Bazaar and Debian

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Did you deliberately drop rms?  He probably does not read this list,
you know.

David Ingamells writes:

 > GNU is no more an operating system ... GNU is an organisation.

Surely it doesn't hurt to use the acronym "GNU" as those who do
affiliate with it do.

"GNU" is an operating system (although currently most widely used
combined with a 3rd-party kernel, as you pointed out).  The "GNU
Project" is an organization, but not formally incorporated AFAIK -- it
doesn't handle money or employ people (for legal services or
development).  The "FSF" is a formally incorporated organization with
several goals related to promoting software freedom, one of which is
supporting the GNU Project with legal services and computing
infrastructure (but that support is not restricted to the GNU
Project).  Occasionally it provides development resources as well (or
at least it has done so in the past), but it prefers to rely on
volunteers for this purpose.

I do think Richard made a mistake by focusing on the "GNU/Linux"
controversy here.  The issue AFAICS is that the GNU Project doesn't
manage, maintain, or directly support individual GNU projects.
Rather, project leadership and development effort is expected to come
from within each individual GNU project.  (In 1985, this was a hope;
in 2013, it's an empirical fact that it works.)

And at this point we're back to the consensus: a volunteer is needed.
Support for the transition from Canonical would be nice.  As Martin
describes the Ubuntu developer spirit, it might even be forthcoming!
Transitional support from the GNU Project (in spirit) or the FSF (real
resources) would be nice too, but rms clearly is not presently
disposed to provide it (and he has the decisive vote).

Steve