On 12/30/06, Siddhesh Poyarekar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 12/30/06, jtd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > irrelevant. You can use the gnu tools, as also tons of other FOSS > stuff without a linux kernel. See my earlier mail. Everyone can > decide which is more important based on their own logic. Exactly, and on the same lines everyone can decide what they want to name their distribution. I understand that GNU doesn't force anyone, but seems like they would probably withdraw from everything that doesn't have the word GNU.
Not true. If the Linux kernel project, and their advocates ever preached software freedom, then the term 'Linux' could have become a symbol of software freedom too. The reason why it is not is because they have expressed explicitly that they don't care about software freedom. That is the crux of the matter. GNU project wants several other free software projects flourish, as long as they talk of freedom. Wikipedia is a good example. They use GNU FDL license, we didn't ask them to call it GNUpedia. In fact the original gnupedia project was abandoned in support of wikipedia (read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNUpedia) The reason is simple. wikipedia project stands for free knowledge and free software, it is in tune with the GNU manifesto. All the GNU hackers supported Jimmy's project and gave it the required momentum to make it successful. If a project stands for software freedom, name does not matter. That is what JTD said, we are not asking for credit, we are asking to uphold software freedom. Nagarjuna -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
