Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 8 Mar 1996 10:11:42 -0800 | From | "Leonard N. Zubkoff" <> | Subject | Linux / GNU |
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Richard Stallman has been pushing this "Linux-based GNU system" idea at least as long ago as last May when I was communicating with him privately on some issues regarding Emacs. I still feel now, as I did back then, that singling out GNU software for a special credit in every phrase describing the system I run is inappropriate. My system depends on the efforts of a large number of free software authors, only some of whom are directly associated with the GNU project, and the fraction represented by GNU software is not overwhelming by any measure. Even Linus himself did not write the entire Linux kernel, and it would be nowhere near what it is now without the contributions of many others.
I am also concerned that there is a significant difference in goals between the "Linux community" and the "GNU software community" that makes it inappropriate to merge the two, or to identify the Linux system too closely with the GNU system. I think the following quotation from the GDB documentation will help illustrate my concerns:
"Reporting a bug may help you by bringing a solution to your problem, or it may not. But in any case the principal function of a bug report is to help the entire community by making the next version of GDB work better. Bug reports are your contribution to the maintenance of GDB."
This sounds good in theory but when the next official version is several months away this is not very comforting. Why are there known significant bugs in GCC 2.7.2 with patches floating around but there is not an official 2.7.3 or 2.7.2.1 release? As far as I know, there is not even a central repository for the collected patches.
My sense is that the Linux community is very much more concerned with helping people build reliable systems *now* and resolving problems as quickly as possible. If Linux is to be taken seriously for real world applications, I believe this continued focus is essential. I also feel that the generally non-politcal nature of the Linux community contributes substantially to whatever success it has achieved.
I believe there are significant differences in the attitudes of the communities developing free software, which are quite possibly more important than the software itself for identification purposes.
Overall, I identify with the attitudes of the Linux community, and that's why I proudly say that I run a Linux system, and tell people that I am part of an international team cooperating on developing this free operating system.
Leonard
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