On Jul 21, 2008, Timothy Murphy <gayleard@xxxxxxxxxx> 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. -- 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} -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
