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How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux?

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Re: How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux?

#91

Post by ryannielsen »

FlowerPower wrote: post #73

LinesOfCode to determine how much "GNU" there is is like counting number of screws in a car to determine how much "car" it is. Without GCC to compile the kernel and all the other tools, there would be no kernel. A free open source compiler which has existed for decades now, and its competition, Clang, is it even stable yet?

Is clang stable? Well, it can build the Linux kernel as of last October: http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/cfe-dev/2010-October/0117...

And, seeing as Clang is the default compiler in Xcode 4, and can also build FreeBSD[1], yes, I believe it's stable.

[1] http://www.freebsd.org/news/status/report-2010-04-2010-06.ht...

Re: How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux?

#92

Post by moomin »

I remember back in the early 90s, I often had the choice of using the local tools or the GNU tools. I went for the GNU versions every time: they were stable, predictable and worked the same everywhere I went. It felt like they'd built their own Unix then, despite the fact that Hurd was still not much more than some really ambitious design documents.

My point is, I fully appreciate the importance of the GNU work to the development of free and open-source software, especially Linux. That said, I can't see that most of the arguments being put forward here make any sense. I mean, should everything compiled in gcc have a gnu prefix? (GNU/Google, anyone?)

Re: How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux?

#93

Post by MostAwesomeDude »

simias wrote: post #84
varjag wrote: post #54

Try not installing glibc someday.

There are viable alternatives. Debian for instance uses eglibc, which is LGPL but AFAIK not part of GNU. The BSDs use their own libc as well.

Protip: eglibc is a fork of glibc, considers glibc an upstream, and communicates patches with glibc, requiring copyright reassignment for contributed code. This makes them roughly as GNU as glibc itself, which is maintained by a Redhat employee.

Re: How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux?

#94

Post by justincormack »

woodrow wrote: post #16

Some friends of mine were working on a project to make a non-GNU linux distribution (well maybe not actually for distribution) just to see if they could: https://github.com/burke/non-gnu-linux/wiki I don't think much has happened with it recently, but they were working to build the kernel with icc (the Intel C compiler).

As of a few weeks ago, Gentoo-Bionic is up at https://gitorious.org/gentoo-bionic which is as far as I know the first attempt at a Linux system built with a BSD licensed libc, Bionic being the Andoid libc. All the other glibc alternatives like uclibc tend to also be GPL licensed.

Bionic is missing a fair amount of stuff, as it only has to run a limited subset on Android, but has enough to run much software.

Re: How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux?

#95

Post by justincormack »

ryannielsen wrote: post #91
FlowerPower wrote: post #73

LinesOfCode to determine how much "GNU" there is is like counting number of screws in a car to determine how much "car" it is. Without GCC to compile the kernel and all the other tools, there would be no kernel. A free open source compiler which has existed for decades now, and its competition, Clang, is it even stable yet?

Is clang stable? Well, it can build the Linux kernel as of last October: http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/cfe-dev/2010-October/0117... And, seeing as Clang is the default compiler in Xcode 4, and can also build FreeBSD[1], yes, I believe it's stable. [1] http://www.freebsd.org/news/status/report-2010-04-2010-06.ht...

It still cant build a fully working out of the box Linux kernel for x86, eg no 16 bit early boot stuff, patches for various stuff, some things not working.

It is stable though. Linux is just a hard target...

Re: How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux?

#96

Post by mahrain »

ryanpetrich wrote: post #8

Lines of code is a poor way to measure contribution.

Exactly, and there's a nice story on this from the early days of the Macintosh: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Negative_2000_Lin...

Bill Atkinson improved on code and made it 2000 lines shorter, so he entered his contribution as being "-2000" lines.

Re: How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux?

#97

Post by [deleted] »

bxr wrote: post #57
foob wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so you know, GNOME stands for GNU Object Model Environment. Not that that negates your point, but I still disagree with you for other reasons. Firefox is in no way part of the operating system itself. I would argue that Bash and the core-utils on the other hand are. Also keep in mind that the GNU Project created the whole idea of a Free alternative to Unix and created the culture and licenses that made it possib…

>the whole idea of a Free alternative to Unix I don't mean to marginalize the gnu project, but there were already free -nixes out there. Starting over from scratch isn't much of an accomplishment other than the license... >and created the culture and licenses that made it possible The GPL has ultimately done more harm than good for open source. The only time proprietary software vendors are forced to release anything…

[deleted]

Re: How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux?

#98

Post by [deleted] »

bxr wrote: post #57
foob wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so you know, GNOME stands for GNU Object Model Environment. Not that that negates your point, but I still disagree with you for other reasons. Firefox is in no way part of the operating system itself. I would argue that Bash and the core-utils on the other hand are. Also keep in mind that the GNU Project created the whole idea of a Free alternative to Unix and created the culture and licenses that made it possib…

>the whole idea of a Free alternative to Unix I don't mean to marginalize the gnu project, but there were already free -nixes out there. Starting over from scratch isn't much of an accomplishment other than the license... >and created the culture and licenses that made it possible The GPL has ultimately done more harm than good for open source. The only time proprietary software vendors are forced to release anything…

[deleted]

Re: How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux?

#100

Post by gjm11 »

hasenj wrote: post #66
bxr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the whole idea of a Free alternative to Unix I don't mean to marginalize the gnu project, but there were already free -nixes out there. Starting over from scratch isn't much of an accomplishment other than the license... >and created the culture and licenses that made it possible The GPL has ultimately done more harm than good for open source. The only time proprietary software vendors are forced to release anything…

> there were already free -nixes out there Not true, the various "Free" BSDs came much later. As far as I know, BSD existed but wasn't Free. If it was already free, then RMS would probably not have launched the GNU project.

In case anyone's wondering about the actual timeline:

September 1983: RMS announces the GNU project. (Work actually begins in January 1984.)

March 1987: first release of GCC.

June 1989: first release of bash.

May 1991: FSF announces that work on GNU Hurd (their own kernel) "has begun".

June 1991: first free-as-in-speech BSD release ("Net/2").

October 1991: first release of glibc.

September 1991: first release of Linux (0.01) -- not free-as-in-speech.

March 1992: first release of 386BSD (0.0). July 1992: release 0.1, much more usable.

April 1992: USL v BSDi lawsuit filed. (This was a big obstacle to early adoption of the BSDs.)

December 1992: first free-as-in-speech release of Linux (0.99).

April 1993: first official release of NetBSD (0.8).

November 1993: first official release of FreeBSD (1.0).

January 1994: USL v BSDi lawsuit settled.

April 1994: FSF announces that the Hurd boots (but doesn't do anything much else).

May 2011: still waiting for the first truly usable release of GNU Hurd. No one seems to think it's very likely that there will ever be one.

So ... when the GNU project was announced, there weren't any free Unixes of any sort out there. It's possible that GNU really did create the whole idea of a free alternative to Unix. But the first free Unixoid kernel that was actually released was a BSD, and the first free whole Unixoid OS that was actually released was a BSD.

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