On 12/01/2008, Jon Grant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 08/01/2008, Noah Slater <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Tue, Jan 08, 2008 at 02:23:46PM +0000, Ralph Corderoy wrote: > > > I'd like to see the FSF and all its advocates stop their effort at > > > retronaming Linux as GNU+Linux > > > > Retronaming? Are you kidding? Next you'll be saying that Free Software > > is an attempt to retroname the Open Source movement. Revisionists like > > Linus and ESR do real damage to the Free Software movement, we need to > > work hard to undo thier harmful work. > > do you genuinely believe that Linus is doing damage?
Maintaining an excellent free software kernel for the GNU OS is crucially important and celebratory work. Not promoting the idea of software freedom is damaging. When he says things that mean "The Linux OS started in 1991 because I wrote a kernel for fun" he is misleading people about the difference between an OS and a kernel which is confusing, taking credit for the GNU OS which is unfair, and not helping to inform people about the idea of software freedom. > I can't think of > any instances of his damage doing myself, and to be frank the FSF > sponsoring Adobe's Flash format in their pure Flash GPLFlash/Gnash > GNU project (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/) seems far more worthy > of a damage claim since they are unwilling to aim for anything better > for web-multimedia I thought we established there isn't anything better for web multimedia. Show me URLs of better technology :-) > Will FSF be sponsoring a GPL_ActiveX GNU project next? Being unable to view Active X wrapped media is not a "Top 5" reason to not switch to GNU+Linux or to install proprietary software on GNU+Linux. So I doubt it. But if it was as much of a social problem, I'd expect so. Active X is obsolete afaik; Silverlight seems the equivalent problem today. If Novell hadn't done Mono and then Moonlight, I can imagine that dotGNU would have grown and then done a Silverlight implementation. > or GNU_Multimedia which can only decode WMV files? I can imagine a GNU WMV codec project; if users want to see WMV files and will not switch to GNU+Linux or to install proprietary software on GNU+Linux, this kind of program needs to be written as free software. > ...IMHO we need to keep things in perspective (FS vs Open Source), and > not squabble with people who are 90% thinking the same because they > don't agree with us on 10%. The concept of software freedom and the original goal of using exclusively free software has nearly been snuffed out, and IMHO its important to keep things in perspective and not let it disappear from sight. Calling the OS GNU/Linux or GNU+Linux is a simple way to do that which anyone can do and takes only a few seconds each day. -- Regards, Dave _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
