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How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux?

pedrocr.net

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

#121

Post by maweaver »

lawfulfalafel wrote: post #60

Okay, how about this: build a Linux distribution using no GNU software. If you don't think it's critical, try to get by without it. RMS is a good guy, and I think that his effort to make foundational efforts remembered is equally laudable.

I think this would be very interesting to see. I know there is Plan 9 from User Space that could provide cat, ls, grep, sed, etc, although the parameters are different so most scripts would probably break. Someone mentioned Clang as an alternative to gcc. The biggest hurdle would probably be glibc.

In reality, I think even if you came up with alternatives that had the same functionality as the GNU software, so many Linux programs have probably assumed GNU that patching everything to work would be a colossal undertaking.

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

#122

Post by mvalle »

sp332 wrote: post #117
omouse wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GPL has ultimately done more harm than good for open source That's the point. The GPL is for free software. Scared of what codebase? I'm more scared of proprietary software than anything because who knows wtf it's doing.

Proprietary doesn't mean secret. There are codebases that are made available to customers for inspection, under NDAs and with all copyrights "reserved" by the owner. Looking at code is not the primary benefit of open or free software.

Can the customer compile the source?

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

#123

Post by joeshaw »

lawfulfalafel wrote: post #60

Okay, how about this: build a Linux distribution using no GNU software. If you don't think it's critical, try to get by without it. RMS is a good guy, and I think that his effort to make foundational efforts remembered is equally laudable.

Android would probably be a pretty good starting place. They have (nearly?) no GNU code in their distributions.

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

#124

Post by mvalle »

cookiecaper wrote: post #30
adharmad wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about gcc?

What about clang? The point isn't that GNU programs aren't useful -- it's just that the claim that GNU is so important it should be included as a mandatory prefix any time anyone mentions "Linux" in a context that is not kernel exclusive is grating and silly.

What about Debian GNU/kFreeBSD?

The point isn't that Linux isn't useful -- it's just that the claim that Linux is so important it should be included as a mandatory suffix any time anyone mentions "GNU" in a context that is not kernel exclusive is grating and silly.

On a more serious note, Android is a great example of a non-GNU Linux(or not-as-much-GNU Linux).

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

#125

Post by [deleted] »

cookiecaper wrote: post #30
adharmad wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about gcc?

What about clang? The point isn't that GNU programs aren't useful -- it's just that the claim that GNU is so important it should be included as a mandatory prefix any time anyone mentions "Linux" in a context that is not kernel exclusive is grating and silly.

[deleted]

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

#126

Post by stonemetal »

zohebv wrote: post #44
cookiecaper wrote: post #9

FSF's insistence on "GNU/Linux" has always been childish, but now it's just silly really. For years the proportion of GNU software that actually gets run has been dwarfed by the code from Mozilla, KDE and/or GNOME, and other major desktop software vendors. The GNU/Linux argument has never been persuasive and I'd say it's high time they let it go.

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…

But does calling it GNU\Linux add any specificity over calling it Linux? I can't think of a major distro that doesn't use the GNU components. Therefore calling it GNU\Linux is rather like calling it Cocoa\Mac OS X. The GNU adds no additional information.

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

#127

Post by mvalle »

zbowling wrote: post #72
tzs wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all irrelevant because operating systems in general are NOT named after their prominent components. It does often happen that the kernel and the OS have the same name, but that is not because the OS is named after the kernel but rather the other way around--that is, the creators of the OS name the OS, and then the kernel is known as the X-kernel, where X is the name of the OS. If I choose to take the Linux kerne…

Well yes. Debian, Ubuntu, SuSE, etc are the names of the OS distributions. When I'm generalizing based on the stack people expect, I usually say Linux when I mean the common Glibc, GCC (maybe CLang), and GNU utils with a Linux kernel setup people expect to find normally (and I'm usually excluding Android saying that), or I say that it's UNIX variant when I want to include Mac and BSD or any other generic POSIX compla…

Coke?

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

#128

Post by Rusky »

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…

I think the point is that the GPL has hurt open source because of the businesses' reactions. Of course it's vaguely good when businesses learn to be careful with software licensing, but if being careful entails not using open source, open source loses /because of the GPL/.

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

#129

Post by Rusky »

zohebv wrote: post #44
cookiecaper wrote: post #9

FSF's insistence on "GNU/Linux" has always been childish, but now it's just silly really. For years the proportion of GNU software that actually gets run has been dwarfed by the code from Mozilla, KDE and/or GNOME, and other major desktop software vendors. The GNU/Linux argument has never been persuasive and I'd say it's high time they let it go.

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…

The gnu tools are a very small part of the overall system, and they are probably some of the most replaceable (and replaced). The kernel is a lot less so, and while it's comparable in size it's also the common thread that people want to refer to when they say "linux systems."

Besides, neither the kernel nor the gnu tools are used all that much by a regular user. The desktop environment, the browser, office tools, etc. are much, much more visible to the end user.

In any case, it makes a lot more sense to say just "linux" than to arbitrarily "gnu/" in front just to placate some pedants. Say "gnu" when you're talking about gnu, not when you're talking about linux.

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

#130

Post by 3am »

tedunangst wrote: post #120
simias wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2010-Augu...

So wrong. GNU grep may be fast, but it's also the most bloated grep with the most lines of code. I think that's the opposite of what you're trying to prove.

Optimizations are the hardest part. So those additional LOC are actually the most valuable and difficult to replace.

Your utility of those optimizations might be vary from other peoples'... personally, I would hesitate before calling Gnu grep bloated.

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