From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.5 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, PP_MIME_FAKE_ASCII_TEXT autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII X-Google-Thread: 103376,1efdd369be089610 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1025b4,1d8ab55e71d08f3d X-Google-Attributes: gid1025b4,public From: David Kastrup Subject: Re: what DOES the GPL really say? Date: 1997/08/13 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 264274859 References: <5ph4g5$sbs$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <5pim4l$5m3$1@news.nyu.edu> <5ptv7r$4e2$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <5pu5va$64o$1@news.nyu.edu> <5qdof6$iav$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <33D6FA2B.9B7@ix.netcom.com> <33E00855.2BA7@ix.netcom.com> <33E974F3.1AAC@ix.netcom.com> Organization: Institut fuer Neuroinformatik, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum, Germany Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,gnu.misc.discuss Date: 1997-08-13T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Chris Morgan writes: > This is a very tricky issue here. Depending on ones prejudices (and > I have a full complement) one might feel that the Linux "project" > has only succeeded so astonishingly well because of the advanced > state of the GNU software it incorporates (but this is highy > inflammatory to some). Not at all. It is a plain fact that the Linux project has succeeded the way it did *because* of the advanced state of the incorporated GNU software. As reverence to the vast contribution the GNU project has posed, and in recognition of the spirit and the working connotations involved, Linus Torvalds has put the Linux kernel under the GPL as well and has acknowledged and stressed the large influence and importance of the GNU project for the Linux endeavour. What *has* been inflammatory is that some people from the GNU project felt it necessary to consider the work of the Linux community invested in developing a Posix kernel and cleanly integrating the whole lot of utilities from the GNU project as well as other system components as just stealing the idea of a GNU system, and have consequently chosen to unilaterally call the system different names, expressing their implicit intellectual ownership of the whole Linux movement. This has raised quite a lot of stink and a lot of overbearing and partly silly reactions (such as trying to make a "truly" free system not containing any GPLed components). Still, some continuing annoyance remains between people claiming "What you call Linux is just our GNU system and a bit of kernel" and people wanting to forget the seminal influence of the whole GNU project altogether if possible (not that it is) because they get offended by that stance. Of course, it would be much much more important if both parties kept their peace and instead focused their ire on things like the upcoming "I2O" standard which explicitly aims to prohibit development of free software and particular operating systems for use on standard hardware. The recent investment of MS into Apple might be seen as paving the road for getting this scheme work on a distributed hardware base. If the same I/O systems prohibiting use of Linux, the Hurd, FreeBSD and others are spread to PowerPC bases as well, perhaps they will even migrate by marketing pressure to Alphas. Soon no hardware at all will be able to work with free operating systems, and the whole Hurd/GNU/Linux animosities will rage on without any significance. -- David Kastrup Phone: +49-234-700-5570 Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de Fax: +49-234-709-4209 Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany