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Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Wired Magazine has posted a lengthy look at Linus Torvalds. "He works from home as a fellow for the Open Source Development Lab, a corporate-funded consortium created to foster improvements to Linux. His commute is a walk down a flight of stairs to an office he shares with Tove, his wife of nine years. It's jammed with Linux-related books, few of which he's read, and looks out onto the narrow walkway between his home and the neighbor's. The early July day he invites me to visit is his first official one as an OSDL employee, but it isn't long after my arrival that he excuses himself to take out the garbage because Tove nags him about the smell."
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Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 15, 2003 17:25 UTC (Wed) by TheOneKEA (subscriber, #615) [Link]

What an excellent article! I think this is one of the best articles that has ever been written about Linus. It shows perfectly just how "normal" the chief architect of Linux truly is.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 15, 2003 17:40 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

nah, I didn't like it. The journalist is dumb, he lies to people knowing that the majority of his readership won't know any different.

"The creator of the Linux operating system"...
"Torvalds' humble office is the de facto world headquarters for an operating system now used by more than 18 million people around the globe"...

Ok, people disagree about naming the OS "GNU/Linux" Vs. "Linux", but I think we all agree that Linus didn't create an operating system.

Leader of the Free World?
"I don't _want_ people using Linux for ideological reasons.
I think ideology sucks." (linus, defending his use of proprietary BitKeeper)

(realise that I'm knocking the journalist, not Linus)

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 15, 2003 18:14 UTC (Wed) by bdw (guest, #16047) [Link]

How are these lies? I doubt that the journalist had any malicious intent.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 15, 2003 18:32 UTC (Wed) by odie (guest, #738) [Link]

It could be argued that it is his duty as a reporter to check some fundamental facts before he writes. Exactly what it is his interviewee is famous for is by many accounts a rather fundamental fact.

In this article, much of the credit that belongs with FSF and the GNU project is placed on Linus instead. This is quite sad, as credit is an important driving force among free software developers.

Yet another reason why more people should start calling the system by it's proper name.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 15, 2003 18:56 UTC (Wed) by odie (guest, #738) [Link]

Oh, and by the way, the article further claims that Richard Stallman demanded the term GNU/Linux be used for the Linux kernel in this article. I seriously doubt that. More likely, he wanted the term Linux to refer to Linux, and the term GNU/Linux to refer to a GNU system using the Linux kernel. This misunderstanding is much to widespread, but I still think a reporter should have checked his facts and not just dismiss Stallman and the GNU project as failures trying to cash in on Linus' good name.

It also mentions Minix in passing as a "frustratingly inadequate" UNIX knockoff. I beleive Minix was very good at what it did; teach operating system internals. It was not intended as full-blown operating system for actual everyday use. I've learned a lot from Minix, and so did Linus, I beleive.

While perhaps a decent look at the current status of Linus and Linux politics, it is a horrible misrepresentation of history.

Re: Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 15, 2003 20:25 UTC (Wed) by pj (subscriber, #4506) [Link]

Without getting into the whole GNU/Linux vs. Linux debate (I've got better ways to waste my time), I can still point out that the article says:

The QL, one of the world's first 32-bit boxes, provided Torvalds with his motivation for writing Linux: He wanted an OS for his home computer that would be as stable and strong as Unix, which he used on campus. At first he turned to a knockoff called Minix, but in time found it frustratingly inadequate as well.

Which is quite accurate. It doesn't portray Minix as completely inadequate, just 'frustrating inadequate' to be 'an OS for his computer ... as stable and strong as Unix'... which as you pointed out, isn't what it was intended for anyway. I don't read any disparagement of Minix itself in that statement more than I would if someone said that screwdrivers don't work so well to hammer in nails.

Taking offense where it's not intended is one of the best ways to get people to ignore you. When I was growing up, we called it 'crying wolf'.

--pj

(And yes, I fully expect for the followup post to be 'YHBT'.)

Re: Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 15, 2003 20:49 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Ah, it's a judgement call. Maybe the journalist should have noted that Linus mistakenly turned to an teaching tool when looking for a UNIX. Instead, the journalist just calls Minix "a knockoff".

