Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

John Alvord
2003-01-09T08:49:16Z

Try to imagine the last 12 years of Linux without

gcc
binutils
unix programs such as ls, cp, rm, etc

I personally believe the current state of the Linux kernel would have
been impossible to achieve (at this time) without the above tools.

The Linux kernel development has stood on the shoulders of the GNU
effort the whole time.

Whether the result should be labeled as GNU/Linux is semantics - what
is the meaning of "operating system". And it is redundant... after
all there is no Linux without GNU, so why force unnecessary
information on terms. If there was an ATT/Linux and an Intel/Linux,
having a GNU/Linux would make some sense... but that is not the way it
is. GNU/Linux is singular, so Linux makes a reasonable contraction.

Distributor marketting wants a neat snapy name that is easy to
remember. Linux is close enough to unix to merge meanings a bit.
People who read about Linus Torvalds get the Linus/Linux play on
words.

Another puzzling aspect to me is that GNU really goes beyond what I
think of as an operating system. I have a suite of GNU tools installed
on a Windows NT machine and I use make, ls, cp, mv all day. So I am
using GNU on a foreign operating system... or does my usage needs to
be labeled as GNU/Windows NT?

john alvord

On Wed, 8 Jan 2003 20:26:09 -0600, "Vlad@Vlad.geekizoid.com"
<vlad@vlad.geekizoid.com> wrote:

>Do you actually buy your own bullshit here? If so, that's sad. I used to
>respect you. I'd like to see you put your money where your mouth is - PROVE
>that GNU (not just people who have release GPL'd software) contributed most
>of the work to say Slackware, or Debian, or Red Hat.
>
>Face it - you're full of it. You're not fooling anyone either.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
>[mailto:linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org]On Behalf Of Richard Stallman
>Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2003 2:00 AM
>To: lm@bitmover.com
>Cc: lm@bitmover.com; acahalan@cs.uml.edu; linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
>Subject: Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"
>
>
> Great. So not only is there no legal need to cite GNU in the Linux
> name, there is no ethical obligation either.
>
>When you take part of my statement, stretch it, interpret it based on
>assumptions you know I disagree with, and present the result as
>something I said, that doesn't prove anything. It is childish.
>
>There is no ethical obligation to mention secondary contributions
>incorporated in a large project. There ethical obligation is to cite
>the main developer. In the GNU/Linux system, the GNU Project is the
>principal contributor; the system is more GNU than anything else,
>and we started it.
>
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