[NTLUG:Discuss] RE: RMS's Speech

[Christopher Browne]

On Thu, 18 Jan 2001 09:34:24 CST, the world broke into rejoicing as
Lance Rose <lrose at csiweb.com>  said:
> So will the group be renamed NTGUG or NTGLUG?

NTGLUG is sufficiently agglutinative that it actually sounds OK.  :-)

For all that RMS is one of the brightest people that I've ever met, it
seems to me that he's making the mistake of giving up a moral "high
ground" by being so demanding of credit.

His hyperbole that essentially goes to the effect that "nobody that
calls it Linux gives _any_ credit to free software" is something I
regularly find galling; I'm with Steve Baker on the notion that he
wants English to mean what _he_ intends, ignoring that different
people can and will understand things differently, and that English is
a language where words regularly change their meanings.

In effect, there have been three things:

-> The GNU Project sought to build a whole bunch of "system
   construction" tools, with the goal of building a free operating
   system, "The GNU System."

-> A young hacker in Finland used some of those tools to fiddle with
   80386 addressing modes, and produced an OS kernel that _SOMEONE
   ELSE_ decided should be called "Linux."

   It seriously irritates me when RMS claims that the "Linu" in
   "Linux" indicates that Torvalds is demanding credit for the whole
   shebang; a _correct_ reading of history is that Linus Torvalds
   wanted to call the kernel "Freax," and that _other people
   objected_.

   But apparently it is much more convenient for RMS to play the sob
   story where he can blame things on Torvalds being about as arrogant
   as he is.  [Both are considerably bright, and are quite capable
   enough to get away with it...]

-> People decided to do "systems integration" projects, taking the GNU
   tools, the Linux kernel, and constructing these into something that
   people decided to call "Linux."

   It may be galling to RMS that he didn't get credit, and that people
   did not agree on the term "GNU System."  

   That still doesn't establish that Torvalds has any responsibility
   for robbing the FSF of credit.  

   After all, note that the thing Linus Torvalds works on is _NOT_
   "Linux systems," but rather the "Linux kernel;" even if "Linux
   System" is "clearly robbing" the GNU Project of credit, that
   _doesn't_ establish that Linus talking about "working on Linux" has
   the slightest thing to do with this.

If he simply were to assert "Well, GNU software running alongside the
Linux kernel represents a GNU System," and have the FSF start actively
distributing Debian CDs under the moniker "GNU System CDs," I'd not be
irritated.

Changing topics considerably, I found it a real cackle that RMS seemed
to think that one of the most important pieces of free software was a
"Windows emulator;" the preponderance of probabilities is that you've
got three classes of software that might run under such emulation:

1.  Non-free software, like Word, Excel, AutoCAD, and such, that fit
into the class of software that RMS clearly considers worse than
having no software at all.

2.  Possibly-free software, like "bespoke" applications, customized
apps that might be used to support a department in a business.  Which
are likely to depend on tools like MS Access, MS Visual BASIC,
Internet Exploder, and such, which are proprietary, and thus "worse
than having no software at all."

Then there's a third class of software: 

3.  Free software.  For instance, GNU Emacs can be run on Windows.

Mind you, the bulk of such free software is likely to be available to
run natively on "GNU/Linux," and would likely run better without the
veil of emulation software in between.  Certainly true for GNU Emacs.

Methinks he's a mite confused about this one...
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.gultn@" "enworbbc"))
http://vip.hyperusa.com/~cbbrowne/unix.html
Signs of a Klingon Programmer #1:  "Our users will know fear and cower
before our software. Ship it! Ship  it and let them flee like the dogs
they are!"