no gnu [LWN.net]

no gnu

Posted Aug 21, 2009 6:55 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333)
In reply to: no gnu by rsidd
Parent article: 40 years of Unix (BBC)

> Um, yes, Linux (the kernel) is the main reason we have a free OS in widespread use today. If GNU hadn't existed, Linus would probably have borrowed from BSD and elsewhere (a huge part of a running Linux system has BSD roots even today). If Linux hadn't existed, the FSF would still not have a usable operating system, and we'd be running either some form of BSD or a proprietary system.

Hrm.

I can run GNU/kFreeBSD or GNU/Solaris and have a much more Linux-like operating system then then if you took Linux and tried to run something else on top of it.

Face it. It's much much easier to take the Linux out of GNU/Linux and have a fully viable and familar operating system then it is to take to take the 'GNU' out of it and use Linux with something else.

Linux kernel is certainly very important and it is the poster child for opern source-done-right, but GNU portions are far more critical to the operation system I use everyday. I can replace Linux with at least 4 other kernels and still be able to do most everything I do on "linux", but I couldn't do the same with GNU software.

I think that it would been much more likely that the Linux kernel itself would of been rejected in favor of the already established BSD kernels and other things.

After all was Linux that started off with the 'You must not charge any money' license, not GNU. In fact I think that having Linux kernel under the GPL license is one of the reasons for it's success, and that is certainly due to RMS and the GNU folks (since they created the license in the first place)

I don't give a shit if people want to call it GNU/Linux or whatever. The way it looks to me now, considuring the portability of GNU and the ability to run the same environment I use every day on multiple different kernels that it would actually be more accurate to say 'I use GNU OS' rather then to say 'I use Linux OS'.

Either statement is incredibly inaccurate, of course.

no gnu

Posted Aug 21, 2009 11:42 UTC (Fri) by stevenb (guest, #11536) [Link] (4 responses)

> It's much much easier to take the Linux out of GNU/Linux and have
> a fully viable and familar operating system then it is to take (...)
> the 'GNU' out of it and use Linux with something else.

Hmm, taking the 'GNU' out, isn't that what the Android folks did, more or less?

no gnu

Posted Aug 21, 2009 20:45 UTC (Fri) by eparis123 (guest, #59739) [Link]

They still use gcc ;), but your point is still true.

no gnu

Posted Aug 22, 2009 4:46 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

Yes. And it's a completely different personality.

I looked at the tools that I use and the environment that I deal with for various projects on a day to day basis and realized that the GNU stuff is either heavily used by myself I've realized that the a lot of the stuff I use couldn't be used without GNU.

Gnome, for example. GNU project.

Bash I use a lot. There are other shells, of course. But that would require me changing what I use. I use the GNU shell utilities a lot, also. Heavily. And I use and depend on the GNU-isms in there.. I like the colors and '-print0' and all that stuff. It makes things much easier.

So while you can go around and say 'oh there are other *nix environments', sure. But they are different.

And other things that I use.. like Vim or Python, are not GNU, but they are not the same as other platforms. They use different little GNU things all over the place for extra features and while they are not core to the system... they do make it nicer.

Look at the stuff your using right now. Given the choice between running GNU on Solaris or GNU on kFreeBSD vs any non-GNU Linux environment... (Android or Busybox or whatever..) which would be the less usefull? Which would require more effort to transition to and require the most sacrifices?

Now I use Linux kernel because I think that it's the best avialable, by a long shot, out of opensource/free software operating systems.

And I use open source software because of it's _Freedom_. If I cared about practicality over ethics or freedom then I would be using Windows or OS X. (and NO this attitude is not restricted to computers. I had my opinions and prejudices long before I ever came into contact with Linux or GNU. They just happen to match me.) Either of those OSes are much less effort to use and can be customized heavily if you know what your doing. Depsite being closed.. for a end user they are very flexible. I would probably still use Linux on the server, but whatever.

no gnu

Posted Aug 28, 2009 1:18 UTC (Fri) by JanC_ (subscriber, #34940) [Link] (1 responses)

I might be wrong, but AFAIK GNOME isn't a GNU project...?

no gnu

Posted Aug 28, 2009 19:14 UTC (Fri) by Darkmere (subscriber, #53695) [Link]

GNOME stands for the "GNU Network Object Model Environment", So I would say you are wrong.

no gnu

Posted Aug 21, 2009 18:40 UTC (Fri) by MarkWilliamson (guest, #30166) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't really disagree with your point. I do find the GNU/Linux naming thing somewhat irritating - but given GNU and Linux basically supply the most fundamental stuff most Linux distros are based on, I can understand the point the FSF are making.

I just thought I'd note that if we're judging it in terms of the effect on user experience, whilst for many users the GNU software has more influence on the "Linux-like" experience it is also the case that this software has very little influence on visible behaviour for many others.

For instance, many users of KDE-based Linux distros would probably not notice if you replaced all the GNU parts with BSD stuff - if you swapped some office worker's Mandriva install for PC-BSD, would they notice?

Again, I'm not really disagreeing with you - I think GNU software is very important to the functionality and behaviour of most Linux installs. But I think the low-level co-ordinating roles the GNU software takes (compiling, linking, scripting, libraries) is the main reason for its importance, not its user-visible characteristics.

no gnu

Posted Aug 27, 2009 10:59 UTC (Thu) by kafka (guest, #59620) [Link]

> For instance, many users of KDE-based Linux distros would probably not
> notice if you replaced all the GNU parts with BSD stuff - if you swapped
> some office worker's Mandriva install for PC-BSD, would they notice?

The BSD systems also rely on GNU stuff, so I guess that, yes, they would notice.