> As far as I can tell, your insistance on everybody using the term
> "GNU/Linux" is because YOU want to enslave all of us into YOUR
> organisation.
>
> I ask people to use the term "GNU/Linux", in order to help inform
> other people about the history of the operating system in question.
TO be quite frank, it appears to me that you "ask" people to use the term
GNU/Linux to capitalize on the success of Linux to attract more attention
to your project. The GNU project is a good one and deserves more
attention, but I do not think this is the best way to do that. The name of
the kernel sould be whatever Linus Torvalds decides to call it and the
name of a distribution should be whatever the distributor chooses to call
it. It is, after all, free software. There is a distribution, Debian,
that has chosen to call itself GNU/Linux ... though I think it should be
Debian/GNU Linux and not Debian GNU/Linux but that is my own personal
opinion and I do not try to correct them. GNU is free to produce a
distribution but what would you call it? GNU GNU/Linux?
> Many people think that the development of the system as a whole
> started in 1991, when Linux was written. Actually it was started in
> 1984 by the GNU project.
This is a key problem I have. GNU did not decide to use Linux, some
people developing Linux decided to use some of the GNU tools. When was
linux adopted as an official part of the GNU project? Why do you claim
that Linux is somehow part of the GNU project as a whole? You make it
sound as if Linux is somehow part of GNU's long-term strategy when my
feeling is that Linux appeared and spread in spite of the GNU long-term
strategy of developing HURD.
>
> If you talk with the people who use the term "GNU/Linux", you'll find
> that I actually have no power over them; I can't force them to do
> anything. I wouldn't want to, even if I could. I can only point out
> the facts, and ask people to act accordingly. Then they make their
> own decisions.
When I talk to people that call it GNU/Linux I find that you are the ONLY
one that influenced them or are the one that influenced that decision
the most. A lot of people have, rightly, a lot of respect for you and what
you have done with respect to free software and many will follow what you
say without much thought. This is particularly true of the newbies. It
seems to me that in this case you have made a mistake. You are free to
produce GNU Linux but to try to tell someone what they should name their
software is against everything you have stood for. For GNU to decide the
"rightful" name of other people's software distributions seems not only
out of character, it seems somehow wrong. It is about freedom. Be joyful
that you know it is really GNU.
George Bonser
The Linux "We're never going out of business" sale at an FTP site near you!
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