Why no mention of GNU?

[Herman Bos]

J.B. Nicholson-Owens wrote:

>> What we say is that you ought to give the system's principal
>> developer a share of the credit. The principal developer is the GNU
>> Project.
>
GNU seems to get as much credits as the other projects do, I don't think
it should be any other way.

>>
>> Since a long name such as
>> GNU/X11/Apache/Linux/TeX/Perl/Python/FreeCiv becomes absurd, at some
>> point you will have to set a threshold and omit the
>> names of the many other secondary contributions. There is no one
>> obvious right place to set the threshold, so wherever you set it, we
>> won't argue against it.
>
Lets set the threshold at not including any free software projects in
the name, oh wait thats already happening. Because its called "Ubuntu".

>>
>> Different threshold levels would lead to different choices of name
>> for the
>> system. But one name that cannot result from concerns of fairness and
>> giving credit, not for any possible threshold level, is "Linux". It
>> can't be fair to give all the credit to one secondary contribution
>> (Linux) while
>> omitting the principal contribution (GNU).
>
I would call this whining (actually this whole discussion is, IMHO
ofcourse). Just because they started the free software movement and
wrote some initial/base software they should more credit? I really don't
think so. Its not about GNU its about free software (ofcourse GNU stands
for free software, but free software just doesn't stand for GNU).

> One should be wary of adopting a viewpoint simply because it is
> popular.  The
> concern the FSF raises is one of ethics--how is it fair to give all
> the credit
> for the entire OS to one man (Linus Torvalds) who wrote the initial
> versions
> of the Linux kernel and who believes in a philosophy of pragmatism and
> popularity, a philosophy so different from that of software freedom?
>
I really don't have the feeling we are crediting just one man, Linux is
just the name of the kernel. Ofcourse when people talk about Linux in
general they are talking about the different Linux distributions. It has
just evolved to that naturally I think, and I don't think its a bad
name. Its pretty good actually to have a short and simple name that
people can use. It could just as well could have been GNU or something,
don't be childish about it.

> If that were RMS' attitude in late 1984, we might not have the free
> software
> community at all.  He "wasted" his energy to work on an OS that
> brought us
> software freedom and apparently many thought it a good idea to join him.
>
Free software is not about a name. I think he should actually be pretty
proud that free software has come to this popularity (and still
growing). Pretty cruel of you to call it "wasted". ;)

> I think your dismissal of the issue unfairly characterizes how much
> interest
> there is in this issue.  Slashdot is a remarkably popular discussion
> website
> and this issue gets considerable feedback there.

Everything gets feedback at slashdot, and only a really small part of
the free software community visits or discusses at slashdot, (slashdot
comments are mostly posted by unemployed people or lazy sysadmins who
like ranting it seems ;) ). I do read /. regularly myself btw. :)

>
> This will make a difference, because it's important to bring the
> philosophy of
> software freedom to the world (and Ubuntu GNU/Linux is a part of the real
> world, so I don't know what other world is being obliquely referred to
> here).
> You seem to share Torvalds' view that popularity is of primary
> importance.
>
> It's not possible to bring software freedom to people's attention by
> never
> mentioning it, yet that is precisely what you are proposing.  

I think Ubuntu is effectively bringing the spirit of free(as in freedom
ofcourse) software to the world. Maybe its not under a GNU flag, but the
message is there and clear (just read the ubuntu frontpage and the About
> Philosophy page.

small quote from the philosophy page:
> Our work on Ubuntu is driven by a philosophy on software freedom that
we hope will
> spread and bring the benefits of software technology to all parts of
the globe.

Maybe its not religious like GNU but I am glad about that.

> The open source movement was built to not discuss software freedom. 
> The open source movement
> began as a reaction to Netscape making the source code to its browser
> available.  The founders of the OSI wondered if other businesses would do
> something similar, so they crafted a message which they thought
> businesses
> would be receptive to, and they thought dropping freedom talk was
> necessary to
> meet that goal.
>
> Their FAQ disrespectfully reduces the free software movement to
> "ideological
> tub-thumping", and the terms by which they evaluate licenses don't
> include a
> user's right to modify a program and use it privately without
> notifying anyone
> else that their variant of the program exists (see OSI's approval of
> the Apple
> Public Source License versions 1.x versus the FSF's holding out on
> deeming the
> APSL a free software license until Apple produced a revised version,
> version 2).
>
I don't think that OSI has anything to do with ubuntu.

> To read a far more insightful and respectful description of the
> differences
> between the two movements, read
> <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html>.

Ubuntu stands for sofware freedom, so what is your point, take it up
with OSI or something.

I hope I didn't offend you with any of this, its just my personal view,
I don't claim to be right, I respect your point of view.

The point in the end is that you want the GNU name show up everywhere,
and that I think it should not be treated differently from the other
projects.

Regards,

Herman Bos