Your LWN articles

 
You write:
 
> Describing the GNU system as "utilities" is quite an understatement.
> GNU is not a set of utilities--GNU is an operating system. The
> GNU/Linux system is pretty much the same as GNU, but not entirely
> the same, because it has Linux in it too.
 
> I appreciate Torvalds' contribution to the GNU/Linux system. I
> credit Torvalds (not hypothetical gods) for this work, and that's
> one reason I mention his contribution in the name of the operating
> system.
 
> I also appreciate that Torvalds' kernel would have mattered little
> for computer users' freedom, if not for the fact that we had already
> produced most of a free operating system for it to fit in. Giving
> him equal mention is more than fair.
 
The hypocritical thing about this is that you don't apply the
standards you demand from others to yourself.
 
A working GNU system requires a collection of basically Free Software
from a host of different sources. For example, most of the networking
stuff is typically taken from BSD, the windowing environments are
from X11, and so forth and so on. Some counts have indicated that
about a third of the identifiable portions from a GNU system are
actually GPLed, and only a small ratio of those are part of the GNU
project proper.
 
You feel you are entitled to call the resulting system "GNU" because
the GNU project had a vision of an entirely free system and
concentrated on providing those pieces of infrastructure that could
not freely be adopted from other free sources.
 
But exactly the same was done by Torvalds, other Linux developers and
distribution maintainers: they also took a look at what was available
and concentrated on providing those pieces of infrastructure that was
still missing in order to obtain a complete system meeting their
demands. At the time they were doing this, there was no such thing
as a complete GNU system.
 
While you consider it outrageous that those putting a complete system
together might not name it the way you would have named a similar
(but quite different system) had you completed work on it before that
time, you feel quite satisfied assuming that all of the various
contributors to such a system should be entirely happy to have their
individual work subsumed unter the "GNU" title, even if it had never
been intended as part of the GNU project.
 
The components of a GNU system are all intended as meaningful parts of
a complete system, but not necessarily as part of a particular system:
they are more versatile than that, and fit a lot of environments.
 
Now let us hypothetically assume that a GNU system actually consisted
to a majority from parts done specifically by and for the GNU project.
If an artist has in the creation of a work used only paints from a
particular manufacturer, does that mean that the resulting work is
that from the paint manufacturer, and that the paint manufacturer
should be able to choose the name? Hardly.
 
A situation may be conceivable where several paints would produced
particularly for a certain work, with particular pigments in it, and
given the artist freely. Would that make the title of the work
something to be chosen by the manufacturer? Hardly, unless the
manufacturer explicitly contracted for those paints, or commissioned
the entire work. Even in that case, an interference like this would
be generally considered distasteful since it interferes with one of
the basic artistic freedoms. And was not freedom something this was
all about?
 
This is the main problem with your naming crusade: even disregarding
the discrepancy between your demands for credit and your recognition
for that of others, and disregarding any discussions about your moral
or legal or whatever rights to it, the main problem is that it appears
distasteful. The amount of animosity and alienation you collect with
that stance vastly exceeds any possible gains in recognition you could
expect.
 
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
Email: David.Kastrup@t-online.de