The GNU project gave birth to and spread the idea of free software worldwide. Would they not have started with the GNU operating system (they wrote a LOT of code) and doing activism then free software would surely not exist in the magnitude it does today.
The Linux kernel would not be this mainstream at all. Spiritually, this makes every popular free OS a GNU system. Even BSD was only freed because Stallman explicitly requested it.
Credit where credit is due.
Your argument was even worse, actually, but it didn’t address it directly: you’ve implied the OS needed to credit GNU because Stallman was philosophically and directly responsible for the free software movement.
This is an absurd idea. He deserves credit for what he did - but not for inventing the concept of making something free and open, which humanity has always understood and applied. Even within the context of software, this type of collaboration did exist and would exist without Stallman. His contributions were immense - sure, but that’s it, the implication that any popular piece of libre software owes anything to Stallman by the mere virtue of being libre is totally wrong. In fact, Stallman’s version of “open” is deeply intertwined with the American version of what it means to be “free” politically and it has manifested so many times that there are several open projects with the entire goal of not using GNU components, code or licenses.
the implication that any popular piece of libre software owes anything to Stallman by the mere virtue of being libre is totally wrong.
Considering Linux: Linux was proprietary at first, until Torvalds was inspired by the free software movement to free it, even using GNU’s GPL. He later said that making Linux open source was the best decision he ever made, and I’m pretty sure that this would not have happened without the popularity of GNU and the movement reaching him. Linux would’ve been just another small proprietary kernel. So Torvalds owes a lot to Stallman.
Also, without GNU, Linux would not have been practically usable. Only after the hard work of combining Linux with the already huge codebase of GNU could Linux be meaningfully used and become popular.
In fact, Stallman’s version of “open” is deeply intertwined with the American version of what it means to be “free” politically
Well, “open source” gives you exactly the same freedoms as “free software” gives you, so proponents of “open source” can’t be that far off ideologically.
it has manifested so many times that there are several open projects with the entire goal of not using GNU components, code or licenses.
The code is already there and it’s usable. Not using it because you don’t like the person/organization seems a bit… misguided.
What a lazy response. You do realize that only one paragraph was an argument for calling it GNU/Linux and the rest of the comment regards other topics you yourself brought up in your last comment? Obviously it is not worth talking to you any longer, not because of diverging views but because of your manners…
Arguably yes, but none of that is a good reason to put GNU in the name. I don’t think even Stallman argued that Linux distributions should use the name GNU to give credit to GNU’s influence.
The reason always given is a different one: it’s because distros traditionally took a lot of code from the GNU project, which is a different matter. That reasoning does make some kind of sense, even though I don’t fully agree.
It’s not that they “took a lot of code from the GNU project”, it’s that “Linux” is the kernel, which is just the core of the OS, by itself it’s not very useful. All the stuff around it that constitutes the rest of the operating system, like the command line and the vast majority of the commands you might run from there, are the GNU project. And I’m not even getting into desktop environments.
GNU wants people to believe that Linux distros took the GNU project, replaced the unfinished GNU Hurd kernel with Linux, and called it a day. But distros collected a lot of other stuff too.
XFree86 and various window managers (back in the early 90s there were no free/open source desktop environments yet; KDE (1996) was the first I think, or at the very least earlier than Gnome. I don’t know what you mean by “And I’m not even getting into desktop environments.”: the way I see it, the topic X and everything running on it doesn’t exactly support your point.
Editors vi and vim are not from GNU, and neither are mail clients Pine and Mutt, and the popular pager less.
There was probably quite a lot of BSD code in Linux distributions too.
So, I agree that calling a Linux distribution Linux is perhaps not entirely correct, but calling it GNU/Linux gives too much credit to GNU and too little to all the other people who wrote software that got included in Linux distros. GNU thinks their collection of software is essential enough to be included in the name, exclusively, and I don’t agree. Don’t get me wrong, GNU does deserve respect, and a lot of it, for all their accomplishments and contributions to the free source world in general and Linux distributions more specifically. But their insistence on the name GNU/Linux doesn’t seem the best way to get that respect. It has always felt somewhat childish to me.
At the same time, no one is stopping the GNU project from creating their own operating system distribution using their userland tools and the Linux kernel, and calling it whatever they want, including GNU or GNU/Linux or GNU Guix System or whatever, I don’t care. It would be quite hypocrytical if they wouldn’t include Linux in the name though, since including Linux is equivalent to how they’re asking others to include GNU.
XFree86 and various window managers (back in the early 90s there were no free/open source desktop environments yet; KDE (1996) was the first I think, or at the very least earlier than Gnome.
As a point of historical interest, XFCE actually holds the title of the oldest extant DE project; it beat KDE to first release by about a year.
KDE was also famously not entirely open source when it was founded (Qt was closed until v2), which is why GNOME was founded (initially by the GNU Project) exactly for this reason.
I mostly agree with you, but I want to add that GNU was the leader from the start with the aim to create a complete, integrated operating system, rather than just a bunch of unrelated programs tossed together. It was not important to them that all the code was written by GNU, more so that there was a complete free system.
The idea was that one project worked on the display server, another on the desktop environment and so on, with the intent that all come together as “GNU”.
And then Linux came and took the name of what GNU anticipated to become.
