On Fri, 26 Sep 2008, Troy.A Johnson wrote: >>>> On 9/26/2008 at 3:46 PM, Mike Miller wrote: > >> I hear a lot of negative talk about him -- he's "a smelly hippy" or he > > Yeah, I hear there is some truth to that, but I never made the mistake > of thinking he was known for smelling really good. ;-) Right. I hope to smell him when he visits so that I can either confirm or refute all such rumors! >> exaggerates the importance of GNU as opposed to Linux, or we shouldn't >> use the term "GNU/Linux". > > I do think he does exalt himself with the "GNU/Linux" thing, and I don't > use it. I don't use "GNU/Solaris" or "GNU/BSD" either, though I have > used GNU software on both Solaris and *BSD. "GNU/Linux" strikes me as a > point of pride thing, and takes away more from RMS than it adds. My > opinion, not so angry. *shrug* He just does it in order to promote the GNU system. I wonder how he feels though. To me he seems pretty magnanimous about it all. He was working for a decade or so on development of an OS. He had a the compiler and a bunch of utilities and tools ready to go. Almost everything was done except for the kernel. They were starting to work on the kernel when someone else came along, using the GNU C compiler to compile a kernel that could run with the GNU utils. Stallman appreciated the contribution, but there seems to be an idea that the kernel is the really important thing and you could just get the rest wherever you wanted (like you'd just find it on the side of the road or something). In fact, there is really no chance, in my book, that Torvalds would have wasted his time on the kernel if he'd had nowhere to put it. He also used the GNU C compiler to compile it. It was made to work within the GNU system. It would be like this: You worked for 10 years on a car called "the GNU" but hadn't finished the carburetor. A friend came to you with a pretty cool carburetor, not as cool as what you were planning, but not bad, and he called his carburetor "Linux". You put it in the car and managed to make it work. Your friend says the car should be called "Linux." You had hoped to call the car "GNU," but you are a magnanimous guy and he is your friend so you say that you'll go with "GNU/Linux." Then you have to suffer through years of taunting about what an ass you are for having to put your "GNU" in front of his "Linux." Almost everyone seems to think the car should be called "Linux!" But why? An operating system is more than a kernel. The kernel is called Linux and when the rest of it is GNU, I think it is best to call it a GNU/Linux system. It is possible to replace all GNU components with non-GNU components, and when that is done, the resulting system should obviously *not* be called GNU/Linux. Mike