RMS Turns 50 527
gnuhead writes "RMS is turning 50 on the 16th, according to this post in the FSF India mailing list. Some of the members have decided to give a birthday gift to RMS by celebrating March 16th to April 15th as 'GNU/Linux' month, and having a 'It's GNU/Linux dammit!' email sig. for this month. Happy birthday RMS!!!"
GNU/Linux, fah! (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, while the FSF made many valuable contributions to the Linux "movement" as it were, seeking to rename Linux is at best presumptuous.
not gnu (Score:0, Insightful)
Happy Birthday, Richard! (Score:4, Insightful)
Although in the long-term, it would be nice if we could trust companies enough to use BSD-based licenses, right now we can't trust big business farther than we can throw them.
As a result, a strong and uncompromising stance is the only thing that will protect Free software. And that is the stance you have taken.
May you see the day when business and Free software are no longer seen as mutually exclusive.
Re:Happy Birthday, Richard! (Score:5, Insightful)
Things would be very different today, right now, if the GPL didn't exist, or if it had been allowed to be watered down by a series of little compromises.
Re:Now.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that meant to be an insult?
Why not the FSF/Emacs/GCC/GDB month? (Score:5, Insightful)
- no Free Software Foundation. no GNU! at all!
- no Emacs
- no GCC
- no GDB
- no GNU/Make
Very likely there would be no Linux and no *free* BSD either. We would be using SCO and BSDI!
I don't care about the GNU/blabla name myself but his contribution, both technical and philosophical, is simply enormous. In years to come people will compare who in the early years of the personal computer made the most impact, between Bill Gates and RMS. For now the jury is still out, but I know which one I respect most and whose software I use!
Happy birthay RMS, many return! -- and thanks for not letting compromise dilute your message. May the hordes understand you some day.
Re:GNU/Linux, fah! (Score:3, Insightful)
You paid them for the lumber etc, it is yours. Plus lumber isn't copyrighted, its freaking dead tree thats been chopped up.
The GNU utils are copyrighted and dristributed by GNU for free.
Still, plenty of people buy stuff and advertise the manufacturer/maker. Almost everything you buy has the manufacturers logo permanently emblazoned on it. I'm looking around and my computer, my calculator, my speakers, phone, watch, wallet, mugs, mp3 player, books cds, movies, etc,etc,etc all have manufacturer/creator logos/names on them.
Re:GNU/Linux, fah! (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, you misunderstand what they refer to when they say "GNU/Linux". They aren't referring to the kernel itself. If they felt that the kernel (Linux itself) was FSF software, they'd just call it "GNU"
Huge portions of a standard Linux distribution are GNU software, and they're arguably some of the most important parts (the compiler, the system libraries). When they say "you should call -it- GNU/Linux", they aren't referring to the kernel. They're refferring to the kernel *and* the rest of the system, of which the kernel is a relatively small part. The "GNU" in "GNU/Linux" refers to the GNU software that the distribution is built on, not the kernel. That's what the "Linux" part in "GNU/Linux" refers to.
All clear I hope
Re:GNU/Linux, fah! (Score:1, Insightful)
It's more like taking a play written by Shakespeare and putting your name on the cover.
Re:GNU/Linux, fah! (Score:2, Insightful)
He also writes parts of GCC. The GNU C Compiler is not a trivial thing to write. I use it from time to time.
The benefits of the GPL (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks to RMS for charting a solution through the horrors of software patents and such.
Not at all (Score:2, Insightful)
But besides, the software industry is quite unlike the contruction industry (ever try to burn a house onto a CD and give it to a friend?), so the whole analogy is flawed. Put it this way: the GNU project started about 1985 (86? 84? sometime around then), while Linux originally began in 1991. It's hardly the same as your analogy, where Linus did most of the work building GNU/Linux, and the FSF just stood their handing him the occasional compiler and driver. Look at code size, look at the amount of time taken, look at the number of people involved, there's far more GNU code in GNU/Linux than there is kernel code.
Re:Why not the FSF/Emacs/GCC/GDB month? (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally somebody who realizes that even if you don't care for RMS personally, Open Source may not even be here today without him. The whole unwashed slashdot mob really makes me angry sometimes. RMS has made more contributions to the whole Open Source movement, both in code, money, time, pholsophy and conviction than perhaps anybody else on the planet. If you don't like him, fine, but please respect what he has done.
On the other hand reading the comments, I can't help but think that most people who have posted are 5th grade class clowns that don't understand anything that happens in the world other than what day they get their allowance.
"Happy birthay RMS, many return! -- and thanks for not letting compromise dilute your message. May the hordes understand you some day." - I couldn't agree more. Cheers!
