To me, the purpose of a name is to identify an entity that will most easily be understood by others. The purpose of a name is NOT to identify the creators, contributors, philosophers or thinkers behind that entity. So while I perfectly agree with the logic that GNU has contributed to GNU/Linux as much or more than Linux; the people I deal with understand Linux just fine.
Ever tried telling a person to switch to GNU/Linux? By the time you're done pronouncing GNU, you've convinced the other party that the exercise will be pointless. Linux is something that thanks to prevailing awareness and culture, people still understand. Too bad for GNU, but names evolve and change. Now if RMS is willing to bring in a bit of Master Yoda in his character and rename GNU to GUN (GUN, Unix is Not), I think GUN/Linux sounds cool and can be sold. Cheers On 6/19/07, Lam YongXian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> However, I am a bit turned off by the way FSF pushes free and open-source > software. It seems that to them, if anyone doesn't agree to the FSF > idealogy, he/she should not be using FOSS. Hence the need for FSF to call > for the use of GNU to be added to Linux is seen as rather authoritarian > where GPL is only one of many types of licenses. So should Linux only be > about GPL or accommodating others as well? I am not in any position to > comment whether this should be the case. Personally, I am more inclined > towards Apache Licensing model but I support GPL all the same. I understand that. Somethings FSF's advocates put things in a way which makes other counterparts ethically-inferior. Some people ask why does FSF has the power to define 'freedom'. I personally find some advocates writings abit too offensive, but we know no one is perfect. Nevertheless, I apologies on that on their behalf, if they (or I) accidentally offended anyone here. Sometimes we need to read Official FSF's or RMS's articles to get the accurate information. For example, actually RMS say non-copylefted licenses are fine, since they give user the freedom. No doubt, FSF naturally favour GNU GPL, but they also include a list of free software licenses they recommends =) > 1) Do we need so many licensing distributions? Should we adopt a generic > license whereby business can work on? Seriously, we may hate the way money > is profited using software like in M$ case, but we really have to rely on > businesses to push through the technological boundary and into the consumer > territory. If a single license could make everyone happy, it will definitely be great. But we know even among like-minded individuals, disagreement exist, let aside people from the huge internet community. Of course, its advocates' job to bring people together, and so thats why I am here to bring these across. > Sorry for the long post but I don't wish Yongxian to feel that we are > attacking him instead of having a discussion. Thanks for the concern. To try to bring across something 'alien', invites pre-judgments and I have expected this to happen, so dun worry. One factor that keeps me driven is that, I know there exist individuals on the list who might be interested, no matter how few they are, I wouldn't give up on them =) -- Lam YongXian Adolflam.com FSF Member #5279 Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html _______________________________________________ Slugnet mailing list [email protected] http://www.lugs.org.sg/mailman/listinfo/slugnet
-- Regards, Anshul "Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught." -- Oscar Wilde, "The Critic as Artist"
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