Linux OS? Not GNU/Linux ? :)

[DaDaDaniel]

I agree with that. However, if people are calling the bus an "engine", there's no reason I should resort to calling it an "engine" myself, and there's nothing wrong with explaining why I call it a "bus" and not an "engine".

But you actually don't call it "bus" either, you just call it "wheel"/"engine".

 

[monty]

WizardStan, I often find it very useful to keep that law in mind when I've somehow let my eyes wander over the length of a long thread, stuffed with pedantry and artificial anger.


The only interesting point raised so far is that of the evolution of language and the example of the the word 'hoover'.

 

[WizardStan]

I agree with that. However, if people are calling the bus an "engine", there's no reason I should resort to calling it an "engine" myself, and there's nothing wrong with explaining why I call it a "bus" and not an "engine".

Of course you wouldn't call a bus an engine, we call the driving car of a train an engine, it would just confuse people. The people that drive them are even called engineers (not to be confused with the engineers that build stuff). This harkens to when they were driven by a steam engine, of course, but they are not, nor have they ever been, just an engine. It has always been engine/wheels/other stuff. No one cares what we call it, the name does not drive the underlying principle of the engine (if it did it would have been named Continent Uniter or something). Even electric trains are called "engines", and I have never heard someone make an honest complaint against that.


Make no mistake, this is not me advocating against change for the sake of tradition: if there's a truly legitimate reason beyond pedantry to change it then I will gladly hear it out and be first to make the switch. I'm simply pointing out that the argument that what something is called should in any way drive the principle of that thing is deeply flawed and not grounded in history.

 

[diligentcircle]

But you actually don't call it "bus" either, you just call it "wheel"/"engine".

Well, the way I see it, I'm calling it a "bus/engine", not a "wheel/engine".

 

[Exophase]

Well, the way I see it, I'm calling it a "bus/engine", not a "wheel/engine".

No you aren't. And if you really believe this you don't really know what it is you're using. There is no distribution that I know of that consists of nothing but GNU software and the Linux kernel, and if there is I don't think you're using it. And even in this hypothetical case it's still incorrect because the engine is part of the bus while the Linux kernel is not part of GNU. And why would anyone seriously call it "bus/engine"? If you really believed this was appropriate you'd just be calling the operating system "GNU."


Now, Stallman himself might see this as reasonable because he pretty much does use nothing but a Linux kernel with a command line and a few tools, but his lifestyle doesn't really represent an awful lot of real people (in most ways).


If FSF has in fact convinced you that your distribution is nothing more than a selected configuration of GNU software and the Linux kernel then they're accountable for every bit the unfair misdirection you blame on the distribution managers, kernel developers or Linus in particular for calling it "Linux." Actually probably more, since they're actively lobbying for something rather than just "implying" anything by a name. But frankly I'm more willing to just blame you for the misunderstanding.


Jim Gettys's comment was pretty astute, and no surprise to hear that coming from the creator of X Windows since X is nearly as ubiquitous in distributions as GNU software is. Other components like GNOME and KDE are popular too. Much of this (particularly X) also pre-existed Linux like GNU did, but you don't see any of these other groups joining FSF in lobbying against being excluded, probably because they're not as petty, extreme, or smug, and live in the real world with some appreciation for practicality.

 

[DaDaDaniel]

If FSF has in fact convinced you that your distribution is nothing more than a selected configuration of GNU software and the Linux kernel then they're accountable for every bit the unfair misdirection you blame on the distribution managers, kernel developers or Linus in particular for calling it "Linux."

Actually that's pretty much what RMS says in his articles on the subject. It's just GNU with a different kernel, and some work by distributions, that had to be done by someone at some point. And if the system had to be named with one word only, that word should be GNU. But because he is reasonable, he is willing to call it GNU/Linux, with GNU first, because they did the more important work.

 

[Exophase]

Does anyone else find it ironic that the organization which insists that a name has self-contained implications are demanding usage of an acronym that's "GNU's Not Unix!", something which could hardly be less self-definitive?


Maybe they feel everything should be called GNU. Except Unix, of course.