Re:Had to say it.. (Score:4, Insightful)
So happy birthday RMS. May age mellow your demeanour.
Re:That's exactly why it should be called... (Score:2, Insightful)
FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD all heavily use GNU software and have gcc as the official compiler. Just remember, no compiler means no software in binary form. You will realize the importance of GNU only when you exist in a world devoid of GNU-made software and GNU-licensed (GPL) software.
Re:Goddamn GNU/Linux people (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:GNU/Linux, fah! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if "invention" is the right word to use; I would tend to say "Stallman's most clever hack ever was a hack on legal code, not computer code" and I'm not even sure if that's accurate. But I do agree with the spirit of your post: the GPL has done wonders for the freedom of computer users.
I just got back home after attending the FSF Associate Membership meeting at MIT yesterday. Eben Moglen mentioned in his presentation that he has never once had to go to court to defend GPL'ed software. The thing that had most of us chuckling throughout his presentation was what he attributed this success to: TACT!
RMS is certainly eccentric, but history is full of eccentric leaders and I believe that history will be kind to this one.
Happy Birthday, RMS!
--K.
It's <distro>/Linux, dammit! (Score:4, Insightful)
An important part of the software in a typical distro comes from the FSF, for which the FSF deserves considerable credit. But any distro has software from very many other sources; enough so that the FSF does not deserve so much credit as to get to choose the name.
Note that expressions like "Redhat Linux" or "SuSE Linux" really are common parlance, and these names communicate useful information. If I tell you I have SuSE Linux, then you can surmise that I have the YaST installer, a certain kind of layout under
Really now, did the folks at FSF India really mean to do RMS a favor? There are certainly many things for which RMS could be honored, and deservedly so. Why did they have to pick out the most controversial, tendentious and dubious of all of his pursuits? Frankly, I can imagine anything worse they could have done for him.
There is no "GNU/Linux", nor is there a "GNU/Hurd" or a GNU/anything else, because the FSF has failed to produce anything that might be called the GNU operating system. The FSF has produced a lot of outstanding software, but a GNU OS does not exist. Maybe someday, but not now. They have nothing comparable to the distro CDs from which an OS named "GNU" can be installed, in fact no installer that I know of, no support organization, nor anything else comparable to the value that organizations like Redhat, SuSE, Mandrake and the rest provide. And of course, there is no Hurd kernel. The FSF has been remarkably successful at many, many things, and I admire them greatly for it. But the effort to create an operating system called "GNU" has been a failure.
Thus to insist on calling something "GNU/Linux" is a kind of intellectual dishonesty that, to my mind, comes uncomfortably close to plagiarism. It is an attempt to get credit for other people's work.
Happy birthday to RMS, and congratulations for the many fine things he has accomplished in 50 years.
But an OS called GNU is not among those accomplishments, and the obsession with the name "GNU/Linux" is something for which no one deserves any praise.
Someone should start a BSD C/C++ compiler project (Score:3, Insightful)
not a C/C++ compiler (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:GNU/Linux, fah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Happy Birthday RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
Dunno how he calls himself an atheist on stallman.org. Clearly worships his ideas...
GNU/Linux, XEmacs and clibs (Score:5, Insightful)
Contrast this with the attitude of the Lucent towards their fork of emacs. They had tried very hard to work out compromises. While they were unable to reunite enough so that package managers could write for one platform the XEmacs team never failed to recognize XEmacs as a product born of Emacs.
RMS felt that the primary problem was the distinctive name. XEmacs users couldn't help but see their work as derived from Emacs because of the name while it was very easy for Linux users to fail to understand the dependencies on GNU products. How things like Binutils were vital to creating a GPL kernel, and at the same time had been boring tedious unfun work for the FSF. Just ask yourself the simple question if XEmacs had been called Xlispedit might Xlispedit users have neccesarily seen the connection between their editor and the FSF's?
RMS got a little heavy handed with Debian over the Linux GNU/Linux issue and this among other issues resulted in Debian becoming independent of the FSF. Now consider that RMS followed this up with two more battles:
a) The battle against KDE
b) The battle against the term "open source"
and you can see how he's made enemies.
The fact is that:
a) Linux is part of the GNU project
b) A large number of Linux users do not know this
b2) A time when a lot of Linux users learn about this is during discussion of Linux vs. GNU/Linux
c) An even larger number of Linux users do not understand the philosophy and motivation of the GNU project (though a pretty high percentage think they do)
d) RMS's battle against QT resulted in huge improvements to QT/C++. Today QT could play the same role for C++ that the C-standard library does for C. That can't help but benefit KDE over the long haul. The treatment was very painful and the results are highly positive.
e) Everything RMS said would happen regarding the term "open source" has happened.