(and who's taking offense / going to be ignored / crying wolf?)

Anyway, we're sweating the small details at this point...

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 15, 2003 21:14 UTC (Wed) by namaseit (guest, #13940) [Link]

No RMS actually did demand that Linux be changed to GNU/Linux. Of course
that was after he demanded it be called "LiGNUx". Buy the book "Rebel Code"
its all in there.

no, no, no

Posted Oct 15, 2003 21:36 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

This is just not true, and with an tiny bit of thought, anyone could see it's not true.

"demands". huh? How could he possibly make a *demand*?
What terrible thing did he do to anyone who didn't give in to his demand?

I agree that Rebel Code is a great book, but you are lying about it's content.

RMS *asked* that people call the OS GNU/Linux. How could he possibly do more than ask?

no, no, no

Posted Oct 15, 2003 21:51 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

"RMS *asked* that people call the OS GNU/Linux. How could he possibly do more than ask?"

As a general rule, RMS will refuse to talk with you if you will not adopt his language; it goes well beyond "GNU/Linux." Try interviewing him sometime. I've also had other FSF employees tell me that they would be forbidden to talk to me if I didn't adopt their terminology in the relevant articles.

On the other hand, the article says "Stallman insists Torvalds' work should properly be called GNU/Linux", which is very clearly not the case. RMS has always been clear that calling the kernel "Linux" is just fine, and Linus's work does not extend beyond the kernel.

no, no, no

Posted Oct 15, 2003 22:34 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

RMS will refuse to talk with you if you will not adopt his language ... FSF employees tell me that they would be forbidden to talk to me if I didn't adopt their terminology in the relevant articles

yes. I agree that this is true. My issue is with peoples implications that he somehow forces people to do something (demands), or that it's not fair if he won't give them an interview.

I've spoken with RMS and most of the staff at FSF, they're all reasonable people. The word "forbidden" doesn't sound good. It could have been a bad choice of words on their part. FSF exists to promote and defend Free Software, software freedom (in general), and GNU. I think it's reasonable for them to turn away people that want to verbally devalue these things.

no, no, no

Posted Oct 16, 2003 12:12 UTC (Thu) by cate (subscriber, #1359) [Link]

"I've also had other FSF employees tell me that they would be forbidden to talk to me if I didn't adopt their terminology in the relevant articles."

Could I ask what "their terminology" is? I'm courious to see if the terms are reasonable ("be forbidden to talk" :-) ) or if it is the usual FSF doctrinism.

no, no, no

Posted Oct 16, 2003 12:46 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Could I ask what "their terminology" is?"

In this case, I was told to change "Linux" to "GNU/Linux" or that employee would be forbidden to talk to me in the future. I was able to remove "Linux" from the story altogether, which was a solution all could live with.

GNU/Solaris?

Posted Oct 17, 2003 0:58 UTC (Fri) by rriggs (subscriber, #11598) [Link]

Judging by the tools in general use on most Sun boxes, I would expect that RMS will start asking Mr McNeally to start referring to his company's OS as GNU/Solaris -- especially now that the GNOME desktop is replacing CDE. We all know that the "G" in GNOME stands for GNU.

Sun already calls Linux, "GNU/Linux", so it should not take them long to get used to the new nomenclature.

GNU/Solaris?

Posted Oct 17, 2003 1:27 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

I think RMS would disagree, for the same reasons he disagrees with the name "GNU/BSD" for FreeBSD, OpenBSD, or NetBSD:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#bsd

Although it is a pity that SUN don't acknowledge the GNU software, and other Free Software that they use with their system.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 16, 2003 9:41 UTC (Thu) by leandro (guest, #1460) [Link]

> RMS actually did demand that Linux be changed to GNU/Linux

When speaking about the whole OS, not about the kernel. Even RMS himself makes a point of calling the kernel only Linux, and his own Hurd.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 15, 2003 21:27 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

Oh, and by the way, the article further claims that Richard Stallman demanded the term GNU/Linux be used for the Linux kernel in this article. I seriously doubt that.

