Re: [Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux [was] Google drops Windows in their workplace

[steve]

Hi,

On 06/06/2010 11:36 AM, Manokaran K wrote:

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 1:59 PM, narendra sisodiya<
[...snip...]
Thats why we see many instances of simultaneous discoveries in many fields.
If Newton did not invent Calculus (if at all he did) Leibnitz was ready with
it. The only part history played here was to give Newton all the credit
discounting all the prior art of the Leibnitz, the orientals, hindus and the
arabs. And if Einstein did not give us the theory of relativity, Lorentz
would've done it.

To us, it does not matter. Its calculus and relativity that are more
important.


There is a small difference here.

The FSF (and rms) insist on the credit apparently because that would lead people 
to see, understand and appreciate the philosophy of free software.


Unlike pure science (and as a result most pure science discoveries) software 
does not happen in a open environment(*). FSF just wants to underline the 
importance of software advancement in the same vein as scientific advancement -- 
ie: the sharing of knowledge so that others may build on top of it.


So, I personally believe that putting a few words in about free software when 
talking about linux is not only nice but also necessary. That said, i still call 
the kernel linux and the OS whatever the distro is named. GNU/Linux ought to be 
a distro by the FSF.



cheers,
- steve

(*) I know that unfortunately that generalization about science is not really 
true, greed permeates science too where millions of dollars are spent in closed 
room research facilities without sharing results just so that the application of 
the science will eventually lead to making money. Here's an unlikely hero (and 
ultimately a hypocrite) who opposes this type of behavior:


http://tinyurl.com/2vrtv48
http://tinyurl.com/32bklxb
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Re: [Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux [was] Google drops Windows in their workplace

[Manokaran K]

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 1:59 PM, narendra sisodiya <
naren...@narendrasisodiya.com> wrote:

>Person who put tarch-light at starting point and visioned the things is
> more important the followers and implementors. For the very same reason,
> person who make a open standard specification is more important then open
> source coder. For the very same reason, CEO who vision a technology is more
> important then his employee. We put huge credit to Gandhi for Freedom Fight
> but it doesn't exclude contribution to other.
> Finally, we have Linus's Kernel with such a wide spread, just because
> of GPL license. RMS was the one who wrote it and put some rule which define
> software freedom. He RMS was not there, then there was no license. without
> Public license, Linux will be another Window.
>

IMO, the light/vision/implementations are more important than the person
from whose mind these things originate. Its understandable if these
visionaries fight/argue over bragging rights. But for proxies to indulge in
this is confounding!

Lets just raise a toast to the chef/chefs and enjoy the  pudding :-)

Also, IMO, there is no truth in arguments that claim that if person X did
not invent implement Y then the course of histroy would've changed. It is
the collective thought of the times that propel certain ideas to the
forefront. That people are associated with them is just a matter of detail.

Thats why we see many instances of simultaneous discoveries in many fields.
If Newton did not invent Calculus (if at all he did) Leibnitz was ready with
it. The only part history played here was to give Newton all the credit
discounting all the prior art of the Leibnitz, the orientals, hindus and the
arabs. And if Einstein did not give us the theory of relativity, Lorentz
would've done it.

To us, it does not matter. Its calculus and relativity that are more
important.

regds,
mano
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Re: [Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux [was] Google drops Windows in their workplace

[Yuvi Panda]

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 5:26 PM, Rahul Sundaram  wrote:
>> s/Redhat/Red hat.
> That would be.  s/Redhat/Red Hat.
That would be s/Redhat/Red Hat/


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Re: [Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux [was] Google drops Windows in their workplace

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 06/05/2010 03:42 PM, Arun SAG wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 8:47 AM, Kenneth Gonsalvewrote:
>
>   
>>> In fact, if I am not mistaken, Redhat maintains and
>>> develops a good part of it.
>>>   
>
> s/Redhat/Red hat.
>   

That would be.  s/Redhat/Red Hat.

Rahul
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Re: [Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux [was] Google drops Windows in their workplace

[Arun SAG]

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 8:47 AM, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:

>
>
> > In fact, if I am not mistaken, Redhat maintains and
> >develops a good part of it.


s/Redhat/Red hat.