 

[_wb_]

You're not familiar with the tradition of recursive acronyms of that kind? They are quite common (e.g. "Wine Is Not an Emulator", "Pine Is Nearly Elm", "Lame Ain't an MP3 Encoder", and so on). They are often quite descriptive as well, as in this case: GNU was intended to be just like the existing (commercial) Unix systems, to the extent that we now call POSIX-compliance, but then again, it is not Unix because Unix was a trademarked name of a proprietary closed-source system sold by AT&T, for which GNU provides an Open Source (and more importantly, a Free (with a capital letter, to distinguish it from "gratis" or "free as in beer")) alternative. The name "GNU's Not Unix" perfectly describes what is going on here.

 

[Exophase]

You're not familiar with the tradition of recursive acronyms of that kind? They are quite common (e.g. "Wine Is Not an Emulator", "Pine Is Nearly Elm", "Lame Ain't an MP3 Encoder", and so on). They are often quite descriptive as well, as in this case: GNU was intended to be just like the existing (commercial) Unix systems, to the extent that we now call POSIX-compliance, but then again, it is not Unix because Unix was a trademarked name of a proprietary closed-source system sold by AT&T, for which GNU provides an Open Source (and more importantly, a Free (with a capital letter, to distinguish it from "gratis" or "free as in beer")) alternative. The name "GNU's Not Unix" perfectly describes what is going on here.

I AM familiar with the tradition of recursive acronyms, a trend GNU probably started. Or at least, the others are probably taking after it. I think you're missing my point. It's not that the first word stands for "GNU", it's that the name makes very little effort to describe what it's about. From gnu.org:


"Names convey meanings; our choice of names determines the meaning of what we say. An inappropriate name gives people the wrong idea. ... If you call it GNU/Linux, that conveys (though not in detail) an accurate idea."


Well no, it doesn't really convey anything, except it's this thing with "Linux" in its name as well as that it's "not Unix" and it's something called "GNU."


There's really a conflicting idiom here. When GNU wants to make a name it gets to make up something cute and only very superficially meaningful (you could say it refers to Unix I suppose, and you COULD make a point that Unix IS responsible for GNU in a direct and non-trivial way, but I'm pretty sure the name is meant to be more dismissive than crediting). When the OS we're all referring to, that contains GNU, wants to make a name it's obligated to refer to GNU.


The fact is, any total lay person won't derive any meaning from either name without doing more research, at which point they should come to the same information regardless, if they're at all sincere in their search. And while you may think the name perfectly describes what's happening, the truth is that any casual reader will have no idea about any of what you're talking about, much less how it relates to the ideals that FSF espouses.

 

[_wb_]

Well, the way I see it, I'm calling it a "bus/engine", not a "wheel/engine".

No you aren't. And if you really believe this you don't really know what it is you're using. There is no distribution that I know of that consists of nothing but GNU software and the Linux kernel, and if there is I don't think you're using it. And even in this hypothetical case it's still incorrect because the engine is part of the bus while the Linux kernel is not part of GNU. And why would anyone seriously call it "bus/engine"? If you really believed this was appropriate you'd just be calling the operating system "GNU."

For me, the reason why I prefer the name "GNU/Linux" is not so much the amount of GNU packages in current distributions. The main reason is that the GNU project is the one that originated and inspired the entire movement of Free Software (or Open Source Software if you prefer that more recent notion, although the two notions don't completely coincide). So to me, it is not just the contribution in terms of number of lines of code or number of packages. The main contribution is that they initiated this particular movement. Even if you would make a distribution without any GNU packages (which would be tricky but I guess it can be done), the influence of the GNU project on it would still be huge. Without the GNU project, BSD would not have changed its license to what we now call the BSD license. WIthout the GNU project, Linux would not have the GPL license and it could very well have become a commercial kernel by now (if it would still exist at all). The MIT license (the one e.g. X has) would probably not be as permissive as it is. And so on, and so on.


Let me give another example. I'm a computer scientist. We still talk about "Turing machines" to denote universal general purpose computers, because Alan Turing was the one who discovered that idea. You might object that current computers don't contain a tape at all and don't actually work like Turing machines, so we should now talk about "Intel machines" or "Texas Instruments machines" or something like that, and people who insist on talking about "Turing machines" are annoying, smug, pedantic preachers.

 

[_wb_]

You're not familiar with the tradition of recursive acronyms of that kind? They are quite common (e.g. "Wine Is Not an Emulator", "Pine Is Nearly Elm", "Lame Ain't an MP3 Encoder", and so on). They are often quite descriptive as well, as in this case: GNU was intended to be just like the existing (commercial) Unix systems, to the extent that we now call POSIX-compliance, but then again, it is not Unix because Unix was a trademarked name of a proprietary closed-source system sold by AT&T, for which GNU provides an Open Source (and more importantly, a Free (with a capital letter, to distinguish it from "gratis" or "free as in beer")) alternative. The name "GNU's Not Unix" perfectly describes what is going on here.

I AM familiar with the tradition of recursive acronyms, a trend GNU probably started. Or at least, the others are probably taking after it. I think you're missing my point. It's not that the first word stands for "GNU", it's that the name makes very little effort to describe what it's about. From gnu.org:


"Names convey meanings; our choice of names determines the meaning of what we say. An inappropriate name gives people the wrong idea. ... If you call it GNU/Linux, that conveys (though not in detail) an accurate idea."


Well no, it doesn't really convey anything, except it's this thing with "Linux" in its name as well as that it's "not Unix" and it's something called "GNU."


There's really a conflicting idiom here. When GNU wants to make a name it gets to make up something cute and only very superficially meaningful (you could say it refers to Unix I suppose, and you COULD make a point that Unix IS responsible for GNU in a direct and non-trivial way, but I'm pretty sure the name is meant to be more dismissive than crediting). When the OS we're all referring to, that contains GNU, wants to make a name it's obligated to refer to GNU.


The fact is, any total lay person won't derive any meaning from either name without doing more research, at which point they should come to the same information regardless, if they're at all sincere in their search. And while you may think the name perfectly describes what's happening, the truth is that any casual reader will have no idea about any of what you're talking about, much less how it relates to the ideals that FSF espouses.

Well if you would google "GNU", you are more likely to learn something about the ideals of the FSF than if you would google "Linux", don't you think? I agree that it would be even nicer if the name would actually concisely summarize the ideals, but I think that's pretty difficult to do in the very limited space of a name or acronym.

 

[Exophase]

Well if you would google "GNU", you are more likely to learn something about the ideals of the FSF than if you would google "Linux", don't you think? I agree that it would be even nicer if the name would actually concisely summarize the ideals, but I think that's pretty difficult to do in the very limited space of a name or acronym.

I think you're much more likely to get an objective, independent, and neutral description if you google Linux, at the very least. I'm also pretty sure popular descriptions will quickly mention the GPL, which would inevitably lead to the GNU and their mission..


And I'm all for that. Although I get your point, certainly I know what FSF would prefer.


The second link is of course to Wikipedia's node, and familiarity with Wikipedia probably correlates well with someone googling stuff. That and the first link (for Ubuntu) doesn't really seem as relevant. Of course the Wikipedia node is very descriptive, including reference to the relationship and association with GNU (and why some would prefer it were called GNU/Linux).


The way I see it, if you need to be told up front that something is evil and removing your freedoms instead of being able to decide that yourself by reading facts then the philosophy will have a difficult time standing up to scrutiny. And I also happen to believe that the driving philosophies behind open source software (please bear with me on this one, I know that's not the same thing as "free software" to FSF proponents) stand up on their own, which is why they continue to be effective in generating useful software. What I don't believe is that the majority who uses the operating systems, the laypeople who don't program and don't even compile, don't strictly need to understand the philosophies to benefit from them. Not all humanitarian methodologies need to be boisterous and universally evangelized to be useful and effective.

 

[ekianjo]

Agree with most of what _wb_ is mentioning.


Just like we classify protestants, orthodox and catholics under the same "christian" umbrella, all Linux systems are derivatives of GNU and GNU's underlying philosophy.


The problem with the Linux name is that it does not convey much information. It's just derivated from Linus' first name. That's it. There's no ideals, no description in the name itself. GNU has more signification. It tends to emphasize the personal importance of Linus Torvalds in the project, while this is actually much bigger than him and his contributions.


All in All, a name is just a name, fundamentally whether you call it GNU/Linux or Linux it won't change anything, but at a time where most other systems are showing how ugly things can turn when using locked source, proprietary software, it's good to find a way to remind what Linux or GNU/Linux stands for - Freedom.

