Re: that old GNU/Linux argument

So far I haven't seen a pro-GNU/Linux person
describe what GNU/Linux is and
what it isn't. It would be interesting to see
whether they include the
kitchen sink in GNU/Linux.

Correction: Alexandre Oliva has said that "an
operating system is a kernel
plus a bunch of userland libraries and programs that users
and other
applications generally rely on" and that GNU is an
example of an operating
system. I can't believe I forgot that.

It's a bit vague, but clearly a whole lot less than all
of Fedora or Debian.
It could be taken to mean just a kernel and the GNU command
line tools, or it
could include X and Gnome too.

Björn Persson

--

Using google with the search phrase "why is it called GNU/Linux?", we get many hits, most notably

http://www.gnu.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy

http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html

Now it becomes a matter of opinion as to why FSF prefers GNU/Linux and others prefer simply Linux. There are many projects out there that are not from GNU only and the kernel is the core part(the glue that holds everything together as many people say). It would be nice to have a percentage of which programs/sub projects make up an entire Linux distribution and see by numbers which projects make up a higher percentage. In the page

http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html

it explains why it is appropriate to call it GNU/Linux
<quote>
If we tried to measure the GNU Project's contribution in this way, what would we conclude? One CD-ROM vendor found that in their “Linux distribution”, GNU software was the largest single contingent, around 28% of the total source code, and this included some of the essential major components without which there could be no system. Linux itself was about 3%. (The proportions in 2008 are similar: in the “main” repository of gNewSense, Linux is 1.5% and GNU packages are 15%.) So if you were going to pick a name for the system based on who wrote the programs in the system, the most appropriate single choice would be “GNU”.
</quote>

I personally do not mind what they call it. As long as it works for me in the ways that it does, lets me be in control, and runs smoothy I have no objections as to its name.

Regards,

Antonio




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