this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
159 points (94.9% liked)
Asklemmy
42489 readers
2517 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!
I don't stop there. I like to give the FULL name of my operating system when I use it. Example:
Anything shorter is just disrespectful.
This is so annoying
My 2nd favorite pasta, only topped by
Own a musket for home defense, since that's what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. "What the devil?" As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, "Tally ho lads" the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion. He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. Just as the founding fathers intended.Found the Stallman!
๐คฃ ๐คฃ ๐คฃ
GNU gets credit for the GPL, and for being the first major project to start to create a free Unix operating system. So it's true that when the Linux kernel was first released, the fact that you could boot a usable operating system on top of it was due to GNU.
But...the success of what most of us just call "Linux" since then is due to thousands of individuals and organizations other than GNU. The vast majority of free software running on top of a Linux operating system has nothing to do with GNU and is not licensed under the GPL.
Let's say I'm running Linux on a server, for a small app running the MERN stack. Literally none of the MERN stack is GNU.
Let's say I'm running Linux on a desktop. I'm depending on Wayland, KDE, Chromium, VSCodium, and a dozen other tools, none of which are GNU.
However, the fact that I can use the same OS to run a tiny embedded device or a superpowered server, that's due to the Linux kernel and the thousands of individuals, organizations, and companies who have made it into the most efficient and versatile operating system kernel in the world, period.
So to me, I have no problems at all calling the operating system "Linux".
As a user of the GNU Guix operating system, and a big fan of the GNU Emacs editor...
yeah, you're completely right. Linux is a perfectly apt name.
First? BSD just chuckles to itself