 

[Exophase]

Linux is not just Linus's first name. It's more of a portmanteau of "Linus" and "Unix", which communicates about as much as "GNU's not Unix" does (IMO, more - while the latter may be fitting given the context it actually superficially suggests the opposite of what it is)


I for one thing it's really conceited to suggest than the work of the Linux kernel developers or OS or what have you is nothing more than the natural result of practicing the GNU philosophy. This is just one aspect of what it's about. GPL is also not the be all and end all open source license, FSF is opposed to a variety of licenses which are not normally classified as "closed source" and it's be difficult to prove that other methods would have succeeded less.


Of course it's not about Linus either, but who of which is involved in the project actually feels this way? Who really feels this way in general? I've met people who know about Linux but don't even know who Linus Torvalds is...


And all this talk about freedom is nerve wracking. I find all this bickering about things like "GNU/Linux" and some particular attacks made by FSF and their opponents to reach some pretty ugly heights too. Humans can be ugly.

 

[ekianjo]

And all this talk about freedom is nerve wracking.

What do you find nerve-cracking about discussions relative to Freedom in software?


I am, for one, very concerned about the direction where things are going, with iPads, SecureBoot, DRMs and all these devices completely locked to begin with. That's also one of the reason why I support the Pandora.


The "Open" Pandora.

 

[ekianjo]

I find all this bickering about things like "GNU/Linux" and some particular attacks made by FSF and their opponents to reach some pretty ugly heights too. Humans can be ugly.

Let me just add that I agree with you here. The FSF sometimes goes too far and their actions do not always serve their cause well.

 

[Exophase]

What do you find nerve-cracking about discussions relative to Freedom in software?
I am, for one, very concerned about the direction where things are going, with iPads, SecureBoot, DRMs and all these devices completely locked to begin with. That's also one of the reason why I support the Pandora.


The "Open" Pandora.

It's not the cause I have a problem with, it's the terminology that gets on my nerves. Any cause or methodology can be called "freedom" if you phrase it the right way. It's such a loaded term, you'd may as flatly call your cause ethical and right (which they do as well, mind you). I'm much more receptive to the language of results and improvement. Simply being told that you were being oppressed and simply did not realize it is not convincing to me. The whole thing is presented more as a religion than a good idea, which is a shame because it IS a good idea. That is, the open source part of it is a good idea, or at least can be extremely effective. The excluding, condemning, and forceful/viral nature of the GPL are not good ideas IMO. I think it works much better when people are convinced to do it because they can see the benefit to them and others, rather than trying to force, shame, and shun people into participation. And when they don't agree with you declare them the enemy of mankind and focus on destroying their image.


But I'm not really into negative campaigning in general.

 

[ekianjo]

I think it works much better when people are convinced to do it because they can see the benefit to them and others, rather than trying to force, shame, and shun people into participation.

Totally agree with you there. The FSF's argument would be stronger if they showed off good examples of the strength of OpenSource instead of negative campaigns about windows and others.

 

[_wb_]

According to RMS, "Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement. For the free software movement, free software is an ethical imperative, because only free software respects the users' freedom. By contrast, the philosophy of open source considers issues in terms of how to make software “better”—in a practical sense only. It says that nonfree software is an inferior solution to the practical problem at hand. For the free software movement, however, nonfree software is a social problem, and the solution is to stop using it and move to free software." (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html for more about this)


I probably belong in the Free Software camp: although I don't insist on the absolute purity the FSF wants (e.g. I don't mind using some non-free software myself, or using distributions not endorsed by the FSF), I do appreciate what they're trying to do. In the short term, it may all look like nitpicking about unimportant details, but in the long term, small details can become major loopholes and before you know it, we're all using locked down proprietary software again. So I think it is good that they identify potential problems and try to guard against them (e.g. by improving the GPL or by building new free alternatives for non-free software).

 

[ekianjo]

although I don't insist on the absolute purity the FSF wants

As you said, FSF has an ethical sense on the matter. The problem is that it is very difficult to get anything done with a modern computer with this philosophy since there is virtually no device which is completely respecting their stance. Drivers are still mostly closed source, for example, and there is no easy way around it unless hardware manufacturers develop their software in a different way.