No, Richard, it’s ‘Linux’, not ‘GNU/Linux’. The most important contributions that the FSF made to Linux were the creation of the GPL and the GCC compiler. Those are fine and inspired products. GCC is a monumental achievement and has earned you, RMS, and the Free Software Foundation countless kudos and much appreciation.
Following are some reasons for you to mull over, including some already answered in your FAQ.
One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS – more on this later). He named it ‘Linux’ with a little help from his friends. Why doesn’t he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff – including the software I wrote using GCC – and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. You don’t want to be known as a nag, do you?
(An operating system) != (a distribution). Linux is an operating system. By my definition, an operating system is that software which provides and limits access to hardware resources on a computer. That definition applies whereever you see Linux in use. However, Linux is usually distributed with a collection of utilities and applications to make it easily configurable as a desktop system, a server, a development box, or a graphics workstation, or whatever the user needs. In such a configuration, we have a Linux (based) distribution. Therein lies your strongest argument for the unwieldy title ‘GNU/Linux’ (when said bundled software is largely from the FSF). Go bug the distribution makers on that one. Take your beef to Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware. At least there you have an argument. Linux alone is an operating system that can be used in various applications without any GNU software whatsoever. Embedded applications come to mind as an obvious example.
Next, even if we limit the GNU/Linux title to the GNU-based Linux distributions, we run into another obvious problem. XFree86 may well be more important to a particular Linux installation than the sum of all the GNU contributions. More properly, shouldn’t the distribution be called XFree86/Linux? Or, at a minimum, XFree86/GNU/Linux? Of course, it would be rather arbitrary to draw the line there when many other fine contributions go unlisted. Yes, I know you’ve heard this one before. Get used to it. You’ll keep hearing it until you can cleanly counter it.
You seem to like the lines-of-code metric. There are many lines of GNU code in a typical Linux distribution. You seem to suggest that (more LOC) == (more important). However, I submit to you that raw LOC numbers do not directly correlate with importance. I would suggest that clock cycles spent on code is a better metric. For example, if my system spends 90% of its time executing XFree86 code, XFree86 is probably the single most important collection of code on my system. Even if I loaded ten times as many lines of useless bloatware on my system and I never excuted that bloatware, it certainly isn’t more important code than XFree86. Obviously, this metric isn’t perfect either, but LOC really, really sucks. Please refrain from using it ever again in supporting any argument.
Last, I’d like to point out that we Linux and GNU users shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves over naming other people’s software. But what the heck, I’m in a bad mood now. I think I’m feeling sufficiently obnoxious to make the point that GCC is so very famous and, yes, so very useful only because Linux was developed. In a show of proper respect and gratitude, shouldn’t you and everyone refer to GCC as ‘the Linux compiler’? Or at least, ‘Linux GCC’? Seriously, where would your masterpiece be without Linux? Languishing with the HURD?
If there is a moral buried in this rant, maybe it is this:
Be grateful for your abilities and your incredible success and your considerable fame. Continue to use that success and fame for good, not evil. Also, be especially grateful for Linux’ huge contribution to that success. You, RMS, the Free Software Foundation, and GNU software have reached their current high profiles largely on the back of Linux. You have changed the world. Now, go forth and don’t be a nag.
I had a “wait a moment” when I saw this picture. Your comment cleared it up. Also found it funny how Linux is hinted at as being part of the GNU project.
I am pretty sure the wine was homemade and gifted to them from another family member? So they decided to drink it after opening it. Not that it changes anything, but at least there was some context as to why.
That’s a level of detail definitely not announced in the movie. The only time the wine is referenced is when the dad says “the wine’s not bad, it’s not good either!”
Cloudflare can be a pain sometimes when I’m using qutebrowser, but surprisingly I don’t have much issues with it besides that. I highly recommend it, if you’re looking for a keyboard-driven and an easy customizable browser!
As a heathen Yank, I don’t have an actual stake in the whole thing. However, I can’t escape the following, as my considered opinion:
EU Proponent: “Hey, you know how it’s really easy to govern, fund, and defend nations and empires?”
Skeptical European: “Ummm…are you joking?”
EU Proponent: “Well, some of us were thinking.: what if we carve out a nebulous, constantly shifting middle-ground between a single nation, a group of nations, and an empire. Ya know, some kind of cobbled-together, mutated entity, possessing some characteristics of all those things, but never truly being any of them. That might be EVEN EASIER to manage.”
EU Proponent: “We figure the most important aspect would be a constant vagueness, regarding the enforcement of laws, standards, and regulations that all the nations in the semi-pseudo-super-nation group would have to follow.”
Skeptical European: “Come again?”
EU Proponent: “Well, it’s simple: maybe all the countries in the quasi-ultra-state would be bound to obey laws passed by the mega-parliament. But also, maybe they would still be sovereign states, and they wouldn’t have to obey those laws. But, then again, maybe they ARE supposed to obey them, technically, but there isn’t an effective method of enforcement. If everyone has to keep guessing, that will make sure everyone pays attention, and everything will go really smoothly.”
Skeptical European: “Ohhhhhkay. But we’ll still bully the shit out of Greece if they have financial problems, right?”
EU Proponent: “Oh, fuck yes. That’s 90 percent of why we’re even doing this.”
it’s a pretty cool habit, gives you a few minutes a day to focus on yourself and how you feel and, unlike in meditation, you also do something as you are thinking.
there have been many days i just kind of, existed during, and only at the end when i was writing in my journal i realised i’ve actually felt good/bad the entire time. It grounds you really well
can’t tell if this is a photo of a paper or the editor went through the effort of making the black text background look better than just plain black, either way kudos
I felt this was more common in elementary and middle school, but since high school and well I to college I barely every find myself writing the date on papers. But yeah, I hated reworking the muscle memory for the first couple weeks of the year.
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