On Jul 21, 2008, Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:

> Sticking a mark in the middle of other things in a way that causes
> confusion generally needs that and may well need the permission of
> the rights holder.

What if the trademarked term causes confusion by itself? What if it
was created to cause this confusion?


> The difference between talking about a Xerox machine (genuinely by Xerox)
> and trying to sell your own product as GNU/Xerox is quite different.

We're not talking about selling products here. In fact, we've already
established that this is not about distributions, it's about the
operating system name. Which is not a product.

The kernel named Linux is hardly a product either.

So, would you please explain how your intervention in this thread,
bringing trademark confusion into an already-complicated issue, was
even relevant?

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.misc/msg/7781d4221fceedb2
looks like estoppel to me, regardless of
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/01/19/0828245&mode=nested

> (compiling products with Linux/gcc - after all if GNU needed Linux,

GNU didn't have a complete kernel, indeed. GCC, a small part of the
GNU project, runs on several operating systems, including GNU/Linux.
It doesn't run just on Linux, though.

> RMS said they needed a kernel then clearly gnu products

What's with this obsession with "products"? What GNU products are you
talking about? We're just talking about software.

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On Jul 21, 2008, Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:

> By what measurement - remembering that much of GNU is actually BSD and
> other projects with bits nailed on or assimilated into the project.

For the 3rd time today, 4th in the thread, please see the links into
the blong, at the end of the most recent posting
http://fsfla.org/svnwiki/blogs/lxo/2008-07-21-gnu+linux

Please take the time to look at other postings in this thread and to
read the FAQ linked from there, to avoid even more duplication.

Thanks,

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On Mon, 2008-07-21 at 16:03 -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> So, if someone said "I'm a Linux developer", you'd immediately know
> that the person:
>
> a) wrote some code present in linux-2.6.26.tar.bz2
>
> b) wrote some code for your favorite application
>
> c) maintains a package in your favorite distro
>
> d) helps translate your favorite desktop mgmt system
>
> e) writes scripts in your favorite scripting language
>
> f) two or more of the above

Hypothetically speaking, if you want someone to know what you've done,
then say so exactly. It's time YOU understood that just about everybody
else does not agree with you about what "Linux" means, and *you* need to
describe terms in a manner that they understand. So, you'd say you were
a Linux developer, *and* you worked on the kernel, or whatever other
bits.

By this stage I'm certain that you're a troll. You come in stirring up
a debate, asking questions that you want to answer yourself.

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On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:06:35 -0300
Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@redhat.com> wrote:

> On Jul 21, 2008, Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
>
> > By what measurement - remembering that much of GNU is actually BSD and
> > other projects with bits nailed on or assimilated into the project.
>
> For the 3rd time today, 4th in the thread, please see the links into
> the blong, at the end of the most recent posting
> http://fsfla.org/svnwiki/blogs/lxo/2008-07-21-gnu+linux
>
> Please take the time to look at other postings in this thread and to
> read the FAQ linked from there, to avoid even more duplication.

I happened to accidentally read a post of yours talking about this
bizarre gnu/linux thing that doesn't exist so I replied. I don't normally
read them, I just forgot to killfile the thread when updating mail config

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Tim:
>> The majority will understand "Linux" as being an OS, the whole thing,
>> one of the many OS distros that are similar to each other (*), but not
>> understand it as referring to just the kernel.

Björn Persson:
> And then you'll hear arguments like "You think Windows is bloated? Linux is
> *much* worse! Look, Debian is twenty-one CDs! Thirteen gigabytes! My, what a
> horribly bloated OS!".

You're out of touch. To the Windows user, bigger is better, more is
better. Everything handed to me on a plate, is better. Years of the
systems getter fatter and fatter, with nary a complaint but from the
real techno elite, shows that to be the case.

The general computing public with some ability to identify something
that isn't Windows understands Linux is an operating system, and there
are different distributions which include a plethora of software.

The less-understanding public have never understood any distinction
between operating system software and applications. They think all
software is Windows software. And aren't going to care about a
distinction. Does it run on a Windows system? It's Windows software.
Does it run on a Linux system? It's Linux software.

Software for Linux = Linux software. That's how the English language
works.

