You have completely missed the point I made. If you install those GNU tools in your Windows machine. The GNU uname would not report you that you are running the 'GNU/Windows'. If you install those 101 GNU tools in a Solaris you will not see uname reporting it as 'GNU/Solaris', and so on. Only in Linux it will tell you that you are running 'GNU/Linux' even if you build yourself the OS with BSD or your own clones of those programs. That is even if haven't touched any GNU tools to build your Linux, the GNU uname will report you that it is 'GNU/Linux'. Don't you think that is overdone, selfish and self-promotion?
Do you see the point now? GNU forces the OS name of Linux to be 'GNU/Linux', no matter how it is built. Once upon a time there was UNIX. That defined the standard of OS, called POSIX. Every other kernel/OS made are based on this standard (except Windows). So is Linux. Now if you want to credit people by appending/prepending their name, then why do you stop at GNU? Why don't you add all of them? It should be called Ubuntu/Unity/GNOME/X/GNU/Linux/C/POSIX/UNIX. So the original distros were made of GNU tools. Therefore you want to credit them and do not want to forget them. Great! Very honest and humble opinion. So should Debian people impose their name to the hundreds of the distros built from them? Should we call Debian/Ubuntu, Debian/Ubuntu/Mint, Redhat/SuSE, Redhat/Mandrake/Mandriva, oh wait that should be Radhat/Mandrake/Connectiva/Mandriva, Redhat/Mandrake/Connectiva/Mandriva/Mageia and so on? GNU Hurd project was started in 1984. Linux project started in 1991. We now have Linux3 with a fully usable desktop/server/mobile OSes on top of it. But Hurd hasn't been stable enough yet to be released as 1.0. It takes the talent of Linus to make a kernel that works for the joe-user. So I am saying it again, GNU hurd is a failure until they make a usable release. It cannot take 30 years to build a kernel. I think this is worthy of a discussion about history. Not everyone needs to know these things, I agree. If you are not interested in such conversations, please ignore it. Do not waste your time reading these or writing not helpful message like 'stop fighting'. This is not a fight. This is a part of OSS movement. We discuss/debate many things about the surroundings and environments here involving the Open Source Culture. This is a very important part of a culture to exist and survive. Without such discussions people will not know the history, the passion that builds the community around a particular project. It also starts people looking at the source code rather than believing something blindly and the contribution happens. If you already know about these kind of debates and don't want to be bothered, please ignore. But there are many newcomers that needs to know about such thing. They need to know about the OSS, which is not only some codes that run your computer but also a bunch of people with different philosophies around the projects who has opinions and needs to be expressed. I know that, this is kind of religious debate. Whatever the result of the debate is, people will learn things from it. I learn myself many things from such debates. Taking a side at a debate does not mean I know everything about it. So please learn to take criticisms constructively. It helps you to be a better community member. -- M. Nasimul Haque Appliansys, Coventry, UK http://www.nasim.me.uk -- Ubuntu Bangladesh https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bd
