Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: Article: IBM wants to "clean up the license" of Linux

Andrej Presern (andrejp@luz.fe.uni-lj.si)
Wed, 23 Dec 1998 15:16:29 +0100

Bob Taylor wrote:
>
> In message <199812221034.SAA05843@typhaon.ucs.uwa.edu.au>, David Luyer writes:
> cc: linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu
>
> [snip]
>
> > But how about GNU and Linus? Well, Linus named the OS kernel Linux,
> > quite rightly since it was his kernel. GNU, who contributed more code
> > towards the environment which made Linux possible than anyone else - well,
> > they get mostly ignored by users, and their ideology is forgotten. How
> > important is this? Well that's what the recurring flame war is about.
> > There are those who look shallowly, and say that GNU has nothing to do with
> > Linux - they didn't write Netscape, X11 or the Kernel. Hey, gcc, gdb, make,
> > emacs, bash, etc... who needs them? :-) (only a very small portion of the
> > GNU applications most Linux applications depend on of course). Even the
> > Linux libc has always been based on GNU code. So RMS would prefer if, at
> > the distribution level, people put the name 'GNU' in there to remind
> > themselves that a significant portion of the code they are using comes from
> > GNU.
>
> Evidently you have not noticed the name GNU appears frequently while using
> Linux. I strongly disagree that the FSF/GNU is ignored. Stallmans
> insistence on renaming Linux GNU Linux is patently nothing more than an
> ego trip on his part. While I have appreciated the *results* of the FSF
> efforts, I utterly *reject* their "ideology". I really do wish Stallman
> would shut up about an ideology the people of the world have rejected and
> has been proven to be a total failure.

Which ideology is that, which you utterly reject but appreciate its
results? Is it hypocrisy? An ego trip is when someone calls a righteous
call for acknowledgement of contribution an ego trip, idiocy is when you
make an ideology out of it, and to (even implicitly) call every single
GNU / Linux developer who believes in free software a communist is plain
insane.

So please, don't tell people to shut up. Much less so in the name of
'the people of the world'.

Andrej

-- 
Andrej Presern, andrejp@luz.fe.uni-lj.si






-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/