[clue-talk] Re: Ubuntu - Not your Grandma's distro

[Nate Duehr]

Greg Knaddison wrote:
> On 11/16/05, Jeff Cann <jccann at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>On Tuesday 15 November 2005 8:20 pm, Collins Richey wrote:
>>
>>>On 11/15/05, Collins Richey <crichey at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>And even bigger news: not one blessed reference to GNU/Linux in the
>>>entire article !!! <grin>
>>
>>What do you mean?
> 
> 
> Generally speaking, the Debian crowd gets real mad when you call the
> "operating system" by the name "Linux" because "Linux" is "just" the
> kernel.  Calling the whole "operating system" "Linux" gives more
> credit to Linus and his folks and not enough credit to Stallman and
> the GNU folks.  The GNU folks wrote most (all?) of the core utilities
> that people think of when they think "Linux" and they had their own
> kernel that worked OK but didn't work great and wasn't ported to x86.

No, RMS gets mad.  Not the majority of Debian or its users.

RMS is the one with the axe to grind about his precious GNU not getting 
credit for anything it did... e.g. He feels it made Linux possible. 
(And he may be right.)

> I'm sure I messed up some part of that, which is kind of funny and
> kind of purposeful because now some Debian zealot can correct me and
> show you exactly the kind of behavior that Collins was referring to.

Hah.  When there's stuff to correct, perhaps yes.  ;-)

> Or were you being sarcastic... ;)

Heh heh.

Seriously though, I watched a lot of the GNU/Linux argument on the 
actual Debian-devel and other Debian mailing lists back when it first 
happened, and the majority couldn't care less.  Another example of a 
vocal minority leading the way...

As a Debian "fan" I can clearly state that I don't care if they call it 
Linux, GNU/Linux, or Howdy-Doody-Happy-Fun-Ball... it's a free OS with 
nice upgrade features, a rock-solid package management system, good 
policies regarding what's considered "stable" in the turmoil of 
open-source, and generally -- good work.  MUCH better work than distros 
without policies like "upgrades shalt not break the system without 
notifying the user", and/or with questionable licensing on binary 
packages they include, etc.

I'd still use it, no matter what it was called.  ;-)

Nate