On Sun, 5 Oct 2008, Robert Wilkinson wrote: > I claim no greatness! I take nothing away from what Stallman has > contributed, and I even agree with some of his philosophy. > > I reject his discourteous, rude, egotistical, arrogant, selfish, self > serving, attitudes. > > A gentleman would have graciously accepted the invitation, and politely > suggested while breaking bread that TCLUG think about changing the name. > > I don't give a rats behind what the name is, it's the way he went about > it. He has a lot of class: ALL LOW. > > BTW: I also reject the sometimes irrational and venomous ramblings of > some of his closed minded, hateful, devoted followers. I thought Stallman's letters to me were very friendly and courteous. All of the venomous words on this list seem to be coming from people who don't like Stallman for some reason. Many of the comments strike me as childish and unjustified. Stallman's reason for wanting to promote the term "GNU/Linux" seem pretty obvious: He has dedicated his life to promoting free software and adding the "GNU" to form GNU/Linux helps to attract attention to his cause. I don't think it has anything to do with ego. He called it GNU, not Richanix or Stallnix. I suppose it was cute and not egotistical for Linus to have named his contribution Linux. Stallman did come up with the name "POSIX" (pronounced like "positive") for the IEEE collection of standards that Linux adheres to. I like the term GNU/Linux for two reasons. First, it draws attention to the importance of the free software concept in the development of the system and in the recent history (and hopefully the future) of computing: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#whycare Calling the system GNU/Linux recognizes the role that our idealism played in building our community, and helps the public recognize the practical importance of these ideals. Second, use of GNU/Linux recognizes the central importance of the GNU project in the developmental history of the Linux kernel. In Linus Torvalds' first announcement in August 1991, he wrote: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/msg/b813d52cbc5a044b I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. ... I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months. Of course, the bash shell and gcc compiler are parts of the GNU system. As Torvalds put it in the 0.01 release of the kernel (September 1991): http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/old-versions/RELNOTES-0.01 Sadly, a kernel by itself gets you nowhere. To get a working system you need a shell, compilers, a library etc. These are separate parts and may be under a stricter (or even looser) copyright. Most of the tools used with linux are GNU software and are under the GNU copyleft. These tools aren't in the distribution - ask me (or GNU) for more info. So Torvalds was saying that he had "gotten nowhere" without GNU. He also wrote (31 Jan 1992) that the kernel was a small part of the whole system: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/msg/ac1b04eb0e09c03e?pli=1 As has been noted (not only by me), the linux kernel is a miniscule part of a complete system: Full sources for linux currently runs to about 200kB compressed - full sources to a somewhat complete developement system is at least 10MB compressed (and easily much, much more). With version 0.12 (5 Jan 1991), Torvalds switched his license to the GPL: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/old-versions/RELNOTES-0.12 The free software movement is playing an important role in my life and I think it is changing the world in postive ways. I would like to see our group use "GNU/Linux" instead of simply "Linux" because doing so would help to promote this movement. It isn't about Richard Stallman. I also don't believe in a universal requirement to always call the system GNU/Linux (pronounced GNU-slash-linux, by the way), nor do I think we should feel that we *must* do it -- I just think it's a good idea. Let's see if most members agree with me on this point. If we find a reason to create a new group, we might do that. It would probably help to reduce conflict and resulting boorish comments. Mike