Except that you (as in a linux user) might not have X, apache, perl (which is not GPLed) or MYsql if you didn't have free tools such as gcc, make, sed, Gawk, binutils, bison, diffutils, fileutils, gdb, grep, RCS, shellutils, and probably a number of Gnu libs like zlib, pth, ncurses and libpng. Without these GNU tools, Unix might still belong exclusively to the old-gaurd companies like Sun, Alpha, HP, IBM, etc.
And don't forget tar and gzip, which while not critical to building other software, certainly made it alot easier to share code with others over the internet. And that's just the list of software that makes other source code practical. There's a also a lot of software people use on a daily basis not related to production of code and compiling. GPG, Gimp, bash, emacs, finger, gnome, less, etc. And finally the greatest creation of Stallman and Gnu, the GPL itself. Without it, MySQL probably wouldn't have gone open source. They were developing it in house for their own use. If no license had existed which protected their code like the GPL, I doubt they would have gone to the trouble of inventing such a license. When you look at it that way, maybe there's some substance to Stallman's position, regardless of how poorly he represents the position. His ultimatum makes him look like primadonna whining baby. He needs to recognize the sad fact that some of the greatest contributions to science and technology go unrecognized. Now, all that doesn't necessarily convince me that a name change is appropriate, but neither do I think RMS is a raving lunatic. He's just a frustrated revolutionary that believes credit should be given where it's due, which is something that just doesn't always happen. On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, Paul Sack wrote: > I think many questions are about X configuration. What about Apache? Perl? > MySQL? > > None of these are even GPLed. > > Samba is GPLed, but is not a GNU project either. > > Network configuration is also a popular topic here, and that has little to > do with GNU. > > The gcc is more important than any of these, but not more important than > all of these. Other than gnome or gcc questions, I can't think of any > questions asked recently on this list about GNU s/w. > > Remember: All GNU apps are GPLed, but most GPLed apps are not GNU, and > would probably exist without the GPL. -- Public key #7BBC68D9 at | Shane Williams http://pgp.mit.edu/ | Systems Administrator UT-GSLIS =----------------------------------+------------------------------- All syllogisms contain three lines | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Therefore this is not a syllogism | www.gslis.utexas.edu/~shanew _______________________________________________ Siglinux mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.utacm.org/mailman/listinfo/siglinux
