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How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux in the default install?How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux in the default install?Posted Jun 1, 2011 8:32 UTC (Wed) by Aissen (subscriber, #59976)Parent article: How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux? I think an important point is left out: what about the *default* install ? The one most people will use. Because I doubt many distros install gdb,gcc by default, or KDE and Gnome.
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GNU developed the catalysts which others use Posted Jun 1, 2011 12:15 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
GCC and GDB are massive contributions to the system. Without them, many X.org, Linux, KDE, etc. etc. developers wouldn't have had a compiler and debugger.
GNU didn't just write the base components, it is also developed the necessary catalysts.
Even *BSD software has GNU to thank.
GNU developed the catalysts which others use Posted Jun 1, 2011 12:55 UTC (Wed) by Aissen (subscriber, #59976) [Link]
I'm not denying that those tools are useful, mind you. Development tools are very important, and I agree with you they are a necessary catalyst.
But my question was about the final result, which is measurable quite easily, and that most people (read: not just developers) will use : the software in the default install.
GNU developed the catalysts which others use Posted Jun 1, 2011 13:49 UTC (Wed) by jwakely (subscriber, #60262) [Link]
The default install almost certainly includes libstdc++, which is part of GCC
GNU developed the catalysts which others use Posted Jun 2, 2011 17:16 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
OK. So we should call it Carlini/Kosnik/Wakely/Linux (including extra contributor names in strict alphabetical order as their contributions rise above a certain threshold). If we get enough contributors within a sufficiently short timespan we can watch people choke to death as they try to speak the system's name!
GNU developed the catalysts which others use Posted Jun 1, 2011 13:52 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
Or another way to measure would be to look at the first X Mb worth of packages which are most commonly installed. Debian provides this info:
http://popcon.debian.org/
All values of X would be arbitrary. Maybe continue down the list for as long as the packages can fit on one CD?
Another measurement which might be even better (but is surely overly complicated) would be to use the popularity of each package as a weighting, and measure the whole list.
...but until there's a way to factor in GNU's contribution via catalysts, legal infrastructure, and organisation, all these measurements will undervalue GNU and will be jumped on and mislabelled as "empiric" by anti-GNU people (they're empiric in that they measure something repeatably, but they measure the wrong thing).
GNU developed the catalysts which others use Posted Jun 1, 2011 14:20 UTC (Wed) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link]
A meaningful value of X might come about if you select packages that implement the various parts of POSIX, which defines a unix-like operating system environment.
In between the libraries, syscalls and utilities, I think one would basically come up with what would amount to GNU+Linux.
What is a useful operating systems these days is a valid question. Are windowing systems included ? Desktop environments ? All the other useful software that has become indispensible to most but are outside of the scope of the specification?
But as far as a formally defined POSIX compliant operating system environment goes it's should be reasnoable to say that "What makes Linux UNIX is GNU, which is not UNIX."
Ofcourse, RMS must have framed the posix debate in the first place, since he named it, so this metric doesn't count :)
GNU developed the catalysts which others use Posted Jun 1, 2011 14:28 UTC (Wed) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link]
or, alternatively, "If GNU had been GU, Linux would be Lunix"
(with apologies for my direct follow-up post)
GNU developed the catalysts which others use Posted Jun 1, 2011 14:58 UTC (Wed) by ffaber (subscriber, #51868) [Link]
For the general user (who would use Windows otherwise):
Without the GNU project, there would be fewer other projects Posted Jun 1, 2011 16:42 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
Without the GNU project's work on development tools, legal infrastructure, and awareness of the importance of software freedom, half or most of the packages in a standard distro wouldn't exist.
As for what you find unpleasant - did you really think 28 years of campaigning and working on a public-interest project at the expense of various megacorporations could be a perfectly smooth ride with unanimity at every junction?
I agree that a desktop environment, windowing system, media player etc. should be in the system.
You're wrong about some of your suggestions for removal. The user might not use, for example, sed directly, but it gets used by scripts involved in keeping the system running. It's essential system software.
I'm also dubious about your claim that the GNU percentage would be much lower than 8%. I think it might be higher.
GNU developed the catalysts which others use Posted Jun 3, 2011 8:20 UTC (Fri) by PO8 (guest, #41661) [Link]
Just for the record, in 1991 Johnson PCC and dbx/adb were perfectly viable alternatives to GCC and GDB. Not nearly *as* good, mind you, but plenty good enough for the work that needed to be done. Technically, Johnson PCC was probably never "open source", but it was also tiny and simple, and would have been easy to replace with an open source equivalent. Somebody would have, too, if GCC hadn't been handed to them for free.
I was building commercial products using these tools as late as the late 1980s.
The big break for GCC actually came with the advent of C++. Up until GNU C++, the only available C++ implementation was AT&T's fairly horrific CFRONT preprocessor. Not sure I'm thanking the GNU folks for making this language viable, and at any rate it was never really used for fundamental infrastructure.
What did you think BSD used for tools before RMS helped them out, anyhow?
GNU developed the catalysts which others use Posted Jun 5, 2011 10:59 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
Thanks PO8, that's very interesting. I'll look into this more sometime.
Other people's accounts seem less optimistic about the other compilers that existed at the time. (RMS, Michael Tiemann, and others whose names I forget or don't know) I'll review those statements more critically next time.
Maybe those tools happened to work ok for your usage, but weren't good enough for larger/different projects? GNU was written in C, so it doesn't seem like the C++ frontend could be what made GCC important.
> Somebody would have, too, if
In all fairness, compiler development is littered with corpses of statements like this :-)
I think the fact that the GNU project actually did it, is what makes GNU special.
GNU developed the catalysts which others use Posted Jun 4, 2011 2:31 UTC (Sat) by fsateler (subscriber, #65497) [Link]
Well then it should be called <some old UNIX brand>/GNU/Linux, since without <some old UNIX brand> gcc, glibc and gdb would have never been possible to begin with!
Or perhaps WINE should be called Microsoft/WINE, since without MS Windows, WINE would not exist.
I think the argument does not make any sense at all.
GNU developed the catalysts which others use Posted Jun 5, 2011 10:51 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
One difference is that RMS's initial use of whatever system while writing GNU software was only as a temporary bootstrap, and it could have been any system (different developers surely used different systems - some Unix, some not).
GNU/Linux and the GNU development tools are developed by groups that communicate and collaborate to help each other. The GNU development tools are part of what makes GNU/Linux development continue.
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