breakthrough on naming issue!

Posted Aug 10, 2004 16:12 UTC (Tue) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

I don't think there are any indvidual major features. When the average person thinks of "Linux," he thinks of a vast array of features that, perhaps surprisingly, all the systems calling themselves Linux mostly have in common. Some major components that deliver these features are: the Linux kernel, Bash, GNU ls etc., sysvinit, X, KDE/Gnome, and lots and lots of other software. The kernel is less than 1% of Linux in many ways: lines and bytes of code, development effort, pages of documentation (description), questions asked about "Linux" in public mailing lists.

So it's hard to see why we would define a class of OS based on the identity of that one component.

Posted Aug 12, 2004 15:50 UTC (Thu) by AJWM (subscriber, #15888) [Link]

I see no gain by calling an AIX system with the GNU tools "Linux".

Agreed, but that's not what the original poster was saying. AIX-5L is certainly Linux-like, and it and several other Unix-derived systems will run Linux binaries (of appropriate CPU architecture).

It's a lie.

It is similarly a lie to brand all the FLOSS tools supplied with most Linux (and many other OS) distros as "GNU tools". Many (most?) are not part of the GNU project and many are not even distributed under the GNU license, but some other free/open license.

Perhaps we do need yet another name. POSIX and UNIX both have rather rigid (and somewhat dated) requirements as to their use, you don't like "Linux" as a generic term (probably a good thing, it dilutes the trademark), and calling anything with a mish-mash of GNU, non-GNU project GPL'd, BSD, Apache, Artistic, CPL, etc, etc, licensed tools should hardly be called GNU/anything. "Freenix" has been used as a generic term to cover Linux, the BSDs, etc, but there can be vast "feel" differences between those. (Not necessarily from a user view if he's just using a graphic desktop, but certainly from an admin point of view.) Something that conveys the flavor of a modern, user-oriented unix -- "muonix", perhaps? (Pronounced "moonix", so as not to confuse it with some new electronics-like technology based on muons ;-)