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Linux Developers Asked To Distance Themselves From RMS
RMS has always been an impractical idealist. However, things that were considered his feverish dreams are now mainstream. To be able to move forward, there must be people advocating for an ideal world or we will stop approaching it.
While the proportion of GNU code in a modern Linux distribution is not what it was before, still in each Ubuntu or Fedora or even Android, there is far more GNU than Linux. There is a bunch of competing projects that sometimes reduce that, but it is very important to never forget where we came from. The whole closed source saga was posiible, because early programmers simply did not understand the values and global benefits of software freedom that they then had. We must never forget the lessons of software history or we shall be doomed to repeat it.
Neither was i and i am shocked by the possibility that that presentation on imgur might have actually been written by rms, and not somebody making fun of him.
From the slides:
BEING RIGHT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BEING UNDERSTOOD
And starting a silly campaign to rename someone else's 20 year old widely used software is more important than arguing about it in a silly forum thread. oh wait
What a complete fucking tool. NOBODY has ever said the Linux kernel should be renamed in recognition of GNU; it's the OSes which use both the GNU userland and the Linux kernel that are Stallman's concern.
Why is Phoronix running articles to inflate some idiot's sense of self-importance again?
+1.
My theory: sometimes Michael needs to publish some controversial content to generate more traffic and more money with ads. Normal...
In my opinion: call it GNU. The name of an operating system is given by its userland and the kernel has no relevance in this (can be Hurd, Linux, FreeBSD...). For example, Android has its own userland (with some parts from BSD), it uses Linux and nobody calls it a Linux distribution.
Edit: in the presentation:
"The Linux kernel is a stopgap until the GNU kernel has benn fine-tuned anyway."
Oh, wait... Dreams...
Last edited by nachoig; 23 December 2013, 05:25 PM.
Frankly, it confuses me that RMS simultaneously wants all Linux to be renamed GNU/Linux and disowns Linux distros which permit proprietary software. The distros which share values with GNU already, like Debian, already call themselves GNU/Linux; the distros that don't share those hardline FOSS values just call themselves "Linux". If RMS, as the pope of free software, doesn't like the protestants, then why not just excommunicate them, recommend that the filthy FOSS unbelievers don't use the GNU name, and be done with it? It just doesn't make sense to simultaneously disown your offspring and chide them for changing their surname.
In my opinion Linux won, GNU/Linux is only used by a minority of geeks.
GNU/Linux name has finally become relevant after all these years - that's what you call Linux with GNU userland as opposed to Bionic/Linux aka Android.
But this... the linked presentation slides on imgur just don't seem sane. I hope it's a fake.
For example, Android has its own userland (with some parts from BSD), it uses Linux and nobody calls it a Linux distribution.
That's because by "Linux distribution" we actually mean GNU/Linux distribution, but before Android we just never had to spell it out because there was no other common userland for Linux.
I recognize what Stallman is trying to say, but for the sake of simplicity while recognizing the single most important piece of my OS (one that will likely never be replaced, unlike GNU which could be removed), I will continue to call it just 'Linux'.
That's not to say GNU isn't important, but I don't think it's as important and certainly not as irreplaceable. This is my logic and I stick to it.
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