Re: GNU within the name (Was: Changes in formal naming for NetBSD porting effort(s))
On Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 10:41:46AM +0100, Mathieu Roy wrote:
> You are currently saying that the GNU in GNU/Linux is justified by the
> glibc and not by any other GNU software, because these GNU software
> are common on other unixes.
Maybe what he was saying, but that's obviously not the real issue.
<recap>The original reason for the change from "Linux" to "GNU/Linux"
was that:
the kernel was developed and built with gcc AND
libc was gnu AND
most of the system tools in userland were gnu AND
the developers involved were not rabidly anti-gnu
(though the switch did flush a bit of rabid anti-gnu sentiment out of
the community).</recap>
The bsd port is still mostly vapor, so it's kinda hard to figure out how
much of the above is relevant. Thus, knowing whether "GNU" is appropriate
(or whether a de-emphasized lower case "gnu" is appropriate) is more a
matter of speculation than a matter of hard fact.
Moreover, this speculation touches on a lot of issues (aesthetics, us
vs. them group dynamics, incompatibilities, bugs, and the hard technical
work of a very few) which mean we'll probably be seeing echos of this
supposed trademark discussion for years.
I've even contributed to it a bit myself -- it's an easy discussion to
jump into, even though it's not really a well defined problem.
> If we follow your theory, it means that if someday another system use
> the glibc, we should remove the GNU from the GNU/Linux name.
We don't, as a general rule, follow theories very far. Theories are a
good starting point, but they have to stand up to testing.
That said, I could wish for the gnu glibc crew to have a more up-to-date
website [forinstance].
--
Raul
Reply to: