of the large part GNU has to play.
Take Ubuntu and OpenBSD side by side, both running Gnome/X11.
They sport the same UI, the same tools (Firefox, et al), the
same look and feel, and almost identical functionality. Any
layman looking at those two Desktops would be inclined to say
"it's the same OS". Yet OpenBSD is not Linux, at all, not even
remotely.
So I don't think Stallman is being overly pedantic. The vast
majority of what people refer to as "Linux" ... is really
*not* Linux.
I know that I, and most other people, simply shorthand "this OS"
to "Linux" for convenience, but if I was the author, creator,
pioneer, license steward, or whatever, of the GNU codebase, I'd
be more than a little pissed off if everyone just arbitrarily
renamed it to something else, even if only for convenience sake.
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| "Future archaeologists will be able to identify a 'Vista Upgrade
| Layer' when they go through our landfill sites" - Sian Berry, the
| Green Party.
`----
Fedora Core release 5 (Bordeaux) on sky, running kernel 2.6.20-1.2307.fc5
23:01:48 up 3:30, 4 users, load average: 0.06, 0.06, 0.01
|
|
