Re: that old GNU/Linux argument

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On Jul 21, 2008, Antonio Olivares <olivares14031@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I am not insulting anyone and if I did, I apologize,

No need to apologize.  Just please understand that it is insulting,
and that fixing it is not an unreasonable request at all.  Please
start giving credit to both projects, rather than to the smaller of
the two.

This will help us spread the philosophy of freedom rather than the
non-philosophy of "just for fun" and "setting ourselves apart from the
FSF" and the accusations about the FSF trying to rename the kernel
Linux or incorporating his project.

And if he mistakes our request as applying to the kernel he et al
created, rather than to our operating system that they renamed to the
same name as their kernel, "it's not _our_ fault", "it's their
confusion, not ours" --Linus Torvalds
http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/9/25/161

> If I am not mistaken, RMS wants it be called GNU/Linux to honor the
> work done by GNU and there is no doubt that they deserve all the
> credit!

No, the reason is to advance the cause of software freedom, which GNU
represents and stands for, and that anti-GNU zealots oppose.  The
request for credit is just an appeal to people's morality and
fairness, that denounces the anti-GNU zealots who actively try to hide
its existence and the Free Software philosophy.

FWIW, in jurisdictions where copyright law establishes moral rights,
authors (the people who wrote the code, rather than the copyright
holders of the patrimonial rights) might actually be successful in
claiming that this renaming harms their honor and reputation (which is
pretty much what moral rights are about), and legally demanding it to
be fixed.

But if people already react with such violence when we ask politely to
have this error corrected, I wonder what kind of reactions would arise
if someone actually tried such a lawsuit.

> What many people here are against is that there are other projects
> that have contributed as well and have done a great deal too,
> without asking for their name be attached to ????

This is a distraction.  It doesn't justify denying credit to GNU while
giving it to Linux.  It might justify *also* giving credit to the
other project, in addition to GNU.  It might justify dropping Linux,
but no non-circular argument could justify dropping GNU without
dropping Linux from the name of the operating system.

Besides, none of the other projects were operating system projects.
None of them are listed as essential for the kernel to do anything
useful, in the announcement of the first release of the kernel Linux.
And none of these other projects are Linux.

Pretty please go through the FAQ referenced from the web page in the
blong.  No point in repeating the same arguments here.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
FSFLA Board Member       ¡Sé Libre! => http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}

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