Anyway happy birthday RMS. I hope the next 10 years are as succesful as these 10. Winning battles can take a great out of you.
Political Statements (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think even RMS would disagree with this.
The FSF is very political, because they're fighting a idealogical war.
On the one hand we have dictators like Microsoft that put a tax on any computer Joe Average buys and strips their natural rights away through EULA's. On the other hand we have the FSF beating the drum for the GPL and software that guarantees the user's rights.
I personally don't go around saying GNU/Linux, mainly because it's a mouthful, but I do understand why the GNU/Linux people preach it: they're trying to increase mindshare about free software.
And Linux wouldn't exist without free software.
Re:Yay. (Score:1, Insightful)
You certainly haven't understand
Re:Why not the FSF/Emacs/GCC/GDB month? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's dumb. By your logic, I could say that if there were no Edison, someone else would have invented the lightbulb so Edison isn't important.
Yes, someone else would have made equivalents, but he seized the moment, so he gets his day in history. You should have tried harder. :)
Re:Had to say it.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Had to say it.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why not the FSF/Emacs/GCC/GDB month? (Score:4, Insightful)
No one is above criticism, not all of what RMS did is right. Not even him would go that far I'm sure. Note however that the GNU/Linux issue is not unambiguously wrong, merely controversial (you will find a lot of people who support his views). It's not as if he'd killed somebody with his views.
However it's today is his birthday. This is not a dark day for Free Software, on the contrary. If from time to time people realise what others have done and acknowledge them, it often gets easier to understand one another.
Re:GNU/Linux, fah! (Score:4, Insightful)
RMS is actually the paragon of why Free Software, despite its best attempts, will never excel without the input of the "marketing" types that GNU-ites go out of their way to denigrate.
I say this as a open-source advocate whose day job is as a marketing/PR professional, so I have at least a fair idea of what I'm talking about.
GNU, to use the previous analogy, was a group that saw a great (but commercially restricted) house nearby (AT&T UNIX). They started to build two houses - one from the roof down (the GNU tools) and another (GNU HURD) from the ground up. While the top-down project went well, the ground-up project suffered from typical GNU committee-think and organizational "analysis paralysis," as it is typically called in management study texts.
Seeing another ground-up house being built (Linux), they generously added their housetop onto this new foundation. But, despite the fact that - given enough time - the new house would have built its own top, they then looked at the success of the new house and claimed half (or MORE than half) ownership.
Casting this presumptuousness aside, let's look at what GNU would gain if people did actually start calling Linux "GNU/Linux." From a marketing perspective, they would now have their acronym in front of a larger audience - so they could do what? Maybe users would give the same amount of cash they gave for every free Linux download (none) to GNU? Maybe industry media would choose to ask RMS about Linux's new enterprise capabilities instead of Linus or Alan Cox? What good would this do, aside from giving RMS a platform to talk (often irrelevantly) about his (if admirable) "extremist" software agenda when what users really wanted to know about was whether the next Linux kernel would have (insert important feature to them)?
While as a marketing person I understand the value of brand recognition, I still don't understand the practical value of alienating many Linux users through the forced insistence of a GNU name, when the end goal isSpeaking as a (oh-so-hated-by-Slashdoteers) marketing professional, I have to question whether GNU's active disdain for marketing types is really getting it anywhere, when if they actually embraced a marketer somewhere in their cabal, they might have produced a less extremist spokesman than RMS and actually advanced their cause. An actual competent marketer might have advised them to drop the "GNU/Everything" crap and take a more cooperative approach with all the Linux (and even BSD [including Apple] distributions) to promote their general ideas as the expense of controversial personalities like RMS.
But maybe promoting RMS is what GNU is all about ... I don't know, but if they broadened their camp to include marketing-types, GNOME wouldn't have such an awful user interface and the GNU program would be getting somewhere in the mainstream/technical press...
Re:Why not the FSF/Emacs/GCC/GDB month? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's look at one of these events: GCC. RMS did not start out writing GCC because there were no free compilers. There were. But he rejected them because of technical issues. There would indeed be a free C compiler today, and it might very well meet the current definition of "Free Software". It just wouldn't be GCC.
Let's look at another: FreeBSD. There probably would not be a FreeBSD, to be sure. But there would still be a Free Software version of BSD. BSD source code was free from day one, encumbered only by the AT&T code that you needed to use it. The impetus to make BSD AT&T free would still have been there.
RMS was a spark that got a lot of things burning. But if a spark that started a forest fire did not happen, it's folly to assume that that particular forest is flame proof. Let's give RMS the credit he deserves, but don't place the mantle of god of History upon him. No man is that great.
Re:Happy Birthday RMS (Score:1, Insightful)
matt