RMS, Free software and the Ubuntu CDs

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sun, 2006-07-02 at 07:57 +0800, Michael T. Richter wrote:
> RMS does care, however.  He wants everybody to call it GNU/Linux or
> GNU+Linux because he feels pissy over Linus' success and his own
> perceived snubbing.  He tries to rationalise it by saying that since
> "most" of the code is GNU and Linux only fills "a small remaining
> part" that this is justified because it "recognises the valuable
> contributions of GNU".  Yet, oddly enough, he doesn't seem to think
> that other valuable contributions -- contributions which are far more
> valuable in terms of widespread adoption (your average end-user not
> knowing nor caring what a "grep" or an "awk" is) -- should be
> "recognised" in the name.  So his whole rationalisation falls apart.

If the OS called Linux were solely and only made up of GNU code and the
kernel, then RMS would have a point. But as Michael says, it isn't. RMS
doesn't have a leg top stand on here, as the creator of a thing has the
full right to call it whatever they want.

And you don't see him calling for a name change to Gnu/Solaris or
GNU/AIX if they happen to bundle tar or gcc.

alan