[GRLUG] What is Linux ?

[Tim Schmidt]

On 3/23/07, Alan <ajabma at chartermi.net> wrote:
> Like Richard Stallman says, it should be GNU/Linux.
> Linux just sounds better than GNU and penguins are cuter than gnus.
> To me, GNU's free code is more about Freedom than code.
> but i'm just an end user, not a coder.

Sure.  Let's give everyone credit and call it by it's rightful name:

GNU/X11/Gnome/KDE/Apache/MySQL/Perl/Python/VIM/etc./Linux

GNU deserves respect for producing so much useful software - and that
license!  However, X, for instance, has been around just as long
(started in 1984 at MIT - right in Stallman's back yard), and the
first vi was written in 1976!  It's also perfectly possible to build a
capable Linux system without a hint of GNU.

We have Linux (of course), several nice libc's (uClibc comes to mind),
several FOSS C compilers (TCC and ACK come to mind as reasonably
useful (TCC at least can compile Linux), there's also SDCC and plenty
of other 'research' compilers), Busybox is a decidedly non-GNU
implementation of all the handy CLI utilities and then some (including
a shell) - with ambitions for the desktop, and so on and so forth.

Although I doubt TCC produces output of a quality even remotely
comparable to GCC, the point's made.  GNU is no more necessary for a
functional FOSS system today than, well, Linux.  It's as if Linus
decreed that all distributions of Gnome should be called Linux/Gnome -
even though it runs perfectly fine on Solaris, HP-UX, *BSD, etc.

I respect Stallman, I love the license, I love the software.  I refuse
to use proprietary bits whatsoever.  However, there's not much more
justification for GNU/Linux than there is for, say, GNU/ReactOS or
GNU/Haiku, both use GNU tools, but the names are obviously ridiculous.
 Ditto Linux.

--tim