Les Mikesell wrote:

Gordon Messmer wrote:


So the system originally known as GNU became known to some as Linux,
but no other change can ever be expected? Only one change, ever?


What 'system' was ever originally known as GNU? Or are you thinking of
emacs as an operating system by itself?


GNU was known as such for several years before Linux was even conceived
of. Linus referred to GNU in the first usenet post that he wrote to
comp.os.minix announcing his intention to write what would become Linux.


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Gordon Messmer wrote:


So the system originally known as GNU became known to some as Linux,
but no other change can ever be expected? Only one change, ever?


What 'system' was ever originally known as GNU? Or are you thinking
of emacs as an operating system by itself?


GNU was known as such for several years before Linux was even conceived
of.


I didn't mean the word GNU. Reflexive acronyms are easy but useless.
What was the working system before Linux?


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Les Mikesell wrote:


I didn't mean the word GNU. Reflexive acronyms are easy but useless.
What was the working system before Linux?


It was GNU. GNU, as a system, pre-dates Linux.

GNU was not built on top of Linux. Linux was eventually able to run GNU.

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tisdagen den 15 juli 2008 skrev Tim:
> On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 02:48 +0200, Björn Persson wrote:
> > What exactly is it that you don't want to call "GNU/Linux"? What
> > pieces of software does it contain?
> >
> > Is Udev part of what you call Linux?
> > Is Bash part of what you call Linux?...
>
> They're all part of what's released as an OS called something-or-other
> Linux.

Show me something that has been released as an OS called something-or-other
Linux and contains Kylix.

> Just the
> same as a lot of software is called Windows software, despite never
> being written by Microsoft. Over time, software *for* Linux, or
> software *for* Windows just gets called Linux software or Windows
> software.

Can you support your implied claim that "Windows software" means "part of
Windows"? I read it as "software for Windows".

Björn Persson

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Joe Klemmer wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 02:48 +0200, Björn Persson wrote:
> > Is Udev part of what you call Linux?
>
> Yes.
>
> > Is Bash part of what you call Linux?
>
> Yes.
>
> > Is GCC part of what you call Linux?
>
> Yes.
>
> > Is Yum part of what you call Linux?
>
> Yes.
>
> > Is Apache HTTPD part of what you call Linux?
>
> Yes.
>
> > Is Sylpheed part of what you call Linux?
>
> Yes.
>
> > Is GNU Chess part of what you call Linux?
>
> Yes.
>
> > Is Kylix part of what you call Linux?
>
> And, well, yes.
>
> While it's a fact that the kernel is the only part of any distro that's
> actually named Linux, The name has become attached to the entire OS.

Based on your answers I draw the conclusion that you use "Linux" as a
collective name for all software that can run in a Unix-like environment,
regardless of who wrote it or whether it's free or not. You probably think of
Fedora, Gentoo, Ubuntu et cetera as different subsets of Linux, as none of
them contains Kylix for example. You also don't seem to make any distinction
between operating systems and applications, but consider all software part of
the operating system.

I seriously doubt that's what Linus Torvalds means when he says "Linux", and I
can assure you that Richard Stallman does not consider Kylix a part of
GNU/Linux.

Björn Persson

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Gordon Messmer wrote:
> Joe Klemmer wrote:
> > BTW, has the FSF been as vocal about GNU/FreeBSD? Not picking on *BSD,
> > just curious.
>
> They probably don't need to be, as GNU/FreeBSD is clear about its
> implementation. It's a FreeBSD kernel in combination with the GNU
> operating system.

And so the official name is Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, to reflect that it doesn't
contain all of FreeBSD, only the kernel.

Björn Persson

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Gordon Messmer wrote:

Les Mikesell wrote:


I didn't mean the word GNU. Reflexive acronyms are easy but useless.
What was the working system before Linux?


It was GNU. GNU, as a system, pre-dates Linux.


As a system of what?


GNU was not built on top of Linux. Linux was eventually able to run GNU.


GNU what? Emacs? I was more interested in running apache and sendmail
at the time and didn't care if it was bsd, linux, or unix underneath.


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On Jul 15, 2008, Joe Klemmer <klemmerj@webtrek.com> wrote:

> BTW, has the FSF been as vocal about GNU/FreeBSD?

Of course not. FreeBSD is a complete operating system on its own, it
was never just a kernel combined with the GNU Operating System.

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On Jul 15, 2008, Gordon Messmer <yinyang@eburg.com> wrote:

> Linus referred to GNU in the first usenet post that he wrote to
> comp.os.minix announcing his intention to write what would become
> Linux.

And then in the 0.01 announcement, still under a non-Free Software
announcement

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/old-versions/RELNOTES-0.01

Select quotes (*emphasis* mine)

<quote>

Notes for *linux* release 0.01

*linux*-0.01.tar.Z - sources to the *kernel*

This is a free minix-like *kernel* [...]

Sadly, a kernel by itself gets you nowhere. To get a working system you
need a shell, compilers, a library etc. These are separate parts and may
be under a stricter (or even looser) copyright. Most of the tools used
with *linux* are *GNU* software and are under the GNU copyleft. These tools
aren't in the distribution - ask me (or GNU) for more info.

[...] Happy hacking.

</quote>

'nuff said?

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On Jul 15, 2008, Joe Klemmer <klemmerj@webtrek.com> wrote:

> This sounds like you're making the argument that all beer
> should be called Water/Beer because water isn't specific to beer and
> can be used with/in any other beverage.

beer = water + fermented wort + brewing yeast + flavoring_{opt}

Note that beer doesn't show up as one of the components of beer.

Now, beer is mostly water, so it's a bad analogy, because it is very
much unlike current GNU+Linux distros. Current distros don't contain
any single component that amounts to some 90% of its weight. It may
have been so back in the early linux-0.0.1 days, though.

Anyhow... You wouldn't point at a pint of beer and say "this is
water" any more than you'd say "this is barley" or "this is yeast".
If you had to choose one of them, you'd need a pretty good reason to
not go with "water".

Now, if we were to consider that water is just an irrelevant solvent,
we'd be left with a significant amount of fermented malted barley, and
the little bit of yeast that, when added to the mix of water and
malted barley, fermented it and turned it all into a great drink.

Now, would you point at the bottle and say "this is yeast"?


Why would you refer to the combination of the substrate GNU with a the
piece that, combined with it, made the combination a complete
operating system, by the name of this smaller piece?

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