This discussion is becoming both increasingly religious and somewhat
oblique in its depictions of the elements under discussion. It may be
instructive to review the classic definitions of some of these elements
in order to clarify in the minds of zealots from the several sides of
the discussion and thereby promote a more rational discussion.
Operating System:
Generally is considered to supply the following features.
1) Management of equipment and process related resources. Among the
resources managed may be memory, time (scheduler), hardware devices
(CPU, MMU, clock, device controllers, etc), raw file systems, and a
means for initiating these controls.
2) Facilities for manipulating these resources and standards for
providing them. In UnixLand we call these facilities system calls and in
both Unix and Linux they are documented in section 2 of the manual.
3) Run Level "utilities" that allow the user to observe and control the
aforementioned facilities and management capabilities. Some examples of
these utilities might be 'init', 'ps', 'date', 'ifconfig', 'fsck',
'newfs', 'nice', and any number of related or similar programs that
control or manipulate the way in which the operating system views, uses,
or presents the resources managed.
Tools and Applications:
Generally are considered to be external to the operating system and
include shells, editors, compilers, assemblers, windowing systems, data
bases, spreadsheets, publishing systems, and so forth. These tools and
applications are not operating system specific although often they are
operating system aware or dependent.
In short, an operating system deals with hardware at the most
fundamental level and provides facilities for making productive use of
the hardware. Low level tools such as shells provide an environment in
which higher level tools and applications may operate and these low
level tools are, in all cases, independent of the operating system and
represent the demarcation line between the operating system and the
operating environment.
GNU is not an operating system it is, and as far as I know always has
been, a tool kit that is platform and operating system independent. On
the other hand, Linux is not GNU although the distributions packaged by
various suppliers of the operating system contain GNU software. While
GNU and Linux can prosper without each other it's certainly more
charming if they prosper with each other.
As for licensing, the GNU Public License is available for use with any
software whether it be GNU sponsored or not and Linux can be distributed
in that way if it was received in that way.
While Linux is the Operating System du jour for those of us who prefer
clean and elegant exploitation of the hardware available in the
marketplace it is by no means the first such system nor is it likely to
be the last. When Dennis Ritchie rewrote the C compiler for the
Interdata machines he unleashed a movement that has been bucked by only
one serious competitor (MicroSoft) but has been taken up by virtually
every serious computer scientist and OS hacker since 1978 and includes
such luminaries as UC Berkeley (BSD Unix), Whitesmiths (Idris), and
Linus Torvalds (you know.....).
While MicroSoft prefers to obfuscate the difference between operating
systems, operating environments, and applications there are those of us
who have been in the game for quite some time who understand the
difference and consider these distinctions to be important, which brings
us to the GNU Public License and other forms of "Free Public Licenses"
for software.
The form or philosophy of a license agreement is distinct from the thing
licensed and while each purveyor of a license form or philosophy might
like one to think that they are related that is not true and should not
be true. Drivers for Linux, to pick an example, may be licensed in such
a way that they may be freely redistributed and may only carry the
condition that they may only be used to operate a specific device or
device class. When the driver is provided by the manufacturer of the
device this is a reasonable restriction on the driver's use albeit one
that leaves a bad taste in the mouths of some. Whether some other
license under which the surrounding software is distributed has other
rules about derivative works doesn't impact the license under which the
driver is distributed. The fact that a driver becomes a part of Linux
when is installed does not necessarily make that driver subject to the
same rules as other parts of the Linux Operating System.
Companies such as RedHat represent a new twist on an ancient gestalt for
creating success, namely FUD. While MicroSoft wields FUD with the
subtlety of a jackhammer RedHat wields it in a more friendly and
accommodating manner that I find admirable and believe me when I say
that this friendship and accommodation are not without cost but they
have both created and supported a community of volunteers that should be
applauded by us all.
GNU is not Linux and Linux is not GNU, it's just an evolution of a
movement started by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie nearly 40 years ago.
Whoda thunk?
John Cornelius
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