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Re: [Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux [was] Google drops Windows in their workplace

[narendra sisodiya]

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 9:02 AM, Rahul Sundaram  wrote:

> On 06/05/2010 08:47 AM, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
> > wrong - you are under the mistaken impression that the GNU project has
> > developed and maintains the GNU toolchain. That is not correct. Many
> > individuals have done and are doing this - the only thing is that some of
> them
> > use the 'GNU' word. In fact, if I am not mistaken, Redhat maintains and
> > develops a good part of it. So without RMS and without GNU, the toolchain
> > would still exist and linux would still flourish. As far as I can see,
> those
> > projects that are directly developed and maintained by the GNU project do
> not
> > work properly and are mostly useless - like hurd.
> >
>
> Yes,  Red Hat does maintain or contribute significantly to several GNU
> projects including coreutils,  Glibc, GCC etc and while I understand
> your point, you seem to make a false distinction between directly and
> indirectly maintained projects from GNU.  GNU is a umbrella effort of
> the FSF to create a completely free software environment and there is
> participation from volunteers and multiple organizations,  commercial
> and otherwise.  FSF doesn't employ anyone to directly to work on any of
> the GNU projects anymore although they did in the past.  Some of the GNU
> projects are more successful than others but that is hardly remarkable.
>
> Rahul
>
>
Yes, I totally agree with Rahul..
We need to under that it was "Free software movement" and not "Free
software project".
Person who put tarch-light at starting point and visioned the things is
more important the followers and implementors. For the very same reason,
person who make a open standard specification is more important then open
source coder. For the very same reason, CEO who vision a technology is more
important then his employee. We put huge credit to Gandhi for Freedom Fight
but it doesn't exclude contribution to other.
 Finally, we have Linus's Kernel with such a wide spread, just because
of GPL license. RMS was the one who wrote it and put some rule which define
software freedom. He RMS was not there, then there was no license. without
Public license, Linux will be another Window.

PS: http://twitter.com/schestowitz/status/15426972227

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Re: [Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux [was] Google drops Windows in their workplace

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 06/05/2010 08:47 AM, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
> wrong - you are under the mistaken impression that the GNU project has 
> developed and maintains the GNU toolchain. That is not correct. Many 
> individuals have done and are doing this - the only thing is that some of 
> them 
> use the 'GNU' word. In fact, if I am not mistaken, Redhat maintains and 
> develops a good part of it. So without RMS and without GNU, the toolchain 
> would still exist and linux would still flourish. As far as I can see, those 
> projects that are directly developed and maintained by the GNU project do not 
> work properly and are mostly useless - like hurd. 
>   

Yes,  Red Hat does maintain or contribute significantly to several GNU
projects including coreutils,  Glibc, GCC etc and while I understand
your point, you seem to make a false distinction between directly and
indirectly maintained projects from GNU.  GNU is a umbrella effort of
the FSF to create a completely free software environment and there is
participation from volunteers and multiple organizations,  commercial
and otherwise.  FSF doesn't employ anyone to directly to work on any of
the GNU projects anymore although they did in the past.  Some of the GNU
projects are more successful than others but that is hardly remarkable.

Rahul

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Re: [Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux [was] Google drops Windows in their workplace

[Kenneth Gonsalves]

On Friday 04 June 2010 21:03:21 Arun SAG wrote:
> >  > Anyway, RMS summarises his views in this article:
> >  > http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html
> > [snip]
> >  
> 
> Tell me, What if there is no GNU, No RMS ? No Linux right?
> 

wrong - you are under the mistaken impression that the GNU project has 
developed and maintains the GNU toolchain. That is not correct. Many 
individuals have done and are doing this - the only thing is that some of them 
use the 'GNU' word. In fact, if I am not mistaken, Redhat maintains and 
develops a good part of it. So without RMS and without GNU, the toolchain 
would still exist and linux would still flourish. As far as I can see, those 
projects that are directly developed and maintained by the GNU project do not 
work properly and are mostly useless - like hurd. 
-- 
regards
kg
http://livejournal.com/lawgon
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Re: [Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux [was] Google drops Windows in their workplace

[narendra sisodiya]

On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 9:03 PM, Arun SAG  wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 6:13 PM, Kenneth Gonsalves  >wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > >yet I am still to see one post or person on this list in any way either
> > trying
> > >to understand linus's viewpoint or propagate it. Why?
> >
>
> So sweet! Now he got one :P
>
>
> >  > Anyway, RMS summarises his views in this article:
> >  > http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html
> > [snip]
> >  
> >
>
> Tell me, What if there is no GNU, No RMS ? No Linux right?
>
>

basically if 15 % belongs to GNU, then we must say GNU rather then following
to 1.5%
If GNU is not eligible term in your POV then Linux is also  not a eligible
term.
better always use like

Fedora is a GNU/Linux based Operating System.

'Linux Operating System' is a confusing term and must be avoided.

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Re: [Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux [was] Google drops Windows in their workplace

[Yuvi Panda]

On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 9:03 PM, Arun SAG  wrote:
> Tell me, What if there is no GNU, No RMS ? No Linux right?

By that logic, (to pick one), no Moore, so no Intel, so no Linux, right?
Or, no Minix, then no Linux, right?

We can't second guess history.

