Les Mikesell wrote:
> The only GNU-specific features that come to the top of my head are the
> -a option to cp (and I usually use rsync anyway where it would be
> useful) and the copious non-standard options to gnutar that sometimes
> turn out to be useful. *Are there others that really matter? *It would
> be nice to have a list to avoid in portable code and scripts.

We program in C (unfortunately). All Unix-like systems have their own
additions to the "standard" C library, and so does the GNU C library. Most
GNU tools also tend to have GNU-specific features:
http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/echo.msg.html
http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/gcc.html

I don't have a list. For GlibC the man pages are good at explaining which
functions and behaviors are GNU extensions. At least some of the command line
tools' manuals do that too. I don't know if all of them do.

Björn Persson

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söndagen den 20 juli 2008 skrev Alexandre Oliva:
> I happily regard myself as a Free Radical.

Giggle! Maybe Les, Thomas, Patrick and others are proteins and DNA then? Maybe
this discussion needs some antioxidants? ;-)

Björn Persson

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söndagen den 20 juli 2008 skrev Anders Karlsson:
> * Björn Persson <listor3.rombobeorn@tdcpost.se> [20080720 19:52]:
> [snip: lots of hairsplitting and otherwise ludicrous statements]

If my latest response to Thomas Cameron seemed particularly hair-splitting, it
may be because he rejected the definition I proposed and yet made more
statements that seemed to agree very well with the definition he rejected. I
tried to figure out where the difference was and came up with a marginally
different definition. If he doesn't agree with that one either, then I
definitely don't understand what he means with "Linux".

> Is it really so hard to grasp that the term "Linux" can (and does)
> mean different things depending on context, who you are talking to,
> and the counterparts technical savvy?

It's not difficult at all to understand that people have different ideas of
what Linux is, but that's not enough to understand what any particular person
means when he says "Linux". And why are we even communicating if we aren't
going to try to understand each other?

> I also would like to know why you have the absolute fascination and
> the palpable need to obtain a totally absolute definition of "Linux".

I don't think I'll get everyone to agree on a definition. I don't even think
all the anti-GNU/Linux folks will agree on a definition.

When Mark Haney "vented his spleen" I made an attempt to damp the argument
that would inevitably follow. I tried to get Mark to say something about what
it was that should or shouldn't be called Linux or GNU/Linux, so that maybe
people would at least argue about the same thing. That mostly failed.

I kept asking in the hope that at least some people would start thinking about
whether their opponents even understood what meaning they put in the words. I
expected that some of the anti-GNU/Linux folks would say that Linux is the
operating system and that the operating system is the kernel plus the
programs that are necessary to boot the system, log in, run commands and edit
text files, or something like that. I thought that others would include stuff
like Cron, RPM, X and maybe the core parts of a desktop environment.

Instead, those who have answered so far or otherwise made their position clear
in the argument either say that Linux is a kernel or that pretty much
everything and the kitchen sink is Linux. I didn't expect that. I'm
particularly surprised that some even include unfree programs that have never
been distributed bundled with Linus' kernel.

So far I haven't seen a pro-GNU/Linux person describe what GNU/Linux is and
what it isn't. It would be interesting to see whether they include the
kitchen sink in GNU/Linux.

Björn Persson

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Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> Björn Persson wrote:
> > Should I take that to mean that your concept of "Linux" is the same as
> > Thomas Cameron's, whatever his concept really is?
>
> No - just that I think the argument is equivalent is like
> complaining about someone calling a Mustang a car, instead of
> calling it a Ford Mustang. Calling a distribution Linux is less
> specific then calling it by the distribution name, but it is not
> less correct then calling a specific car by the generic name car.

Well, that still seems to put you somewhere in the "everything and the kitchen
sink is Linux" camp.

> Depending on exactly what you are talking about, you may need to be
> more specific, because the more generic term may not give enough
> details.

Not only that, but by using a too generic term you might say something that
isn't true, because it's only true for some of the things that the generic
term covers.

> For other discussions, being more specific will actually
> make the discussion harder.

I don't see how using terms that are too generic would make discussing easier.
If you mean using terms that are more specific than intended, then that's of
course not optimal.

It may of course be that some people find it harder to use the appropriate
terminology because they then have to actually think about what they mean,
but once they do that I'm sure they'll find that the discussion works much
better.

Björn Persson

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Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> Having said that, my *usage* of the term "Linux" encompasses any
> accumulation of software that has a useful purpose and is constructed
> around a Linux kernel. This includes GNU+Linux, X+Linux,
> Fedora/Debian/Ubuntu/Slackware/etc. and the system that runs my wife's
> RAZR-2 cellphone.

OK, that's a fairly clear explanation. Apparently you're in the "everything
and the kitchen sink" camp too.

> 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful
> tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor
> less.'

