Top Tweets for #WhyOrder

about 3 years ago

Why “GNU/Linux” rather than “Linux/GNU”? (#whyorder) It is right and proper to mention the principal contribution first. The GNU contribution to the system is not only bigger than Linux and prior to Linux, we actually started the whole activity. In addition, “GNU/Linux” fits the fact that Linux is the lowest level of the system and GNU fills technically higher levels. However, if you prefer to call the system “Linux/GNU,” that is a lot better than what people usually do, which is to omit GNU entirely and make it seem that the whole system is Linux. My distro's developers call it “Foobar Linux,” but that doesn't say anything about what the system consists of. Why shouldn't they call it whatever they like? (#distronames0) Calling a system “Foobar Linux” implies that it's a flavor of “Linux,” and people understand it that way. If they called a GNU/Linux distro “Foobar BSD,” you would call that a mistake. “This system is not BSD,” you would tell them. Well, it's not Linux either. My distro is called “Foobar Linux”; doesn't that show it's really Linux? (#distronames) It means that the people who make the “Foobar Linux” distro are repeating the common mistake. We appreciate that distributions like Debian, Dragora, Musix, Trisquel, and Venenux have adopted GNU/Linux as part of their official name, and we hope that if you are involved with a different distribution, you will encourage it to do the same. My distro's official name is “Foobar Linux”; isn't it wrong to call the distro anything but “Foobar Linux”? (#distronames1) When they spread misinformation by changing “GNU” to “Linux,” and call their version of it “Foobar Linux,” it's proper for you to correct the misinformation by calling it “Foobar GNU/Linux.” Wouldn't it be more effective to ask companies such as Mandrake, Red Hat and IBM to call their distributions “GNU/Linux” rather than asking individuals? (#companies) It isn't a choice of one or the other—we ask companies and organizations and individuals to help spread the word about this. In fact, we have asked all three of those companies. Mandrake said it would use the term “GNU/Linux” some of the time, but IBM and Red Hat were unwilling to help. One executive said, “This is a pure commercial decision; we expect to make more money calling it ‘Linux’.” In other words, that company did not care what was right. We can't make them do this right, but we're not the sort to give up just because the road isn't easy. You may not have as much influence at your disposal as IBM or Red Hat, but you can still help. Together we can change the situation to the point where companies will make more profit calling it “GNU/Linux.” Wouldn't it be better to reserve the name “GNU/Linux” for distributions that are purely free software? After all, that is the ideal of GNU. (#reserve) The widespread practice of adding nonfree software to the GNU/Linux system is a major problem for our community. It teaches the users that nonfree software is ok, and that using it is part of the spirit of “Linux.” Many “Linux” User Groups make it part of their mission to help users use nonfree add-ons, and may even invite salesmen to come and make sales pitches for them. They adopt goals such as “helping the users” of GNU/Linux (including helping them use nonfree applications and drivers), or making the system more popular even at the cost of freedom. The question is how to try to change this. Given that most of the community which uses GNU with Linux already does not realize that's what it is, for us to disown these adulterated versions, saying they are not really GNU, would not teach the users to value freedom more. They would not get the intended message. They would only respond they never thought these systems were GNU in the first place. The way to lead these users to see a connection with freedom is exactly the opposite: to inform them that all these system versions are versions of GNU, that they all are based on a system that exists specifically for the sake of the users' freedom. With this understanding, they can start to recognize the distributions that include nonfree software as perverted, adulterated versions of GNU, instead of thinking they are proper and appropriate “versions of Linux.” It is very useful to start GNU/Linux User Groups, which call the system GNU/Linux and adopt the ideals of the GNU Project as a basis for their activities. If the Linux User Group in your area has the problems described above, we suggest you either campaign within the group to change its orientation (and name) or start a new group. The people who focus on the more superficial goals have a right to their views, but don't let them drag you along! Why not make a GNU distribution of Linux (sic) and call that GNU/Linux? (#gnudist) All the “Linux” distributions are actually versions of the GNU system with Linux as the kernel. The purpose of the term “GNU/Linux” is to communicate this point. To develop one new distribution