Stallman and GNU/Linux, was Re: [Sussex] BBC Video Downloads

[Mark Harrison]

-----Original Message-----
From: sussex-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk
[mailto:sussex-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Nic James Ferrier
Sent: 04 February 2007 09:46
To: LUG email list for the Sussex Counties
Subject: Re: Stallman and GNU/Linux, was Re: [Sussex] BBC Video Downloads

Steve Dobson <steve at dobson.org> writes:

>> No, Linux is both the name of the kernel and the OS that runs on it.
>> It is because that is the way people use the word.

> No. You're wrong and so are the people that use it that way.

I used to be part of a campaign to try to educate people that unauthorised
use of copyright material was NOT the moral equivalent of large-scale murder
and rape, and hence the word "Piracy" was an inappropriate way to describe
the listeners of unauthorised music / users of unauthorised software.

I pretty much stopped worrying about this a couple of years ago, because.

1: The horse had already bolted.

2: There were better uses of my time, and more effective ways to further the
cause of FL/OSS software than trying to persuade people that their use of
language was "wrong."

I have to say that my own views on FL/OSS are far closer to Eric Raymond's
than Richard Stallman's, which is why I'm keen to hear Stallman talk.

Hopefully, over the last few years as a SLUG member, I've demonstrated that
I _am_ willing to change my views in the light of new evidence and not so
entrenched in my ways that I am closed to personal growth.


There are many, many, things on which I disagree with Steve :-) However, on
this one, I have to side with him. The nature of language is that words come
to mean what the majority of people think they mean, irrespective of what
the technical people who REALLY understand them may wish.

It is not clear to me why fighting a battle to have people re-educated to
use the word Linux to refer exclusively to the kernel would be of benefit to
the wider FL/OSS movement. It's notable that Stallman himself, while having
written some things about this (including the link referenced in this
thread) has hardly made it the #1 priority and embarked on a massive crusade
on the matter.


Ideological purity is the enemy of pragmatic progress.

Mark