Actually, for quite a while now he always insists on that, and generally refuses interview requests otherwise.

RMS claims that "To bring [the free GNU system] into reach, I decided to adapt and use existing pieces of free software wherever that was possible. For example, I decided at the very beginning to use TeX as the principal text formatter; a few years later, I decided to use the X Window System rather than writing another window system for GNU." Yet somehow, linux people aren't allowed to claim that they decided to "adapt and use" existing pieces of free software (GNU, BSD, X11, and a lot else) to create the Linux system.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 15, 2003 21:52 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

There can be no definitive answer to this, but we all make a choice about what to call the system.

I don't think it would be reasonable of me to write a text editor, adapt existing Free Software around it, and all it CTextOS. The magnitude is different, but I also don't think it's reasonable for the Linux hackers to claim they made an OS by adapting exisiting Free Software. (stone soup)

RMS said "we need an OS", so he wrote and editor, to code with, then a compiler, then a debugger, a lex and yacc, he founded a non-profit to organise funding and they wrote a libc, a bash, and ld, tar, gzip, grep, find, fileutils, shellutils (and 50 other packages). Kernel? we'll do it later.

Seperately, someone wrote a kernel, the final piece required for GNU. When the developers of the kernel looked for software, "What luck", it was all there for them. They slotted their kernel in, and said "Look, we've made an OS!".

(I don't mean to imply malicious intent on the part of the Linux hackers, it was just an unfortunate order of events, which is correctable)

The {GNU/,}Linux name debate

Posted Oct 15, 2003 22:19 UTC (Wed) by raph (guest, #326) [Link]

It's probably not very smart of me to weigh in on this debate, but I thought I'd share some thoughts in favor of just "Linux".

I don't think the question of whether a {GNU/,}Linux system is a Linux kernel with a whole bunch of userland code, or the GNU project software packaged up with a kernel and a bunch of other utilities, has an objective answer. However, it does clearly depend on the user. Programmers tend to use gcc, emacs, gdb, flex, bison, and other GNU tools heavily. Less sophisticated users don't - for them, the main tools are likely to be a Web browser, OpenOffice, and so on. And, finally, the space where {GNU/,}Linux really shines is the so-called LAMP (Linux / Apache / MySQL / P{HP,ython,erl}) space. Not one of those has any significant contribution from GNU.

If you quantify the "system" by how well it duplicates an early-'90s Unix workstation, obviously GNU software plays a large role. If you look at the new applications that have been developed since then (Web client and server, word processor, MySQL), GNU plays very little role.

There's another way to look at the name - as an expression of goals. Linux is hugely successful, based largely on the way the project is run. The project is not perfect, but meritocracy is strong. Look at difficult issues such as scalable polling - lots of things get tried, consensus develops about what's best, and eventually that's adopted. By contrast, the HURD project takes lots of things as articles of faith (microkernel is good, mmmmkay?) despite mounting evidence against them.

In sum, I want my system to look more like Linux and less like GNU. I believe the GNU project deserves lots of credit for their accomplishments, but I do not believe it's stinting them to call the system "Linux", any more than it's stinting the X consortium, Apache, or Mozilla to call it "GNU/Linux". Therefore, I will often use the term "Linux" to refer to the broader system and the community surrounding it.

The {GNU/,}Linux name debate

Posted Oct 15, 2003 22:59 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Ok, I think GNU is a more accurate name than Linux, because the goal of GNU was to make a Free OS, so they wrote all the tools needed to make a Free OS, and they wrote the libs and utilities for this OS to be useful. But I'll put this away for a minute.

The problem with the term "Linux" is that it has become detatched from Free Software (and even OpenSource). It has be embraced by the marketing departments of IBM and other proprietary software houses. People say it is more convenient to just say "Linux", but I think we'll pay dearly for this in years to come.

When we devalue the GNU origins of the OS, we hide the freedoms that it gives. People won't know what they really have, and they won't know how much work, often unpaid, went into making it. When people don't know that this OS gives them freedom, they'll trade this freedom away. They'll install a bunch of proprietary apps on top of it, and we'll be back to file format lock-in, back-up software that uses secret formats, spyware, overactive DRM, etc.

So I choose GNU/Linux, and I ask others to do the same. And I try to convince them if they disagree :)

The {GNU/,}Linux name debate

Posted Oct 15, 2003 23:41 UTC (Wed) by raph (guest, #326) [Link]

Your points are well taken. Educating people about the importance of free software is important indeed. I'm perhaps less optimistic than you about the potential for name choices to be effective towards that goal, though.

Your note also helps clarify a point I was trying to make - the choice between "Linux" and "GNU/Linux" depends on your goals. Both software quality and software freedom are important. To me personally, probably equally so. If the latter is much more important, in other words, if when push comes to shove you'll prefer significantly inferior free software to available nonfree software, then it stands to reason you'll prefer GNU/Linux.

Fortunately, given that the free software community is thriving, we ever more rarely need to make that choice. For someone such as myself who finds quality and freedom roughly equal in importance, it would then be reasonable to compare the freedom track record of a quality exemplar with the quality track record of a freedom exemplar.

Perhaps it's most useful to consider "Linux" and "GNU/Linux" to be descriptive terms, rather than trying to prescribe their use. In that light, Oracle, no great friend of GNU, runs on Linux, while Debian is a distribution of the GNU/Linux system. This reflects common usage fairly accurately. I think it's quite common for the be boundaries between these sorts of terms not to be drawn in bright lines, especially in free software.

Actually, I might as well come right out and admit it. The real reason I prefer "Linux" is that my middle name is the same as the first name of it's creator, named after the same person (Linus Pauling), and I just don't want to give up any of the glory that's (however indirectly) reflected on me thus. :)

The {GNU/,}Linux name debate

Posted Oct 16, 2003 4:31 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

I resolve it by saying just "GNU".

My systems run GNU. Yeah, there's a Linux kernel in there, and XFree86, and GNOME, and even OpenOffice. Whatever. Without the GNU project it would all likely not have happened.

The {GNU/,}Linux name debate

Posted Oct 16, 2003 21:52 UTC (Thu) by djabsolut (guest, #12799) [Link]

I do not mean to devalue all the well reasoned arguments provided here, but there's something obvious missing (that the above author has touched on): the "Linux" name is far more catchy than "GNU" or "GNU/Linux". Whether we like it or not, psychology (as in how the human mind works beyond logic) plays a large role here. How often would you use "GNU/Linux" in a conversation? You wouldn't: it'd be abbreviated to "Linux".
 
What's more, and also whether we like it or not, the name "Linux" embodies what GNU stands for, when looking at the Open Source movement from the point of view of an average technically versed Joe/Jane.

The {GNU/,}Linux name debate

Posted Oct 17, 2003 2:57 UTC (Fri) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]

...the "Linux" name is far more catchy than "GNU" or "GNU/Linux".

Heh. I knew that if I read enough posts I would eventually find someone who knew what they were talking about.

It's a matter of taste, of course, but four out of five computer users think the name "GNU/Linux" sucks. If RMS would devote less time and energy to enforcing GNU/Speech he would have more time to think up a better name.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 15, 2003 23:49 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

Seperately, someone wrote a kernel, the final piece required for GNU. When the developers of the kernel looked for software, "What luck", it was all there for them. They slotted their kernel in, and said "Look, we've made an OS!".

That's not how the GNU webpage describes it:

"The people who combined Linux with the GNU system were not aware that that's what their activity amounted to. They started with Linux, the kernel, and added GNU to it a piece at a time. After a while they had something that was more GNU than Linux, but they didn't realize that, and they called it "Linux" even though that name was no longer appropriate for what they had. It took a few years for us to realize what a problem this was and ask people to correct the practice."

