Principal contributors of the core system, eh? [LWN.net]

Principal contributors of the core system, eh?

Posted Jun 7, 2002 0:13 UTC (Fri) by xtifr (subscriber, #143)
In reply to: Principal contributor? by morhippo
Parent article: Re: it's not GNU/Linux; it's GNU

X11 and KDE may be the biggest things on your system, but on many, many GNU/Linux systems, they're not there at all. My servers tend to have the Linux Kernel, a bunch of GNU software, and one or two server applications (such as Apache or Sendmail and sshd). My desktop has Linux and GNU and X11, but no gnome or kde or apache or sendmail. When you look at all these systems set up by all kinds of different people for different purposes, what do they have in common? The kernel and the GNU utilities/libraries. That's pretty much it. And most of that irreducible core system, by weight, is GNU. The optional addons like x11/kde/apache/whatever may be large, but they are optional, and thus, secondary.

I personally have no objections to people referring to the system informally as "Linux". I usually do myself. But this tired, flawed counter-argument about how "everyone whose code might be installed on a system deserves as much credit as the FSF" is just plain silly. There is more to an OS than just the kernel, but that doesn't mean that every optional application or game is really part of the OS.

(Log in to post comments)

Principal contributors of the core system, eh?

Posted Jun 7, 2002 16:41 UTC (Fri) by DeletedUser342 ((unknown), #342) [Link]

You rightly said that the GNU tools are important and essential on _your_ systems/servers and that there is nothing else that is equally important (besides the kernel). Well, that's nice for you. I, on the other hand, use my machine as workstation. I have completely different priorities and KDE is more perceptibale and more important to me than all the GNU tools. Sure, the system might not run if I would remove all those tools, but that's not the point. The point is that X and KDE are primary for me and GNU is only secondary.

Linux is the industry-wide established name. If you want to use a different one, feel free to do so. But please do not try to force things on others that don't make sense to them.

All this debate is completely ideological.

Principal contributors of the core system, eh? - Well, yes

Posted Jun 8, 2002 5:51 UTC (Sat) by DeletedUser1800 ((unknown), #1800) [Link]

You rightly said that the GNU tools are important and essential on _your_ systems/servers and that there is nothing else that is equally important (besides the kernel). Well, that's nice for you. I, on the other hand, use my machine as workstation. I have completely different priorities and KDE is more perceptibale and more important to me than all the GNU tools. Sure, the system might not run if I would remove all those tools, but that's not the point. The point is that X and KDE are primary for me and GNU is only secondary.

I would suggest, then, that you de-install all the GNU tools from your system - they are just wasting space and not being used. The fact is that without X, KDE, Gnome, etc. the system will still boot and be usable. Without either Linux or the GNU tools/libs this is not the case. THAT is why GNU and Linux are the key components and the rest is secondary.

All this debate is completely ideological.

You noticed. That may be because the FSF is firstly an ideological organisation. I realise ideology over anything but the dollar sign is off the corporate radar, but that doesn't invalidate it.