Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 29 Mar 1999 16:58:53 +1000 | From | Steven Hanley <> | Subject | [OFF TOPIC] Re: GNU/Linux |
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> Well, if you instist on making the additional requirement that anyone > using GNU tools must add GNU/ to whatever they produce (I see that nowhere > in the GPL, BTW, where did that requirement come from?) I think you may > find that it is a temporary problem and people with either endevor to make > other tools without such restrictions or port existing tools without such
George
There is yet another distinction you dont seem to be making
The GPL (or GNU General Public License) is not the GNU Tools
Any software may be released under this license (the Linux Kernel for example)
The license of course does not specify such restrictions. However the Free Software Foundation has put many many years of work into tools such as gcc, emacs, ls, grep, the c library etc (all the tools you use) These are both licensed under the GNU GPL but were created by the GNU Team.
You are correct in thinking a system could be created without these tools. (I believe Richard has been shown such systems at times (Linux kernel with no GNU tools) (one such instance a system the samba author mentioned he demonstrated to Richard)) However the best tools available are the GNU Tools (heck I put them on any machine I have to work on suich as solaris boxes) as they have had so many years of dedicated hard work and effort put into them by the Free Software Foundation.
Give credit where it is due. All current linux distributions (that I am aware of) use the GNU Tools to some extent.
(remembering of course also the kernel does not dictate policy, the tools in the system do, and therefore the actual look and feel of a Linux system is more heavily dictated by the use of the GNU Tools than it is by the Kernel, the c library is the most prominent example of this where user level software dictates policy)
See You Steve
-- sjh@wibble.net http://wibble.net/~sjh/ Look Up In The Sky Is it a bird? No Is it a plane? No Is it a small blue banana? YES
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