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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?

#81

Post by ori_b »

mkr-hn wrote: post #40
ajross wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about clang? It isn't part of the OS. It can't even build the OS yet. It's a nice project, and it might be a solid competitor to gcc in the near future, but the fact that it exists hardly refutes the point that gcc is a large, crucially important component of a modern Linux distribution. (I should point out that I too find the whole GNU/Linux tiff silly, but equally silly are the folks who try to write the FSF o…

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.

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

#82

Post by simias »

djmdjm wrote: post #50
aniket_ray wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really measure how time it would take to replace. Compared to KDE or Firefox code, GNU code is much more succinct and optimally written. I really doubt that that code could be replaced easily in a single pass.

citation needed

Here you go:

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

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

#83

Post by FooBarWidget »

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…

> 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 learn that there are laws and that software is subject to licenses that they should read. If they fuck up it's their own fault. Do you really want your user base to consist of people who don't read your license and don't try to honor your rights and only care about their own profit?

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

#85

Post by FooBarWidget »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #74
hasenj wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think he still would have, because what he set out to create is a 100% copylefted system. It's in the manifesto: > Everyone will be permitted to modify and redistribute GNU, but no distributor will be allowed to restrict its further redistribution. That is to say, proprietary modifications will not be allowed. I want to make sure that all versions of GNU remain free.

The FSF actively embraces non-copyleft or weak-copyleft licenses. The GPL3 was explicitly designed to be compatible with the Apache license. The Apache license has a weaker copyleft than GPL2.

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

#86

Post by Confusion »

cookiecaper wrote: post #12
ryanpetrich wrote: post #8

Lines of code is a poor way to measure contribution.

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, since the kernel is entirely invisible to her. Surely no one here suggest dropping Linux as the appropriate name for the system? But if so, doesn't GNU deserve to be mentioned as well, for making Linux actually usable by things such as KDE? The foundation is Linux + GNU tools. Neither can do without the other, but nothing can do anything without the two of them. That's as foundational as you can get in a GNU/Linux system, which is why people call it that.

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

#87

Post by Sandman »

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…

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.

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

#88

Post by modokode »

smackfu wrote: post #10

I think when Other is the majority, it makes it less meaningful.

I think it makes more sense than ever to call the operating system "Other" instead.

"So, what OS are you running?" "Debian Other on the laptop, Ubuntu Other at work"

This would also make the usage polls more relevant. You usually have "Windows", "OS X" and "Other" in the results already.

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

#89

Post by nitrogen »

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…

It's also worth considering that only a fraction of the kernel's LOC are even compiled in the average distribution's kernel (are the LOC dedicated to Itanium, Alpha and PA-RISC support really useful to Ubuntu?).

Does the kernel spend more lines of code on platform support or on drivers? I was under the impression that drivers made up the vast majority of the kernel, most of which are enabled in distribution kernels.

Sloccount seems to confirm this on kernel 2.6.35:

  4796735 drivers           ansic=4791978,yacc=1688,asm=1428,perl=792,lex=779,
                          sh=57,awk=13
  1677610 arch              ansic=1449312,asm=226905,sh=674,awk=470,pascal=116,
                          perl=58,python=45,sed=30

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

#90

Post by nitrogen »

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?

and its competition, Clang, is it even stable yet?

Yes. Clang can compile the kernel. From http://clang.llvm.org/:

Clang is considered to be a production quality C, Objective-C, C++ and Objective-C++ compiler when targeting X86-32, X86-64, and ARM

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