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Re: [Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux [was] Google drops Windows in their workplace

[Arun SAG]

On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 6:13 PM, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:

>
>
> >yet I am still to see one post or person on this list in any way either
> trying
> >to understand linus's viewpoint or propagate it. Why?
>

So sweet! Now he got one :P


>  > Anyway, RMS summarises his views in this article:
>  > http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html
> [snip]
>  
>

Tell me, What if there is no GNU, No RMS ? No Linux right?

-- 
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Re: [Ilugc] why GNU should not be added to linux [was] Google drops Windows in their workplace

[Kenneth Gonsalves]

as per request of the admin, subject changed (please drop the 'was' part in 
reply)

On Friday 04 June 2010 12:37:00 bhuvanesh kumar wrote:
> THAT IS NOT EXACTLY THE REASON FOR THE NAMING BEHIND GNU/Linux.

no need to shout!
> I suggest
> you people to see the film "Revolution OS" , or read some good books on the
> history of free software.He wanted to call linux systems GNU/Linux because
> linux is only a kernel and is not a complete operating system. A complete
>  os is a bundle of kernel and userland tools which is developed by GNU
>  project. Therefore he wants to call these combination GNU/Linux there is
>  NOTHING WRONG in people taking credit for their own work. Basically he
>  wanted people to take a look at why they took the pain to develop GNU and
>  think about the issues affecting software users and strive for freedom.

that is all RMS's viewpoint. Why does everyone give so much weight to him and 
none at all to Linus (who not only wrote and maintained the kernel all these 
years, but also has come up with another killer app in git - how many people 
can you point to who have come up with *two* killer apps in a lifetime?). And 
yet I am still to see one post or person on this list in any way either trying 
to understand linus's viewpoint or propagate it. Why? 

 Anyway, RMS summarises his views in this article: 
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html

to put it shortly, RMS and company thought of writing a kernel long before 
linus did - but could not (in fact they have been trying to do so for nearly 
30 years now but have utterly failed). Linus wrote it. So GNU people say 'we 
thought of it first so we want our share of credit'. No problem. But in our 
world the person who first implements anything gets the main credit and usually 
gets to name the outcome. Others cannot force a name on it. If Linus had 
agreed, no one would have any problem. He did not agree. So to foist the name 
and even refuse to talk to anyone who does not use the name as foisted is the 
height of childishness and is tantamount to petty jealousy. In the article 
mentioned above, there is a very amusing paragraph:


If we tried to measure the GNU Project's contribution in this way, what would 
we conclude? One CD-ROM vendor found that in their “Linux distribution”, GNU 
software was the largest single contingent, around 28% of the total source 
code, and this included some of the essential major components without which 
there could be no system. Linux itself was about 3%. (The proportions in 2008 
are similar: in the “main” repository of gNewSense, Linux is 1.5% and GNU 
packages are 15%.) So if you were going to pick a name for the system based on 
who wrote the programs in the system, the most appropriate single choice would 
be “GNU”.


linux is only 1.5%!! might as well remove it (and certainly with only a 1.5% 
share it has no right to find itself in any part of the name!) But the most 
important point is that linux and GNU combined are only 16.5% - a small 
minority. What about giving credit to the people who contributed the remaining 
83.5%? why are they ignored? who are they? why are their leaders not crying 
for credit in the name? one possible reason is that they are not jobless and 
are busy refining and adding to their contributions ;-)

let us look at it from another angle - what would have happened if Linus had 
not developed the kernel (it is known that he just did it for kicks and not 
part of the great scheme of freedom framed by RMS). Then GNU would have been 
useless and we would all still be using windows. ILUGC would not have come 
into existence - without a kernel GNU tools are of no use (and GNU people have 
proved that they are incapable of writing a usable kernel). So if anything 
Linus would be justified in insisting that GNU be called Linux/GNU. And do not 
forget that it is only because of the success of linux that RMS, GPL and GNU 
became famous. Without linux no one would have heard of them. 

No doubt RMS is a visionary - a good thing. We need visions - but if he cannot 
implement his visions he has no right to grab credit from those who can 
implement them. Case to point: he was the first to conceive of a free 
encyclopedia (he called it GNE - GNE is not an encyopedia). It was a failure - 
Wales implemented the wikipedia which was a success. No doubt RMS would have 
like to call it the GNE/wikipedia - but it won't work because it is an URL and 
if you type GNE/Wikipedia in the address bar you will not get wikipedia. He 
also had visions of a DVCS - but GNU Arch was another flop - whereas linus 
quietly produced git without any fanfare.

We owe a tremendous debt to Linus - and it is fitting that the OS is named 
after him (he did not name it). We also owe something to RMS and his friends - 
there are lots of things named after GNU - more than enough to keep any 
reasonable person happy. But this kind of renaming is not reasonable. I 
request those of us here who have benefited from the w