and call that alone “GNU/Linux” would obscure the point we want to make. As for developing a distribution of GNU/Linux, we already did this once, when we funded the early development of Debian GNU/Linux. To do it again now does not seem useful; it would be a lot of work, and unless the new distribution had substantial practical advantages over other distributions, it would serve no purpose. Instead we help the developers of 100% free GNU/Linux distributions, such as Trisquel and Parabola. Why not just say “Linux is the GNU kernel” and release some existing version of GNU/Linux under the name “GNU”? (#linuxgnu) It might have been a good idea to adopt Linux as the GNU kernel back in 1992. If we had realized, then, how long it would take to get the GNU Hurd to work, we might have done that. (Alas, that is hindsight.) If we were to take an existing version of GNU/Linux and relabel it as “GNU,” that would be somewhat like making a version of the GNU system and labeling it “Linux.” That wasn't right, and we don't want to act like that. Did the GNU Project condemn and oppose use of Linux in the early days? (#condemn) We did not adopt Linux as our kernel, but we didn't condemn or oppose it. In 1993 we started discussing the arrangements to sponsor the development of Debian GNU/Linux. We also sought to cooperate with the people who were changing some GNU packages for use with Linux. We wanted to include their changes in the standard releases so that these GNU packages would work out-of-the-box in combination with Linux. But the changes were often ad-hoc and nonportable; they needed to be cleaned up for installation. The people who had made the changes showed little interest in cooperating with us. One of them actually told us that he didn't care about working with the GNU Project because he was a “Linux user.” That came as a shock, because the people who ported GNU packages to other systems had generally wanted to work with us to get their changes installed. Yet these people, developing a system that was primarily based on GNU, were the first (and still practically the only) group that was unwilling to work with us. It was this experience that first showed us that people were calling a version of the GNU system “Linux,” and that this confusion was obstructing our work. Asking you to call the system “GNU/Linux” is our response to that problem, and to the other problems caused by the “Linux” misnomer. Why did you wait so long before asking people to use the name GNU/Linux? (#wait) Actually we didn't. We began talking privately with developers and distributors about this in 1994, and made a more public campaign in 1996. We will continue for as long as it's necessary. Should the GNU/name convention be applied to all programs that are GPL'ed? (#allgpled) We never refer to individual programs as “GNU/name.” When a program is a GNU package, we may call it “GNU name.” GNU, the operating system, is made up of many different programs. Some of the programs in GNU were written as part of the GNU Project or specifically contributed to it; these are the GNU packages, and we often use “GNU” in their names. It's up to the developers of a program to decide if they want to contribute it and make it a GNU package. If you have developed a program and you would like it to be a GNU package, please write to<[email protected]>, so we can evaluate it and decide whether we want it. It wouldn't be fair to put the name GNU on every individual program that is released under the GPL. If you write a program and release it under the GPL, that doesn't mean the GNU Project wrote it or that you wrote it for us. For instance, the kernel, Linux, is released under the GNU GPL, but Linus did not write it as part of the GNU Project—he did the work independently. If something is not a GNU package, the GNU Project can't take credit for it, and putting “GNU” in its name would be improper. In contrast, we do deserve the overall credit for the GNU operating system as a whole, even though not for each and every program in it. The system exists as a system because of our determination and persistence, starting in 1984, many years before Linux was begun. The operating system in which Linux became popular was basically the same as the GNU operating system. It was not entirely the same, because it had a different kernel, but it was mostly the same system. It was a variant of GNU. It was the GNU/Linux system. Linux continues to be used primarily in derivatives of that system—in today's versions of the GNU/Linux system. What gives these systems their identity is GNU and Linux at the center of them, not particularly Linux alone. Since much of GNU comes from Unix, shouldn't GNU give credit to Unix by using “Unix” in its name? (#unix) Actually, none of GNU comes from Unix. Unix was proprietary software (and still is), so using any of its code in GNU would have been illegal. This is not a coincidence; this is why we developed GNU: since you could not have freedom in