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. When combined with the assumption that
everyone else automatically knows what Humpty Dumpty wants the words to mean
it ensures endless misunderstandings.

Björn Persson

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On Jul 20, 2008, "Mikkel L. Ellertson" <mikkel@infinity-ltd.com> wrote:

> I read it more as calling a Mustang a Goodyear/Mustang because it has
> Goodyear tires.

So you don't believe Linus, the primary author of Linux, when he
publishes *linux*-2.6.26.tar.bz2, containing only kernel code?

You don't believe him when he announced linux-0.0.1 stating it was a
kernel, required GNU to be useful?

You're resorting to circular logic and ad populum to try to equate
Linux to Mustang, when Linux (per its original announcement, by its
original author) equates to Goodyear, and say Fedora equates to
Mustang.

> it is the kernel that sets it apart from other system that may
> also use the same user-space programs. After all, the original GNU
> utility programs were not written for the Linux kernel.

> After all, its not like you couldn't build a Linux distribution
> without any GNU programs.

Do you realize you're contradicting yourself with the two quoted
blocks above?

Per the argument presented in the second block, it would be just right
to regard GNU as as much of a distinguishing feature as Linux, would
it not?

> If I am understanding you correctly, you want people to only call
> the kernel Linux.

That's how its original author calls it, yes. It wasn't him who
started calling the combination of GNU with Linux as Linux, FTR.

But then, I don't care much how people call the kernel. It's just not
that relevant to me.

What I do care about is how people call the GNU operating system.
Calling it Linux is offensive, unfair and, more importantly,
detrimental to the Free Software movement. So I ask people to help us
spread awareness about software freedom by putting its name back where
it should have always been.

> But people are using Linux to describe the entire distribution that
> uses the Linux kernel. It would be interesting to compare how much
> of a typical Linux distribution is the Kernel, how much is the GNU
> package, and how much is from other sources.

This evidence was presented very early in this thread.

http://fsfla.org/svnwiki/blogs/lxo/2007-05-21-gnu+linux
http://www.slackware-rn.com.br/~vuln/2007/07/19/gnulinux-or-linux/

> Just because something is released under the GPL license does not
> make it a GNU program.

Of course not. Otherwise Linux itself would have been a GNU program.
It isn't, and I don't know of anyone who actually claimed it to be,
although I've seen people who oppose the request to call the operating
system GNU+Linux claim people have made such an insane claim.

> And not all the programs in a Linux distribution are released under
> the GPL...

... and this is an absolutely irrelevant, albeit true (save for
s:Linux:GNU+Linux: :-), fact for the present conversation.

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On Mon, 2008-07-21 at 04:47 +0200, Björn Persson wrote:
> Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > Having said that, my *usage* of the term "Linux" encompasses any
> > accumulation of software that has a useful purpose and is constructed
> > around a Linux kernel. This includes GNU+Linux, X+Linux,
> > Fedora/Debian/Ubuntu/Slackware/etc. and the system that runs my wife's
> > RAZR-2 cellphone.
>
> OK, that's a fairly clear explanation. Apparently you're in the "everything
> and the kitchen sink" camp too.

Everything? There is a world outside Linux. It contains Windows, MacOS,
VMS, VM/370 etc.

> > 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful
> > tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor
> > less.'
>
> Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. When combined with the assumption that
> everyone else automatically knows what Humpty Dumpty wants the words to mean
> it ensures endless misunderstandings.

It appears the misunderstandings are happening anyway.

poc

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Björn Persson wrote:


I don't think I'll get everyone to agree on a definition. I don't even think
all the anti-GNU/Linux folks will agree on a definition.


I'm not sure there is an anti-GNU/Linux factor - just a pro "the other
85%" of the distro unwilling to give unfair naming rights.


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On Jul 21, 2008, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@gmail.com> wrote:

> Björn Persson wrote:
>>
>> I don't think I'll get everyone to agree on a definition. I don't
>> even think all the anti-GNU/Linux folks will agree on a definition.

> I'm not sure there is an anti-GNU/Linux factor - just a pro "the other
> 85%" of the distro unwilling to give unfair naming rights.

Naming it after 2% is fair, while naming it after 15% isn't. Care to
explain the rationale behind this conclusion?

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I wrote:
> So far I haven't seen a pro-GNU/Linux person describe what GNU/Linux is and
> what it isn't. It would be interesting to see whether they include the
> kitchen sink in GNU/Linux.

Correction: Alexandre Oliva has said that "an operating system is a kernel
plus a bunch of userland libraries and programs that users and other
applications generally rely on" and that GNU is an example of an operating
system. I can't believe I forgot that.

It's a bit vague, but clearly a whole lot less than all of Fedora or Debian.
It could be taken to mean just a kernel and the GNU command line tools, or it
could include X and Gnome too.

Björn Persson

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