On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 04:27:05PM EDT, Stefan Monnier wrote: > > I'm not sure the GNU project produces the majority of Debian, by > > any metric. > > I'm pretty sure it doesn't, because by and large "the GNU project" > doesn't produce any software. It provides technical, philosophical, > ethical, and political support to help and encourage the development and > use of Free Software. > > Part of that is to provide hosting services for some projects (on > savannah.gnu.org), but that usually doesn't count as "producing". > > A GNU software package basically is a software whose author(s) have > decided they'd like to see their name associated with the "GNU", either > because they want to show their support for the GNU movement, or because > they want their software to benefit from the GNU "brand" and get some > publicity from it, or because they wanted to use the savannah.gnu.org > hosting service, or somesuch. > > Of course, some software authors might be considered as "GNU coder" > either because they have gotten some money from the FSF at some point, > or because they've spent enormous amounts of efforts writing code almost > exclusively for GNU software. > > What the GNU project has done is give a name and a visibility, defined > a set of guidelines (and licenses) and created the expectations that > define both the Open Source and the Free Software movement. It's thanks > to the GNU project that we don't have to suffer nearly as much from > "somewhat Free" licenses (like the idiotic freeware, which still plagues > the Windows world) because people find them nowadays completely > unacceptable. So the GNU project has shaped the world which made Debian > possible, and in this sense can be credited just as much for GNU > packages as for those packages which do not put "GNU" next to their name > (and even for those who refuse the GPL and/or consider the FSF as > dangerous lunatics). > > > Stefan
Enlightening post. Thank you. CJ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org