using Unix, or any of the other operating systems of the day, we needed a free system to replace it. We could not copy programs, or even parts of them, from Unix; everything had to be written afresh. No code in GNU comes from Unix, but GNU is a Unix-compatible system; therefore, many of the ideas and specifications of GNU do come from Unix. The name “GNU,” which stands for “GNU's Not Unix,” is a humorous way of giving credit to Unix for this, following a hacker tradition of recursive acronyms that started in the 70s. The first such recursive acronym was TINT, “TINT Is Not TECO.” The author of TINT wrote another implementation of TECO (there were already many of them, for various systems), but instead of calling it by a dull name like “somethingorother TECO,” he thought of a clever amusing name. (That's what hacking means: playful cleverness.) Other hackers enjoyed that name so much that we imitated the approach. It became a tradition that, when you were writing from scratch a program that was similar to some existing program (let's imagine its name was “Klever”), you could give it a recursive acronym name, such as “MINK” for “MINK Is Not Klever.” In this same spirit we called our replacement for Unix “GNU's Not Unix.” Historically, AT&T which developed Unix did not want anyone to give it credit by using “Unix” in the name of a similar system, not even in a system 99% copied from Unix. AT&T actually threatened to sue anyone giving AT&T credit in that way. This is why each of the various modified versions of Unix (all proprietary, like Unix) had a completely different name that didn't include “Unix.” Should we say “GNU/BSD” too? (#bsd) We don't call the BSD systems (FreeBSD, etc.) “GNU/BSD” systems, because that term does not fit the history of the BSD systems. The BSD system was developed by UC Berkeley as nonfree software in the 80s, and became free in the early 90s. A free operating system that exists today is almost certainly either a variant of the GNU system, or a kind of BSD system. People sometimes ask whether BSD too is a variant of GNU, as GNU/Linux is. It is not. The BSD developers were inspired to make their code free software by the example of the GNU Project, and explicit appeals from GNU activists helped convince them to start, but the code had little overlap with GNU. BSD systems today use some GNU packages, just as the GNU system and its variants use some BSD programs; however, taken as wholes, they are two different systems that evolved separately. The BSD developers did not write a kernel and add it to the GNU system, so a name like GNU/BSD would not fit the situation. The connection between GNU/Linux and GNU is much closer, and that's why the name “GNU/Linux” is appropriate for it. There is a version of GNU which uses the kernel from NetBSD. Its developers call it “Debian GNU/NetBSD,” but “GNU/kernelofNetBSD” would be more accurate, since NetBSD is an entire system, not just the kernel. This is not a BSD system, since most of the system is the same as the GNU/Linux system. If I install the GNU tools on Windows, does that mean I am running a GNU/Windows system? (#othersys) Not in the same sense that we mean by “GNU/Linux.” The tools of GNU are just a part of the GNU software, which is just a part of the GNU system, and underneath them you would still have another complete operating system which has no code in common with GNU. All in all, that's a very different situation from GNU/Linux. Can't Linux be used without GNU? (#justlinux) Linux is used by itself, or with small other programs, in some appliances. These small software systems are a far cry from the GNU/Linux system. Users do not install them on PCs, for instance, and would find them rather disappointing. It is useful to say that these appliances run just Linux, to show how different those small platforms are from GNU/Linux. How much of the GNU system is needed for the system to be GNU/Linux? (#howmuch) “How much” is not a meaningful question because the GNU system does not have precise boundaries. GNU is an operating system maintained by a community. It includes far more than just the GNU software packages (of which we have a specific list), and people add more packages constantly. Despite these changes, it remains the GNU system, and adding Linux to that yields GNU/Linux. If you use part of the GNU system and omit part, there is no meaningful way to say “how much” you used. If we look at the level of packages, Linux is one important package in the GNU/Linux system. The inclusion of one important GNU package is enough to justify our request for equal mention. Are there complete Linux systems [sic] without GNU? (#linuxsyswithoutgnu) There are complete systems that contain Linux and not GNU; Android is an example. But it is a mistake to call them “Linux” systems, just as it is a mistake to call GNU a “Linux” system. Android is very different from the GNU/Linux system—because the two have very little code in common. In fact, the only thing