What they bring by default as a user-land is Ubuntu, which is actually a complete OS that happens to include both GNU and Linux and many many other things, including essential components that are not part of either project. I say actually a complete OS because, in spite of RMS' protestations to the contrary in the famous "It's GNU/Linux, stupid!" editorial, the GNU system was not "almost finished" when the Linux kernel came along and is still not "almost finished" even today.
And the reason it's not almost finished is because the GNU project considers the kernel unimportant, which they prove wrong every year HURD remains a mess that moves forward with the pace of a snail.
Really? Maybe I travel in the wrong circles, but most of the time this comes up most people just roll their eyes.
Also, that blog post is terrible, and highlights why the FSF fails so miserably at it's mission. Referring to Windows as "freedom-denying, user-controlling, surveillance system" ignores the fact that most people don't care because it works.
These users do not value freedom. And that's their right, however much we disagree with it.
It doesn't make those statements false, and doesn't change the situation. I wrote that article to focus on software freedom, its purpose, and GNU.
We don't ignore the fact that "most people don't care because it works"; that doesn't make sense, because that works against our ideals.
The other issue is the concept of "free software". No matter the claims, when the term free is applied to a product (or product class) like software, the immediate implication that the price is free. The "free as in free speech" doesn't work too well because speech is not a product. Also, Windows doesn't exactly stop me from doing questionable activities, like authoring documents that would be considered subversive.
Telling people that Windows takes away their right to view and modify the source code will at best give lukewarm response, because most people have other concerns.
I meant software freedom in this context; I should have been more clear.
> The FSF would do well to focus less on the ideology, and more on providing a better user experience for non technical people.
There are plenty of organizations that do that. The FSF exists for very specific reasons---ideology is essential.
> The "free as in free speech" doesn't work too well because speech is not a product
I don't follow.
By "free as in free speech" we mean the same thing as when we say "free as in freedom".
> Also, Windows doesn't exactly stop me from doing questionable activities, like authoring documents that would be considered subversive.
You're not setting a very high bar there ;)
If it's freedom, why does the GPL need copyright law?
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're trying to say.
The free software definition specifies four specific freedoms:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/
The public domain and licenses that approximate it (3-BSD) do not suffer from this problem. Eliminate copyright law, and everything still functions like a permissive license.
I want to abolish copyright because I think it gets in the way of creativity. Generally speaking I also want less dependence on men with guns. Since I want to abolish copyright, I do not like the GPL. The best way to abolish copyright in practice is to use a permissive license.
I have yet to find a person or company who would prefer those terms over the GPL. As such, I find people to be a bit dishonest when they proclaim a desire to abolish copyright but still prefer permissive licenses.
The only reason to prefer 3-BSD is because public domain isn't recognized worldwide. I'll agree that there should probably be something about software patents in there, those are stupid.
If you never intend to sue over IP, then the contract should be an no-issue. All it does is to write down that specific aspect into an enforceable contract. Contract don't need to use men with guns if everyone choose to honor it, which was the historically method used back when people lived in tribes and villages made out of a handful houses. No one would dare to break their word, risking that others would start to do the same.
The best option would of course be that the law was changed and IP abolished by political change. Copyleft and permissive licenses would go away, artist could stand on the shoulders of giants without fear, and compensation would be addressed before the art was made rather than afterward. A fitting end to the flame wars.
Because otherwise, agreeing to it would not be in any way a step towards abolishment of copyright. It would, in fact, be something more akin to creating a free labour pool you are not willing to opt into yourself. You create a situation where you can profit from their work and they cannot. There's a word for this arrangement.
Do you not need men with guns to enforce your other freedoms, like the freedom of speech under the First Amendment? (I don't know if you're a US citizen.)
We're focusing on a very specific set of freedoms---a subset of all freedoms that individuals should have.
> I want to abolish copyright
We have to work within the system we have, and abolishing copyright is unlikely to happen any time soon. There's things that work now.