>> There's no lack of understanding when one person says to another that they
>> use Linux. They mean they use an OS which has Linux at it's heart.

> Let's see how much that statement really tells the other person. If someone
> says he's using Linux, he's most likely using the kernel Linux and the GNU
> core utilities.

They probably are not. They're probably not using any command line
tools, at all. There's probably a great many graphical tools that make
no use of the GNU core utilities (which are a tiny part of the
distribution). Heck, I just removed "ls" and Nautilus still shows me a
listing of files. I can probably get away with removing quite a few
other supposedly core utilities.

You can argue all you like, but the war has been fought and lost. What
people, in general, understand the term to be is different from what you
want them to. That's not going to change, you're going to have to
change. You're the small voice against the public, and all the big
distributors marketing their release as a Linux one.

And quite frankly, I'm sick of this GNU debate being rammed through the
Fedora mailing list, it's quite inappropriate. This isn't the place for
the FSF lackies to act like Greenpeace. You want the distros to change
their naming, then hound those who're really responsible. Users will
refer to the distros in the same manner as the distros refer to
themselves.

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On Mon, 2008-07-21 at 15:49 -0400, Mark Haney wrote:
> (really, will someone kill this thread?)

I call Godwin's...

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Björn Persson wrote:

> Do you think the term "(GNU/)Linux distribution" means "software
> distribution which, in its entirety, is a version of (GNU/)Linux"? It
> could be taken that way, but I think it could also be intended as
> "software distribution built around (GNU/)Linux".

It is normally used to mean the latter.

> But I do think that the
> term "Linux distribution" contributes a lot to the confusion about what
> Linux is.

I don't see why.
The term "Linux distribution" seems perfectly clear to me,
eg "There are various Linux distributions, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc".
And I don't think there is any confusion about "what Linux is".
"Linux" is normally used as synonymous with "Linux distribution".

All words have some slight ambiguity about them,
except perhaps in mathematics.
But "Linux" doesn't strike me as excessively ambiguous.

I don't think the ethical argument about adding GNU to Linux
can be advanced by claiming that "Linux" is ambiguous.





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On Mon, 2008-07-21 at 04:47 +0200, Björn Persson wrote:

> 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

Bjorn, Linus really put the spin on this whole affair. So, I'm quoting
him below. From my own perspective, there has been a bunch of history
here, when RedHat released it's CD's labeled "Red Hat Linux" and the
same with Caldera and their CD's with "Caldera Linux" written on the CD,
etc. The wav file of Linus saying "I pronounce it LeeNuks" spread around
the planet. Yet, I've never heard of Linus saying "you must" or "you
should" or anything like that in that vein. To me, that is freedom,
where your freedom ends at the tip of my nose.

I personally prefer using the term "Linux" to describe the OS, the
community, the mindset, the all encompassing rally to the sharing of all
things computerese as opposed to "Windows" and that community, that OS,
that mindset. Both come in many flavors. BSD comes in many flavors, and
they also are a community, a mindset, as well as an OS.

So, personally it comes down to who is my ideal, my guru, the person I'd
rather be like and present as that to others. Linus, hands down. Again,
it's personal and it's history. I first installed using the 9 floppy
disk install set labeled "Slackware Linux". Then the first RedHat CD,
labeled "RedHat Linux", which I mounted in my $500 CD player. Now we
have FSF telling us to duck-march, rectify history, and give Stallman
the power to "remind" us what to do and think? We've been morally WRONG
all this time? Bullpucky. Here's Linus's take on it...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
On Sat, 16 Dec 2006, karderio wrote:
>
> If the "free software community" has the clout to twist vendor's arms to
> get them release driver source, then I'm all for it.

I don't care what you're for, or what your imaginary "free software
community" is for.

We're "open source", and we're not a religion. We don't "twist peoples
arms". We show people what we think is a better way, and we let them
participate. We don't force it, we don't twist it, and it's ok not to
believe in the GPL or our ideals. In fact, "our ideals" aren't even one
unified thing to begin with.

We also don't try to pervert copyright into a "you have to _use_ things
in a certain way". We don't think "fair use" is a bad thing. We encourage
it, and that means that we have to abide by it ourselves. It means, most
particularly, that even people we disagree with have that right of "fair
use".