And this argument is what many disagree with. By linecount it may be more GNU than Linux, but by linecount it's also vastly more Mozilla/KDE/ OpenOffice than GNU. Bits and pieces were added to the Linux kernel and bare-bones system purely for utility, not for ideological reasons. (Your own arguments are more ideological -- "this will spread the message of free software" -- than based on history or fair allocation of credit. Ideologies are fine so long as you don't impose them on others.) The FSF can have their own linux distribution and call it GNU/Linux (as Debian does) but they cannot insist that Red Hat and others do the same.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 16, 2003 0:45 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

> Your own arguments are more ideological

Yes, I see freedom as the most important goal, but I also think that the GNU project made the most important total contributions.

It was the GNU projecteers that decided to make an OS. The decision alone isn't important, but they went on to develop all the boring software packages that an OS needed, and the packages that developers needed in order to write more software.

Free Software allows us to act as a community, we need to start thinking like one. The existence of GCC, make, binutils, the auto-tools, and GDB does not just affect programmers. They are the reason we have so much Free Software.

We need GNU ld, and GNU libc in order for our applications to run. We need Bash, shellutils, fileutils, gzip, tar, grep, findutils and a bunch of other utils so that we could have a working system. Now, even if fewer end users use them, they are are used by all distros for boot scripts, package installation, build scripts, and a bunch of sys admin tasks.

And you probably know that there is over 250 other GNU packages I haven't mentioned, that do various tasks, or allow developers do various tasks that help you. And that the GNU project developed the licenses that have held the majority of Free Software projects together for over a decade? I think that's worth a four letter prefix. (and maybe a donation)

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 17, 2003 19:34 UTC (Fri) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

>Free Software allows us to act as a community, we need to start thinking like one. The existence of GCC, make, binutils, the auto-tools, and GDB does not just affect programmers. They are the reason we have so much Free Software.

Absolutely. Some might say that RMS is just one of a long line of people that were fundamental contributors to the foundations of the open source ecosystem (Kernighan and Ritchie, Larry Wall, Guido, etc.) but the difference is that Richard created his works with the express intention of creating the kind of community and collaboration we have today. He didn't know it would get so big, of course (because of the rapid communication made possible by the internet) but his intention in creating the GPL was to make sure that a mutually beneficial ecosystem of development and creativity could flourish unhindered by the kind of power-hungry greedmongering we see all around us (names and logos need not be mentioned.) His single-minded and tightly focused personality was just what the doctor ordered to keep the message clear and unambiguous: when people are free to share, everyone benefits. It's that simple.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 15, 2003 21:55 UTC (Wed) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]

No. RMS has never said that the KERNEL should be called anything but
Linux.

RMS wants the SYSTEM to be called GNU/Linux, as it is (in his eyes and
those of many other people) essentially the combination of the Linux
kernel with software making the GNU operating system he had worked to
build since about 1984.

RMS makes the distinction between the Linux kernel and the operating
system built on top of it. You should too, no matter what you call the
result.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 16, 2003 0:02 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

No. RMS has never said that the KERNEL should be called anything but Linux.

Point conceded.

RMS makes the distinction between the Linux kernel and the operating system built on top of it. You should too, no matter what you call the result.

I think the distinction is a bit overrated. The kernel defines the OS in a pretty fundamental way. Nearly all the software I use compiles with no patches on both Linux and FreeBSD (and, I imagine, on other BSDs too). There is very little in the userland that would change this; even if one system has incompatible libraries with the other, one can fix it with a few #ifdef's and some rewritten functions. It is the kernel that manages devices and hardware, starts programs, schedules, does memory management, swaps, and does everything else that defines the distinctions in the two operating systems; if the kernel is missing a feature, there is little you can do There's a good reason why the kernel was traditionally called /vmunix.

Outside of GNU Zealotland, there is no OS that considers itself a distinct project from its kernel. It is an accident of history that the Linux kernel is developed separately from much of the userland; but my guess is that most userland developers consider themselves "Linux developers", not "GNU/Linux" developers.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 16, 2003 4:40 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

I take issue with the remark, "The kernel defines the OS in a pretty fundamental way." I can set up a Debian GNU system with a NetBSD kernel. The resulting system is a GNU system. The kernel is just another package among many. Even the BSDs are utterly dependent on the GNU project, as much as their more whacko participants may gripe about it, and the rest try to hide it.

