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GNU – Celebrating 40 Years

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Re: GNU – Celebrating 40 Years

#11

Post by ChrisArchitect »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

Another important anniversary. I wonder how well this thread will compare with "25 years of Google" [0] As a 50 year old, GNU has been there in the background for most of my life as a computing professional. It has not grown much as an organisation or ideas base, but clung firmly to timeless principles. That continuity and longevity is testimony to the power of an ideal, that computing belongs in the hands of the peo…

Except that GNU anniversary page had been around for months, and posted a few times already (and ignored mostly on here), while the Google 25 content is fresh today, if comparing news response.

Re: GNU – Celebrating 40 Years

#12

Post by phone8675309 »

sidkshatriya wrote: post #4

GNU has much to be proud of. It pioneered the use of "copyleft" and has produced a stream of influential software that is critical even today. For me the greatest achievement of GNU is proving that software does not need to be proprietary. There was a time when Windows and other proprietary Unixes ruled the roost. Due to the easy availability of fundamental GNU software at the right time we saw the cambrian explosion…

> However, GNU seems to have not changed (enough) with the times. A new breed of open source software is steadily chipping away at GNU's monopoly (e.g. LLVM, musl etc).

I don't think "losing their monopoly on free software" is something that the FSF or GNU are all that worried about. Their main concern is ideological/social/political - that free software is created, exists, and that the licensing rules around it are followed. If every piece of software they ever wrote got superseded by another piece of free software that was better I think they would be overjoyed.

Re: GNU – Celebrating 40 Years

#13

Post by gapan »

foul wrote: post #8
tetris11 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see suckless[0] tools as the spiritual successor to GNU. Free, open source (and I think copyleft?), minimal, and encapsulates a comprehensive desktop experience. I think no-bloat should be GNUs next philosophy. 0: https://suckless.org/

And its wonky spinoff bitreich

I had to look this up. Made me laugh, thanks!

http://www.bitreich.org/

edit: oh, there's a page redirection after a while. NSFW warning, but still funny.

Re: GNU – Celebrating 40 Years

#15

Post by kdtsh »

tetris11 wrote: post #7
sidkshatriya wrote: post #4

GNU has much to be proud of. It pioneered the use of "copyleft" and has produced a stream of influential software that is critical even today. For me the greatest achievement of GNU is proving that software does not need to be proprietary. There was a time when Windows and other proprietary Unixes ruled the roost. Due to the easy availability of fundamental GNU software at the right time we saw the cambrian explosion…

I see suckless[0] tools as the spiritual successor to GNU. Free, open source (and I think copyleft?), minimal, and encapsulates a comprehensive desktop experience. I think no-bloat should be GNUs next philosophy. 0: https://suckless.org/

Call me crazy but my idea of a comprehensive desktop experience doesn’t involve recompiling tools like my terminal emulator or WM to change configuration.

‘No-bloat’ is kind of antithetical to GNU, where the various applications give you everything and the kitchen sink with as many compilation flags as you like to rip out features if you really don’t want them. But one person’s bloat is another person’s fully featured system; I don’t think projects should be opinionated about ‘bloat’ if they don’t want to alienate some section of potential users.

Re: GNU – Celebrating 40 Years

#16

Post by foul »

gapan wrote: post #13
foul wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And its wonky spinoff bitreich

I had to look this up. Made me laugh, thanks! http://www.bitreich.org/ edit: oh, there's a page redirection after a while. NSFW warning, but still funny.

The real meat with those fine folks is reachable via gopher.
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