they have in common is Linux. If you call the whole GNU/Linux system “Linux,” you will find it necessary to say things like, “Android contains Linux, but it isn't Linux, because it doesn't have the usual Linux [sic] libraries and utilities [meaning the GNU system].” Android contains just as much of Linux as GNU/Linux does. What it doesn't have is the GNU system. Android replaces that with Google software that works quite differently. What makes Android different from GNU/Linux is the absence of GNU. Is it correct to say “using Linux” if it refers to using GNU/Linux and using Android? (#usegnulinuxandandroidlinuxsyswithoutgnu) Far from it. That usage is so strained that people will not understand the intended meaning. The public will find it very strange to speak of using Android as “using Linux.” It's like having a conversation, then saying you were conversing with the person's intestines or the person's circulatory system. The public will understand the idea of “using Linux” when it's really GNU/Linux, by way of the usual misunderstanding: thinking of the whole system as “Linux.” Use of Android and use of GNU/Linux are totally different, as different as driving a car and riding a bicycle. The fact that the first two both contain Linux is irrelevant to using them, just as the fact that a car and a bicycle both have a structure of metal is irrelevant to using those two. If you wish to talk about using cars and bikes, you wouldn't speak of “riding metal objects”—not unless you're playing games with the reader. You would say, “using cars and bikes.” Likewise, the clear way to talk about using GNU/Linux and Android is to say “using GNU/Linux and Android.” Why not call the system “Linux” anyway, and strengthen Linus Torvalds' role as posterboy for our community? (#helplinus)Linus Torvalds is the “posterboy” (other people's choice of word, not ours) for his goals, not ours. His goal is to make the system more popular, and he believes its value to society lies merely in the practical advantages it offers: its power, reliability and easy availability. He has never advocated freedom to cooperate as an ethical principle, which is why the public does not connect the name “Linux” with that principle. Linus publicly states his disagreement with the free software movement's ideals. He developed nonfree software in his job for many years (and said so to a large audience at a “Linux”World show), and publicly invited fellow developers of Linux, the kernel, to use nonfree software to work on it with him. He goes even further, and rebukes people who suggest that engineers and scientists should consider social consequences of our technical work—rejecting the lessons society learned from the development of the atom bomb. There is nothing wrong with writing a free program for the motivations of learning and having fun; the kernel Linus wrote for those reasons was an important contribution to our community. But those motivations are not the reason why the complete free system, GNU/Linux, exists, and they won't secure our freedom in the future. The public needs to know this. Linus has the right to promote his views; however, people should be aware that the operating system in question stems from ideals of freedom, not from his views. Isn't it wrong for us to label Linus Torvalds' work as GNU? (#claimlinux) It would be wrong, so we don't do that. Torvalds' work is Linux, the kernel; we are careful not to attribute that work to the GNU Project or label it as “GNU.” When we talk about the whole system, the name “GNU/Linux” gives him a share of the credit. Does Linus Torvalds agree that Linux is just the kernel? (#linusagreed) He recognized this at the beginning. The earliest Linux release notes said: Most of the tools used with linux are GNU software and are under the GNU copyleft. These tools aren't in the distribution - ask me (or GNU) for more info. Why not finish the GNU Hurd kernel, release the GNU system as a whole, and forget the question of what to call GNU/Linux? (#finishhurd) We would like credit for the GNU operating system no matter which kernel is used with it. Making the GNU Hurd work well enough to compete with Linux would be a big job, and it's not clearly necessary. The only thing ethically wrong with Linux as a kernel is its inclusion of firmware “blobs”; the best fix for that problem is developing free replacement for the blobs. The battle is already lost—society has made its decision and we can't change it, so why even think about it? (#lost) This isn't a battle, it is a campaign of education. What to call the system is not a single decision, to be made at one moment by “society”: each person, each organization, can decide what name to use. You can't make others say “GNU/Linux,” but you can decide to call the system “GNU/Linux” yourself—and by doing so, you will help educate others. Society has made its decision and we can't change it, so what good does it do if I say “GNU/Linux”? (#whatgood) This is not an all-or-nothing situation: correct and incorrect pictures are being spread more or less by various people. If you call the system “GNU/Linux,” you will help others learn the system's true history, origin, and reason for being. You can't correct the misnomer everywhere on your own, any more than we can, but you can help. If only a few hundred people see you use the term “GNU/Linux,” you will have educated a substantial number of people with very little work. And some of them will spread the correction to others. Wouldn't it be better to call the system “Linux” and teach people its real origin with a ten-minute explanation? (#explain) If you help us by explaining to others in that way, we appreciate your effort, but that is not the best method. It is not as effective as calling the system “GNU/Linux,” and uses your time inefficiently. It is ineffective because it may not sink in, and surely will not propagate. Some of the people who hear your explanation will pay attention, and they may learn a correct picture of the system's origin. But they are unlikely to repeat the explanation to others whenever they talk about the system. They will probably just call it “Linux.” Without particularly intending to, they will help spread the incorrect picture. It is inefficient because it takes a lot more time. Saying and writing “GNU/Linux” will take you only a few seconds a day, not minutes, so you can afford to reach far more people that way. Distinguishing between Linux and GNU/Linux when you write and speak is by far the easiest way to help the GNU Project effectively. Some people laugh at you when you ask them to call the system GNU/Linux. Why do you subject yourself to this treatment? (#treatment) Calling the system “Linux” tends to give people a mistaken picture of the system's history and reason for existence. People who laugh at our request probably have picked up that mistaken picture—they think our work was done by Linus, so they laugh when we ask for credit for it. If they knew the truth, they probably wouldn't laugh. Why do we take the risk of making a request that sometimes leads people to ridicule us? Because often it has useful results that help the GNU Project. We will run the risk of undeserved abuse to achieve our goals. If you see such an ironically unfair situation occurring, please don't sit idly by. Please teach the laughing people the real history. When they see why the request is justified, those who have any sense will stop laughing. Some people condemn you when you ask them to call the system GNU/Linux. Don't you lose by alienating them? (#alienate) Not much. People who don't appreciate our role in developing the system are unlikely to make substantial efforts to help us. If they do work that advances our goals, such as releasing free software, it is probably for other unrelated reasons, not because we asked them. Meanwhile, by teaching others to attribute our work to someone else, they are undermining our ability to recruit the help of others. It makes no sense to worry about alienating people who are already mostly uncooperative, and it is self-defeating to be deterred from correcting a major problem lest we anger the people who perpetuate it. Therefore, we will continue trying to correct the misnomer. Whatever you contributed, is it legitimate to rename the operating system? (#rename) We are not renaming anything; we have been calling this system “GNU” ever since we announced it in 1983. The people who tried to rename it to “Linux” should not have done so. Isn't it wrong to force people to call the system “GNU/Linux”? (#force) It would be wrong to force them, and we don't try. We call the system “GNU/Linux,” and we ask you to do it too. Why not sue people who call the whole system “Linux”? (#whynotsue) There are no legal grounds to sue them, but since we believe in freedom of speech, we wouldn't want to do that anyway. We ask people to call the system “GNU/Linux” because that is the right thing to do. Shouldn't you put something in the GNU GPL to require people to call the system “GNU”? (#require) The purpose of the GNU GPL is to protect the users' freedom from those who would make proprietary versions of free software. While it is true that those who call the system “Linux” often do things that limit the users' freedom, such as bundling nonfree software with the GNU/Linux system or even developing nonfree software for such use, the mere act of calling the system “Linux” does not, in itself, deny users their freedom. It seems improper to make the GPL restrict what name people can use for the system.

Danushka Lysek @Danushkacooks

almost 10 years ago

When you've been smelling it all day and decide f**k it, I need to make my own! #whyorder… https://t.co/cqirUwMAMx

Young Thug ひ

@youngthug

over 13 years ago

“@ShellieChelle: @YoungThugWorld Instagram is the new twitter... i loved yo show at LacurA #WhyOrder ....:) bome back..”this Friday I b dere

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