The GNU project gave birth to and spread the idea of free software worldwide. Would they not have started with the GNU operating system (they wrote a LOT of code) and doing activism then free software would surely not exist in the magnitude it does today.
The Linux kernel would not be this mainstream at all. Spiritually, this makes every popular free OS a GNU system. Even BSD was only freed because Stallman explicitly requested it. Credit where credit is due.
Cool. It doesn’t change how Linux should be named or referenced, and still doesn’t mean all Linux systems depend on GNU.
I was not talking about the technical aspects, although there is much more GNU code than Linux code in most GNU/Linux distros.
Of course the kernel should be referred to as Linux, anything else would be inaccurate :)
Your argument was even worse, actually, but it didn’t address it directly: you’ve implied the OS needed to credit GNU because Stallman was philosophically and directly responsible for the free software movement.
This is an absurd idea. He deserves credit for what he did - but not for inventing the concept of making something free and open, which humanity has always understood and applied. Even within the context of software, this type of collaboration did exist and would exist without Stallman. His contributions were immense - sure, but that’s it, the implication that any popular piece of libre software owes anything to Stallman by the mere virtue of being libre is totally wrong. In fact, Stallman’s version of “open” is deeply intertwined with the American version of what it means to be “free” politically and it has manifested so many times that there are several open projects with the entire goal of not using GNU components, code or licenses.
Considering Linux: Linux was proprietary at first, until Torvalds was inspired by the free software movement to free it, even using GNU’s GPL. He later said that making Linux open source was the best decision he ever made, and I’m pretty sure that this would not have happened without the popularity of GNU and the movement reaching him. Linux would’ve been just another small proprietary kernel. So Torvalds owes a lot to Stallman.
Also, without GNU, Linux would not have been practically usable. Only after the hard work of combining Linux with the already huge codebase of GNU could Linux be meaningfully used and become popular.
Well, “open source” gives you exactly the same freedoms as “free software” gives you, so proponents of “open source” can’t be that far off ideologically.
The code is already there and it’s usable. Not using it because you don’t like the person/organization seems a bit… misguided.
Absolutely none of what you just wrote is in any way an argument that supports calling it GNU + Linux.
What a lazy response. You do realize that only one paragraph was an argument for calling it GNU/Linux and the rest of the comment regards other topics you yourself brought up in your last comment? Obviously it is not worth talking to you any longer, not because of diverging views but because of your manners…
Hey, my comment is freely available in the fediverse - this means we ideologically owe it to Stallman.
Please refer to my comments as GNU + comment.
Arguably yes, but none of that is a good reason to put GNU in the name. I don’t think even Stallman argued that Linux distributions should use the name GNU to give credit to GNU’s influence.
The reason always given is a different one: it’s because distros traditionally took a lot of code from the GNU project, which is a different matter. That reasoning does make some kind of sense, even though I don’t fully agree.
It’s not that they “took a lot of code from the GNU project”, it’s that “Linux” is the kernel, which is just the core of the OS, by itself it’s not very useful. All the stuff around it that constitutes the rest of the operating system, like the command line and the vast majority of the commands you might run from there, are the GNU project. And I’m not even getting into desktop environments.
GNU wants people to believe that Linux distros took the GNU project, replaced the unfinished GNU Hurd kernel with Linux, and called it a day. But distros collected a lot of other stuff too.
XFree86 and various window managers (back in the early 90s there were no free/open source desktop environments yet; KDE (1996) was the first I think, or at the very least earlier than Gnome. I don’t know what you mean by “And I’m not even getting into desktop environments.”: the way I see it, the topic X and everything running on it doesn’t exactly support your point.
Editors vi and vim are not from GNU, and neither are mail clients Pine and Mutt, and the popular pager less.
There was probably quite a lot of BSD code in Linux distributions too.
So, I agree that calling a Linux distribution Linux is perhaps not entirely correct, but calling it GNU/Linux gives too much credit to GNU and too little to all the other people who wrote software that got included in Linux distros. GNU thinks their collection of software is essential enough to be included in the name, exclusively, and I don’t agree. Don’t get me wrong, GNU does deserve respect, and a lot of it, for all their accomplishments and contributions to the free source world in general and Linux distributions more specifically. But their insistence on the name GNU/Linux doesn’t seem the best way to get that respect. It has always felt somewhat childish to me.
At the same time, no one is stopping the GNU project from creating their own operating system distribution using their userland tools and the Linux kernel, and calling it whatever they want, including GNU or GNU/Linux or GNU Guix System or whatever, I don’t care. It would be quite hypocrytical if they wouldn’t include Linux in the name though, since including Linux is equivalent to how they’re asking others to include GNU.
As a point of historical interest, XFCE actually holds the title of the oldest extant DE project; it beat KDE to first release by about a year.
KDE was also famously not entirely open source when it was founded (Qt was closed until v2), which is why GNOME was founded (initially by the GNU Project) exactly for this reason.
I mostly agree with you, but I want to add that GNU was the leader from the start with the aim to create a complete, integrated operating system, rather than just a bunch of unrelated programs tossed together. It was not important to them that all the code was written by GNU, more so that there was a complete free system.
The idea was that one project worked on the display server, another on the desktop environment and so on, with the intent that all come together as “GNU”.
And then Linux came and took the name of what GNU anticipated to become.