mikegerwitz
/
thoughts
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull Requests Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity
Thoughts and ramblings (mikegerwitz.com)
257 Commits
1 Branch
0 Tags
1.4 MiB
Shell 34.5%
HTML 33.9%
CSS 19.8%
Makefile 4.6%
PHP 4%
Other 3.2%
 
 
 
 
 
 
Go to file
Mike Gerwitz 693165d552
GNU is more than a collection of software 
GNU is more than just a collection of software; it is an operating system:

  [https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html]()

Many hackers and activists within the free software community don't
understand this well, and it's a shame to see attacks on GNU's relevance (as
measured by programs written by GNU on a given system) going
unchallenged. Software for GNU was written by the GNU Project when a
suitable free program was not available. It wouldn't have made sense to
write everything from scratch if free programs already solved the problem.

When we say GNU/Linux, we really are referring to the GNU operating system
that just happens to be using Linux. It could be using the FreeBSD kernel
([GNU/kFreeBSD][]). It could be using a Windows kernel with a Linux API
([GNU/kWindows][]). It could be using the [Hurd][] ([GNU/Hurd][]). The
disambiguation is important, but the end result is pretty much the same.

There are many systems that use Linux that are not GNU. Android is not GNU,
for example. We shouldn't attempt to call those systems "GNU/Linux"
blindly. (Also note how it's called "Android", not "Android/Linux", or just
"Linux". Somehow GNU is controversial, though.)

So if you see someone challenging GNU's relevance because GNU/Linux contains
so much software that isn't part of a GNU package, then please provide the
above link, and kindly explain to them that their observation is correct,
because GNU is an operating system, not a collection of programs.

[GNU/kFreeBSD]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_GNU/kFreeBSD
[GNU/kWindows]: https://mikegerwitz.com/2016/04/GNU-kWindows
[Hurd]: https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/
[GNU/Hurd]: https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/
 		2017-06-03 01:24:57 -04:00
_raw/about : GPG key change and transition statement 2016-10-13 23:10:14 -04:00
docs :Remove Earth's Magic from resume 2017-05-26 01:35:20 -04:00
fonts Open Sans font 2015-05-22 01:25:39 -04:00
images :Host LP banner to respect user privacy 2017-01-20 00:16:17 -05:00
tools :CC BY-SA {3.0=>4.0} 2015-11-20 23:22:41 -05:00
tpl :Remove Rule 41 headline 2016-12-14 00:55:32 -05:00
.gitignore :Résumé added 2015-07-23 00:33:11 -04:00
.gitmodules Added coope 2013-06-03 22:28:13 -04:00
.listfilter :Depoliticize blog 2016-11-08 23:35:37 -05:00
.mailmap :.mailmap to normalize e-mail addresses 2015-05-22 01:48:18 -04:00
COPYING :CC BY-SA {3.0=>4.0} 2015-11-20 23:22:41 -05:00
COPYING.CCBYSA :CC BY-SA {3.0=>4.0} 2015-11-20 23:22:41 -05:00
COPYING.GPLv3 All creative content (e.g. thoughts) now licensed under CC BY-SA 2013-06-16 20:35:22 -04:00
Makefile :Add txt extension to githubbub files 2017-04-14 00:50:03 -04:00
README Added intial pages 2013-06-02 12:27:02 -04:00
asciidoc.conf mg.css fully merged into core style; consistency between article and repo2html formats 2013-05-25 11:51:41 -04:00
style.css :cgit styling (CSS) 2017-04-03 23:52:53 -04:00

README 

The miscellaneous thoughts and ramblings of a free software hacker.

This website is processed with repo2html.

http://mikegerwitz.com/