Btrfs To Ship Multiple Performance Improvements In The Next Linux Kernel

[jacob]

If you really want to argue the "Linux refers to the kernel and Android uses Linux" point you're making, rather than just accepting a statement like "Android isn't Linux" for the sake of moving the discussion forward, you have to start with something like "What about Android makes it not Linux?" so you're acknowledging their point and trying to find a common understanding to argue from.

Well. I thought that there was one particular piece of software called Linux, which is the one developed by the holder of the Linux trademark, and "using Linux" means using that particular software that is named Linux. We could similarly argue at vitam aeternam about whether "driving a Toyota Camry" means different things to different people but ultimately, it means nothing more or less than driving the one model of vehicle that is called a Toyota Camry.

So I don't quite see where is the "forward" that the discussion is supposed to move to, since it's base on an idea that is factually and provably inaccurate. The more so than all the arguments you invoked so far trying to justify the OP's point of view are beside the point. Libc versions? The program called Linux has no connection whatsoever to anything that would come under the label of "libc". X11, Wayland? We have been through those and you even admitted that now we need to extend the definition of "linuxness" to include Mir also, despite the fact that once again, Linux developers never wrote a single line of code having anything to do with the X11 protocol or the others. Busybox? Yes, the kernel does include some tricks and quirks to facilitate running Busybox, so there is a connection at least. Busybox is very popular on Android. On the other hand 99.9999% of Ubuntu, Debian or RedHat never probably actually knowingly ran it. POSIX? Where have you seen Linux-based development where POSIX is the primary API, as you say? Obviously not on the desktop, where the Qt and Gtk frameworks provide all the APIs the developers need. It's not in the web apps and other app servers area, which are all based on high level frameworks, and it's not in the area of low-level system plumbing like systemd, snap, flatpak, docker, dbus, lxc and others, which use low-level kernel APIs that don't exist in POSIX. It's not in the area of modern languages such as Rust or Go, these have their own system API libraries that are not necessarily implemented over POSIX under the hood. Traditional server applications written in C, such as Apache, PostgresQL etc.? Yes, here finally we can see some POSIX. It's a comparatively minimal fraction of the ecosystem, and these apps are virtually always billed as "Unix" or "POSIX" software, not "Linux" software. A Linux-based system with POSIX libraries (which are always present, including on Android) can run them, and so you can run this stuff on any Linux-based OS and yes, on Android too. You can also run them on Windows because has POSIX support too. Again, how exactly does that pertain to Linux?

No, because it was never about the kernel. It was about the platform and people who contrast Linux with Android see "Linux" as referring to something (perhaps a nebulous ecosystem in potentia) that would be built around the Linux kernel's POSIX APIs, expose something like Wayland or Mir as an officially supported API, and not treat non-Dalvik graphical applications as second-class citizens.

Well there are facts, and facts are black and white or, in this case, provably correct or provably wrong. It is a provable fact that the word Linux designates a kernel, not a platform or an ecosystem. There is a number of platforms built on top of Linux, and a very large and active ecosystem surrounding them all, but that ecosystem includes platforms that do not have a single line of Linux code in them.

But if you insist that this is not the case, then enlighten me at last. What is that elusive self-contained, internally consistent definition of "Linux" that apparently everything from Debian to LFS to OpenWRT to SteamOS to Budgie to Gentoo to Tizen meets, but Android doesn't?

[ssokolow]

Y'know what? I wipe my hands of this. I've tried to explain multiple times but, since you clearly don't want to listen, I'm not going to waste my time.

I've spent more than a fair amount of time giving you free advice on how to get others to actually listen to your arguments rather than tuning you out for trying to derail the conversation with irrelevant details and I'm not going to "throw [any more] good money after bad" as the saying goes.