Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Leader of the Free World (Wired)

Posted Oct 16, 2003 16:48 UTC (Thu) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054)
In reply to: Leader of the Free World (Wired) by rsidd
Parent article: Leader of the Free World (Wired)

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.)

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