Bug#301266: Always advertises 'Debian GNU/Linux'
Robert Millan said:
>
>> Why don't we just put "(Debian)" in instead?
>>
>
> There's a reason because hardcoding "Linux" is wrong: Debian supports
> (or at least intends to support) other kernels. I can't see a reason why
> hardcoding "GNU" would be wrong, though. So in this case maybe you want
> to make it "Debian/GNU" as it used to be in 1.x?
I agree with willy that using just "Debian" seems more reasonable to me.
I've heard 1001 argument about why we should and shouldn't have GNU in our
system name, and they're all mostly moot to me. If we have a Debian *BSD
port that uses a BSD libc rather than glibc, is it still a GNU system?..
Perhaps one can argue it is because of the plethora of GNU tools on the
system, other may argue it isn't from Apache's POV, since Apache isn't
really making use of a whole bunch of GNU utilities, mostly just the
kernel and libc, really.
The bottom line is that if we scrap the kernel name, we can likely scrap
the "GNU" as well, since most people who insist on using "GNU" are
complaining that "Linux" withou "GNU/Linux" misrepresents "Linux" as a
complete OS. TO be fair, though, the complete OS in our case is "Debian",
not GNU, Linux or anything else.
> But really I think it should mention the kernel too. This way scanner
> tools or services like netcraft can determine how many servers with each
> Debian kernel are used around.
Kernel detection by systems like Netcraft uses TCP fingerprinting, not
server banners. That's how they get neat results like "Microsoft IIS
runniing on Linux" (IIS servers behind a Linux reverse proxy). Most
vendors don't include kernel info in their server banners, but this
doesn't seem to stop scanners from figuring out what system they're using.
... Adam
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