People trying to sweep that debt under the rug is the reason for this conflict. We all run GNU. Bravo to Linus and Linux for their part.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 16, 2003 16:48 UTC (Thu) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]

Outside of GNU Zealotland, there is no OS that considers itself a distinct project from its kernel.

Outside of GNU/Linux land, there is no OS that is pieced together from so many disparate parts.

The closest would be the BSDs, but notice that the BSDs have the OS and the ports, while the Linux distros have every piece of software in packages on fairly equal footing. The BSDs periodically import code from external sources into their tree, but they do their development within their own tree.

It is an accident of history that the Linux kernel is developed separately from much of the userland;

Yes, but also a quite relevant fact. When the C library and the kernel are developed independently, that's significant.

but my guess is that most userland developers consider themselves "Linux developers", not "GNU/Linux" developers.

Actually I'd guess most of them consider themselves either "free software" developers or "open source" developers, since their code generally runs far beyond the Linux arena. Those who are writing applications as "Linux" or "GNU/Linux" developers are needlessly myopic, and need to be introduced to the wider Unix world.

BTW, I generally say "Linux" for the whole system just out of simplicity and ease of communication, but I would never argue that it's the more correct term for the whole system. (Actually I often call the system by the distribution name, since that defines the OS somewhat better than either the kernel or GNU do.)

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 16, 2003 23:52 UTC (Thu) by daenzer (subscriber, #7050) [Link]

You probably missed the word 'kernel'.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 17, 2003 3:06 UTC (Fri) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]

...but I think we all agree that Linus didn't create an operating system.

No, we don't.

Since there's no universally accepted definition of what constitutes an OS and what doesn't, it leaves the question as to whether Linus wrote one or not open for (seemingly endless) debate.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 16, 2003 14:48 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

I did find it a bit odd that the article minimized the current contribution of GNU. As far as I know, the kernel requires a number of GNU versions of tools to build, and there are many tools it uses of which only GNU versions are normally used. Furthermore, the kernel developers work closely with the GNU libc developers, because most of the interface to the kernel is through glibc. The stuff that Linus manages is not GNU at all, and nothing that is particularly mentioned in the article is GNU, but everything that isn't mentioned in the article that's important for the stuff that is mentioned is GNU.

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 16, 2003 18:14 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

The article stated that the Linux kernel now exceeds six million lines of code, but implies that RMS made no significant contribution other than ideology and the GPL. It does not mention that any distribution based on the Linux kernel will contain far more than six million lines of code that is copyright FSF, or that the tools that Linus used to develop Linux with were all written in part by Stallman.

RMS often underestimates the work it took to go from the very good collection of GNU tools that he supervised the construction of (or recruited volunteers to supervise the construction of), and to then produce a complete, functioning operating system. Neither RMS nor Linus did that work. The real unsung heroes are people like Peter McDonald, who did SLS, the first Linux distro that a non-genius could install; Patrick Volkering, who did Slackware, as well as the founders of Debian and Red Hat (note that FSF provided the funding to start Debian, though Debian didn't really take off until the FSF got out of the way).

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 16, 2003 23:53 UTC (Thu) by odie (guest, #738) [Link]

"RMS often underestimates the work it took to go from the very good collection of GNU tools [...] to then produce a complete, functioning operating system."

You mean like this passage from the FSF web site:
"Integrating a complete system as a distribution that would work ``out of the box'' was a big job, too. It required [blabla]. The people who developed the various system distributions made a substantial contribution. "

Snipped from the page on GNU/Linux, prominently linked from the front page, where the FSFs position on the term GNU/Linux is declared. This page is well written and clears up much of the controversy surrounding the use of the term.

I agree with you that perhaps the FSF should use more of this type of language. Not because they are unclear now, but because many are overly wary of the foundation's (and especially Richard Stallman's) supposed zealotry.

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