[dundee] What's in a name?

[Lee Turner]

I agree on the points that Linux is more than just GNU, I also second that
GNU/Linux sounds silly (and imho, not really all that accurate)

On 22/04/07, James Le Cuirot <chewi at aura-online.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 22 Apr 2007 09:52:43 +0100
> "Arron Finnon" <arron.finnon at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Hi Guys,
> >
> > //begin quote
> >
> > I appreciate the intentions of your organization, but the name you
> > have chosen for it has the unfortunate effect of denying the GNU
> > Project the credit for our system. (See
> > http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html.)
> >
> > Could you possibly call it the GNU/Linux Society, and give us equal
> > mention?
> >
> > //end quote
> >
> > Arron
>
> Hahaha you should have known better! He is practically famous for doing
> that. Anyone who speaks to him needs to do an s/Linux/GNU\/Linux/g on
> their brain beforehand.
>
> I do understand his reasoning. It's like when people refer to Cygwin as
> a Linux emulator. It has nothing to do with Linux. It's not even an
> emulator. You could probably call it GNU/Windows. Although Linus
> Torvalds disagrees with him on the point, he does state that Linux is
> the part of the system you don't see. When you sit down in front of an
> arbitrary terminal and you type your familiar commands like ls, cd,
> less or whatever, is that Linux? It might be. Most would say that it
> is. But it might not be. It could equally be Windows or some GNU-based
> BSD or even AmigaOS. Yes, I have used bash, ssh, gcc and the like under
> AmigaOS! This is the part of the system we see and recognise.
>
> It is often stated that a Linux distribution comprises of a lot of
> other software too. This is true though almost all of it will require
> GNU libc in order to run. uclibc is a glibc-compatible alternative but
> practically no distributions actually use it.
>
> Despite everything I've said above, I still don't call it GNU/Linux.
> Why not? Because it's such a stupid name! RMS really shot himself in
> the foot there. If he hadn't chosen such a stupid name, more people
> would probably use it. It's not at all catchy and if you even begin to
> explain to someone what a recursive acronym is, they'll generally run
> away screaming.
>
> I've got a funny story about RMS but I'll tell you later. (-;
>
> Chewi
>
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-- 
<generic witty comment>
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