That, btw, is what "freedom" and "rights" are all about. It's only
meaningful when you grant those rights to people you don't agree with.

Also, since you haven't apparently gotten the memo yet, let me point it
out to you: the end results don't justify the means, and never did. So
arm-twisting doesn't become good just because you think the end result
might be worth it. It's still bad.

And btw, that "information freedom" thing you talked about is just so much
blather and idiotic hogwash. "Information" doesn't want to be free, nor is
it something you should fight for or necessarily even encourage.

It doesn't hold a candle to _peoples_ freedom, the foremost of which is to
just disagree with you. Once you allow people to talk and do what they
want, that "information freedom" will follow.

It's not a religion, and it's not about suppressing other people and other
viewpoints.

Linus

-------------------------------------------------------
That is a man that I can follow. So, I'll redouble my personal efforts
to use the name "Linux" as "GNU/Linux" ain't as free and asks, if not
demands, a price ...according to my perceptions.

Can I get an Amen? Ric

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* Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> [20080722 04:25]:
> On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:06:35 -0300
> Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@redhat.com> wrote:
> > For the 3rd time today, 4th in the thread, please see the links into
> > the blong, at the end of the most recent posting
> > http://fsfla.org/svnwiki/blogs/lxo/2008-07-21-gnu+linux
> >
> > Please take the time to look at other postings in this thread and to
> > read the FAQ linked from there, to avoid even more duplication.
>
> I happened to accidentally read a post of yours talking about this
> bizarre gnu/linux thing that doesn't exist so I replied. I don't normally
> read them, I just forgot to killfile the thread when updating mail config

Hey Alan,

Do you have a sample config for me to look at? I have some vermin I
want to killfile, and I've not had time to set anything up yet...

Thanks!

/Anders

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On Jul 21, 2008, Timothy Murphy <gayleard@eircom.net> wrote:

> which was intended to run under Linux (or GNU/Linux, if you prefer).

Under Linux I'd say there's only firmware. On Linux I'd say there's
pretty much only GNU libc. On top of GNU libc, there are all those
applications intended to run on the GNU operating system, that some
people mistakenly refer to using the name of the kernel Linux.

> This was that the term "GNU operating system" which you used
> _is_ ambiguous to me.

This is an unfortunate effect of a very successful campaign of some
fanatics that wanted to push the goals of software freedom promoted by
the FSF to a back seat. If they hadn't renamed the GNU operating
system after the kernel they ran it with, today you'd not only know
what it is, but you'd also know know far more about the history of
Free Software, its philosophy, and why you should care about your 4
essential freedoms.

> I genuinely do not know what you mean.

I'll take this is as a request for me to explain what it means.

Look at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu. You'll find a lot of software
there, that is all part of the GNU Operating System. Follow the link
to The GNU System, in the README. That page describes what the GNU
Operating System is.

Now look at the release annoucement of Linux. See how Linux is
described as a kernel. See how, up to this date, linux tarballs
published by its creator still amount to no more than a kernel.
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/old-versions/RELNOTES-0.01

The GNU project was started to create a complete Free operating
system. The software written as part of the GNU project, as well as
the pre-existing software it was designed to work with, amounts to the
GNU operating system.

Linux, the kernel that Linus Torvalds announced back in 1991, and
released under a Free Software license in 1992, is one of the various
kernels that today can be used along with the GNU operating system,
but the variant of the GNU operating system in which Linux replaced
Hurd was the first complete Free operating system.

Some fanatics seem to think that it is appropriate to rename someone
else's project when they combine it with a comparatively much smaller
amount of code they wrote, but take offense when this someone else
asks his projects' name to be given at least equal mention, to spread
awareness about the reasons why he started it.

So, you see, the GNU operating system is what some people today call
Linux, including the fanatics mentioned above.

Linux is what many people, including its developers, some of which are
the fanatics above, feel the need to qualify as Linux kernel.

The combination of the GNU operating system with various different
kernels (instead of its own) forms various other complete operating
systems such as GNU/Linux, GNU/kFreeBSD, GNU/kOpenSolaris. In all
cases, GNU is at least an order of magnitude larger than the kernel
combined with it, and it's the core that supports all applications,
both those that are part of the operating system and those that
aren't, and interfaces them with the kernel when needed.

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