GNU & Linux??? [LWN.net]

From:	 Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net>
To:	 rms@gnu.org
Subject: GNU & Linux???
Date:	 25 May 2002 23:39:16 -0500
Cc:	 krooger@debian.org, letters@lwn.net

Mr. Stallman,

> It is not wrong to shorten the name GNU/Linux to GNU.  The system is
> basically GNU.  There are three reasons why I say "GNU/Linux":
> 
> * To distinguish it from GNU properly speaking, which uses the Hurd.
> 
> * To give Linus a share of the credit.  It would be ungentlemanly
> to ask people to stop giving him credit.

Gack!!  

Every night when you lay down to sleep, you should thank 
${DEITY} that Linus came along to spread the GNU utilities 
beyond academia.  

In the past 11 years, _at_least_ 100,000 man-hours of effort 
have gone into that kernel.  GNU has been working on Hurd since 
_way_ before Linux came out, and _still_ isn't at v1.0!  

For you then to say "It would be ungentlemanly to ask people 
to stop giving him credit" takes way more chutzpah than in all 
of NYC & Miami Beach combined.

-- 
+---------------------------------------------------------+
| Ron Johnson, Jr.        Home: ron.l.johnson@cox.net     |
| Jefferson, LA  USA      http://ronandheather.dhs.org:81 |
|                                                         |
| "I have created a government of whirled peas..."        |
|   Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 12-May-2002,                   |
!   CNN, Larry King Live                                  |
+---------------------------------------------------------+

(Log in to post comments)

Wrong!

Posted Jun 6, 2002 12:21 UTC (Thu) by sam (guest, #1329) [Link]

Wrong, try again.

What a lot of people forget is that, if Linux had not come along, a lot of people who contributed to Linus' kernel would have contributed to the HURD instead. My guess is that the HURD would have been a usable kernel by 1994 or 1995 if Linux was not around. Instead, the GNU people concentrated their efforts on making the GNU userland tools a lot better, and put the HURD on the back burner.

Linux sped things up by about four years and caused the GNU system to be mis-named.

People who flame RMS for wanting more credit are generally woefully ignorant of the history behing the GNU vision and how it made Linux possible in 1991.

- Sam

Wrong!

Posted Jun 6, 2002 17:09 UTC (Thu) by Steve_Baker (subscriber, #265) [Link]

You presume that the slow development of the HURD can only be attributed to the success of Linux, however you proceed from a false assumption. There were many more factors in the success of Linux than mear timing.

First there are the design differences, not everyone agrees that the Microkernel approach is best. Lest we forget that the BSDs still remain far more popular than the HURD. I'd wager that the BSDs would have obtained the lionshare of attention in the absence of Linux. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly there is the development environment itself. For all the openness that the GPL imparts, historically the GNU development process has been at least percieved to be far less open than even BSDs', and principally due to the cults of personality that the GNU project harbors.

Linux was the right project, at the right time, with the right license and above all, with the right lead developer.