Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

When Linus Torvalds was asked in the documentary Revolution OS whether the name "GNU/Linux" was justified, he replied:

      Well, I think it's justified, but it's justified if 
  you actually make a GNU distribution of Linux ... the 
  same way that I think that "Red Hat Linux" is fine, or 
  "SuSE Linux" or "Debian Linux", because if you actually 
  make your own distribution of Linux, you get to name the 
  thing, but calling Linux in general "GNU Linux" I think 
  is just ridiculous.[34]

It came up in the documentary because there had been a huge firestorm over RMS saying everyone should call it GNU/Linux. Various allegations of 'usurpery' etc and generally bad feelings. Linus' counter, which he made in the documentary and I had heard in person at a Usenix conference was that if the GNU project made a distro (and this is still a valid point) where everything in it was free and wanted to call it "GNU/Linux" that would be great, but trying to change the kernel name from Linux to GNU/Linux is just silly (or ridiculous as Linus points out).

[34] ^ Moore, J.T.S. (Produced, Written, and Directed) (2001). Revolution OS (DVD).

That's somewhat oblique, easily attributed to misunderstanding (I'm not sure what actual question was asked - it's been a decade since I saw Revolution OS), and poorly thought out: a "Red Hat Linux" system at the time was running more GNU code than Linux code (and overwhelmingly more than Red Hat code).

Every damned other thing in there seems to argue precisely the opposite.

I defy you to find anything Stallman said (as opposed to characterizations by others, which could easily be deliberate or accidental mischaracterizations) that implies a position that a system without GNU code (or with insignificant amounts) running Linux should be called GNU/Linux. If such exists, then I will agree with you that Stallman once held the absurd position you attribute to him.

Edited to add:

"It came up in the documentary because there had been a huge firestorm over RMS saying everyone should call it GNU/Linux."

I agree that there was a huge firestorm over RMS saying everyone should call it GNU/Linux. I disagree with what that "it" refers to.

A Red Hat system was running more code for GNOME/KDE than either coreutils or Linux. Should we call it GNOME/GNU/Linux? Probably, because GNOME was designed from the beginning to be a usable desktop for users. There is a GNU, and it is running on their system, but it is just part of the system they use.

Also, LOC is a really poor metric for comparing the importance of a piece of software for a system. Many applications have far more LOC than the entire OS itself, and you wouldn't call that app more essential than the OS.

LOC is a poor metric, but by any metric GNU contribution was substantial.

GNOME, incidentally, is GNU[1]. Coreutils is not the sole contribution of the GNU project to a (typical desktop or server) Linux system.

[1]: Certainly currently - I am less confident it started that way, but the G seems to stand for GNU so that's some evidence that it did.

GNOME = GNU Object Model Environment

Also, Linux isn't GNU, but it is GPL.

People get annoyed at the RMS self-promotion, or GNU promotion, but that stuff is important.

All true. It'd still be weird for RMS to try and claim the kernel is GNU, but I don't believe he ever did.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com