In the case of the GPL, we still need copyright to ensure that we can enforce the right for the users' to have their freedoms; otherwise, public domain works can be used in proprietary software.
Anarchy is the lack of laws, to be under no other restraint but the law of nature.
Freedom need laws, because the alternative is the law of nature.
This is a legitimate question, since I am not a Windows user: has it really? Or are you referring to GNU software[0], which is not what we are referring to when we say GNU is a fully free Unix replacement; GNU software is only a part of that.[1]
[0]: https://gnu.org/software/
[1]: https://gnu.org/gnu/gnu.html
> For another, by bringing a compatibility layer for the Linux kernel they have opened the door to much more than just GNU, and it remains incredibly reductivist to claim that that's all the Linux kernel does. You can use the Linux kernel (or this linux-compatible layer) to use a GNU system or a completely non-GNU system if you so choose.
Sure they have. But that's not what the conversation is focused on: it's focused on being able to use GNU Bash and all the other Unix (mostly GNU) utilities that hackers are used to using.
> And the reason it's not almost finished is because the GNU project considers the kernel unimportant
Linux completed a major missing piece of GNU, which we refer to as GNU/Linux.[2]
[2]: https://gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html
Specifically:
"Once Torvalds freed Linux in 1992, it fit into the last major gap in the GNU system. People could then combine Linux with the GNU system to make a complete free system — a version of the GNU system which also contained Linux. The GNU/Linux system, in other words."[2]
As far as I can tell this subsystem does nothing that cygwin hasn't done in terms of 'bringing gnu to windows' since 1995, except that it does it technically better and allows for you to use software that does not depend on already ported components without recompilation. This means, for example, that you can use a libc other than glibc without porting that libc to windows first (ie. you could use musl, which is absolutely not part of the gnu system and even implements its own dynamic linker). You couldn't do that with cygwin. At least not trivially.
> Sure they have. But that's not what the conversation is focused on: it's focused on being able to use GNU Bash and all the other Unix (mostly GNU) utilities that hackers are used to using.
Even if I concede that GNU constitutes a 'system' in the way that RMS insists (which I don't, at all. His claims are political, not technical, imo), I would not agree that using this layer constitutes using that system for precisely this reason. Using bash or even gcc is not sufficient to consider a system 'gnu', even by RMS' own statements, else OSX and the other BSD systems would be gnu systems as well. For the most part, use of "bash on windows" is literally just that. You run bash and it exists in a space that is like but not exactly the same as linux, but that part is largely artifice. You don't even get a complete /proc filesystem.
[Note: Considering I am literally referring to those RMS screeds in my posts, I'd appreciate it if you at least pretended to believe I've read them.]
Remember: back in the day, there was no way to run a free Unix-like operating system. GNU provided a way, and nothing else existed at the time, though BSD also emerged as free.
The distros that followed are derivatives of GNU. Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian GNU/Linux, which actually recognizes this fact.
> sing bash or even gcc is not sufficient to consider a system 'gnu', even by RMS' own statements
The article mentioned Shuttleworth describing an "Ubuntu environment"; this seems to imply more far-reaching goals.
I can't say what the result will be. I hope that others will explain it to me, or that there are many useful articles on the topic, because I can only watch and listen to what others are doing.
> [Note: I have read those links many times, you can stop linking to them in every level of this conversation you engage in now, I think]
I link to them in many threads because they will not otherwise be seen by the person I'm responding to.
Second, the GNU project will never get the Oscar because the FSF is incredibly inept at spreading it's message.
GNU is a fully free Unix replacement---an operating system; it is more than a bunch of GNU software:
If we're going to start naming systems based on the tools, then I use a ZSH/MS/VIM/PSF/Linux distro. There are other providers than GNU.
GNU/Linux has a kernel---Linux. It forms a fully free operating system.
No free replacement for Unix existed until GNU provided one---that involves much more than just writing utilities. I encourage you to read about the history of the project to understand why:
Summary: https://gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html
More detailed: https://gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html