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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?

#101

Post by mkr-hn »

ori_b wrote: post #81
mkr-hn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one wants to write them out of the picture. It's just not realistic to credit all the vital contributors in the name. Why is GNU not content with the CREDITS file?

Because their primary goal is evangelism of the free software ideal, not software development.

The generic term for the Linux ecosystem is not the venue for that. It might have helped if it were done early on, but GNU and the free software movement are in no danger of falling into obscurity at this point.

Anyone who might have followed the GNU/ to find out what it is would have found out about the free software movement in the process of learning about Linux. That was my introduction to it, and this naming campaign has given me a negative impression.

I'm glad people are working on replacements for GNU so I don't see someone saying "you mean GNU/Linux" every time anyone mentions Linux in public.

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

#102

Post by s0li »

justincormack wrote: post #95
ryannielsen wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

why is linux a hard target? Don't know much about compilers/how kernel compilation goes but still would appreciate some basic explanation.

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

#103

Post by maethorechannen »

Confusion wrote: post #86
cookiecaper wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole argument around the "GNU/Linux" terminology is that the FSF deserved part of the glory because they contributed the userspace to Linux's system code. I think the persistence of those pushing this point of view is a projection of their disappointment over Hurd and demands for subsequent glory "because we deserve it!" This is a really childish stance from the start. A kernel is of course useless without users…

That she 'uses more software provided by KDE' is an unsubstantiated claim that people make way to fast. Is it possible to build KDE without GNU tools? If not, every use of KDE is an indirect use of GNU tools. While running, how many times are glibc and related foundational components called? The problem of GNU tools is their invisibility. But by that metric (what users see), your wife should call the system KDE, sinc…

Isn't the "you couldn't build it without GNU tools" argument somewhat silly, as no other OS out there includes the toolchain as part of the name? I doubt the folks over at Microsoft would seriously consider renaming Windows "Visual Studio/Windows" or "TFS/Windows", yet they would be hard pressed to build Windows without it. I'm also fairly sure Linux isn't the only OS out there that can be built with GNU tools (I thought Solaris was using it, at least during the brief period of time that they were open), yet it does seem to be the main target of the "GNU's contribution should be specially recognized" crowd - it's hard to see this as anything but sour grapes over Linux pretty much taking over the GPL licensed Unix-like kernel market away from Hurd.

"Surely no one here suggest dropping Linux as the appropriate name for the system?"

Linux based Android doesn't use Linux. Arguably the distro name is now the "primary" name (though this would still leave the FSF people feeling unloved). Thinking about it, I mostly say I use Ubuntu on the Desktop and Android on the phone and tablet and barely ever mention I run Linux nowadays.

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

#104

Post by cookiecaper »

caf wrote: post #58
zohebv wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked at the article and it seems to strengthen the argument for calling it a GNU/Linux distribution. The top contributors as per the chart. 1. kernel 9% 2. gnu 8% 3. kde 8% 4,5 java, mozilla 6% 6. gnome 3% If you combine gnu with gnome, we have 1. gnu 13% 2. kernel 9% Also considering that java/mozilla are platform agnostic, the candidate names we have are linux-gnu-kde OR gnu-linux(-kde) If you are not running K…

Warning: angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin argument ahead. It's true that the kernel is loaded all the time (though not usually running more than a small fraction of the time), but so is glibc. It's far from obvious that more cycles are spent in the kernel than are spent in glibc (though of course in both cases the goal is to run as little as possible, allowing more application code to run). It's also worth conside…

glibc isn't the only C runtime out there.

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

#105

Post by [deleted] »

justincormack wrote: post #94
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.

[deleted]

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

#106

Post by beza1e1 »

s0li wrote: post #102
justincormack wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

why is linux a hard target? Don't know much about compilers/how kernel compilation goes but still would appreciate some basic explanation.

Our cparser compiler cannot even try to compile Linux, because it does not support the gcc -regparm and the -softfloat arguments. These are features that do not matter for applications (on x86).

-regparm changes the calling convention, so the first arguments must be stored in registers instead of the stack

-softfloat uses library functions to emulate floating point operations instead of the FPU

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

#107

Post by justincormack »

s0li wrote: post #102
justincormack wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

why is linux a hard target? Don't know much about compilers/how kernel compilation goes but still would appreciate some basic explanation.

1. It has always been targetted at gcc, so no serious portability work has been done, more of a co-development thing. Linux will only compile correctly on a few recent versions of gcc, you cant compile old kernels on new gcc or vice versa. 2. There is a lot of inline assembler (including oddities like x86 16 bit code) that has to work exactly as specified, such as for creating memory barriers say, or other low level constructs. Inline assembler is non standard, although clang does now implement the gcc stuff. 3. You are making an ABI, so everything must be laid out exactly the same way. Portable C does not give you exact control of padding, again there are gcc extensions. 4. Testing is hard - there are a huge number of optional modules, as well as SMP and non SMP builds, so even if you build the code with a new compiler without a lot of people using it it is hard to be sure it really works. There is no test suite...

Probably some more reasons too...

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

#108

Post by bxr »

Sandman wrote: post #87
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…

If they can modify it without worrying about legal repercussions, they're not afraid to modify it Oh, they can modify it. They just can't redistribute the modified code as proprietary software (or under a non-compatible license). But there's nothing stopping you from taking emacs code, for example, and modifying it any way you want. Actually, that's the point of Free software.

I never said they couldn't I said they couldn't without worrying about legal repercussions. Even in the cases when they're in the right, they have to carefully worry about the license. If I develop on an opensource stack, its prohibitively expensive to deal with the overhead of fixing the underlying components rather than put workarounds in my code. Even if the former would benefit everyone the most.

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

#109

Post by bxr »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #83
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…

> This happens rarely and when businesses get burnt, they're more apprehensive to do anything with opensource in the future. And why is that a bad thing? When they "accidentally" copy a random image on Google Image Search and publish it in a flyer, they get sued by the maker for copyright infringement, and they become more apprehensive to copy random images in the future. This is a good thing. Businesses need to lear…

>Businesses need to learn that there are laws and that software is subject to licenses that they should read

I'm not saying burnt in a lawsuit against them for infringement, it could be as simple as abandoning technologies based on recommendation or clarification from their legal council.

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

#110

Post by halostatue »

mkr-hn wrote: post #49
rwl wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that line of thinking, why call it "Linux" (or anything else) either? I agree that "GNU/Linux" sounds kind of dumb, if that's what you're driving at -- but I'd be happy to call the operating system "GNU".

Why do we call it aspirin instead of acetylsalicylic acid? It's familiar, easy to spell, and easy to remember. It's an accident of history. What would be accomplished by renaming it?

Most people in the world don't call it Aspirin, as that's a registered trademark of Bayer AG. The trademark was voided in the U.S. during WWI and never re-granted.

Here in Canada, we call it ASA.

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