GNU developed the catalysts which others use [LWN.net]

GNU developed the catalysts which others use

Posted Jun 1, 2011 13:52 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544)
In reply to: GNU developed the catalysts which others use by Aissen
Parent article: How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux?

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).

(Log in to post comments)

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):
Yes, windowing system is included.
Yes, a desktop environment is included.
Also add: a web browser, a mail client, an office suite, a multimedia player.
Useless: development tools, emacs, many many command line tools (awk, sed, ..).
With this setup (using the KDE desktop) the remaining of the GNU operating system are minimal. Much MUCH less than 8%.
We should be grateful for the GNU project and how it created the free software movement.
But the marginality of GNU in such a setup and the fact that often
FSF/RMS positions are "unpleasant" (copyright assignment, GFDL,
GPL V3 vs. V2, the Gnome project) are the main reasons why calling the
result GNU/Linux is wrong.

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.