that old GNU/Linux argument

[Björn Persson]

Thomas Cameron wrote:
> I'm talking about Linux
> as a Linux distribution in very generic terms.  Whether it's Fedora,
> Ubuntu, Slackware, whatever.
[...]
> > so you probably consider Debian, Gentoo and
> > others different versions of Linux or something like that.
>
> Of course.

OK, all distributions are equal, and they're all Linux in your mind.

> > I guess your idea of Linux is "all software that is included in at least
> > one distribution based on the kernel Linux" – a bit narrower than Joe
> > Klemmer's concept of "all software that can run in a Unix-like
> > environment".
>
> No,

OK, so that's not it.

> the current most common use of the term "Linux" really talks more 
> about a Linux distribution with all the associated applications.  Many
> if not most of those apps have zero relationship to the GNU project.

How about this then: There isn't one set of software that is Linux. There are 
many distributions based on Linus Torvalds' kernel. They are all Linux, but 
they're different Linuxes. All the software that is included in one of them 
is part of that Linux, but you don't apply the name "Linux" to the superset 
of all the software in all the Linuxes. Is that more like it?

But in that case, how do I know which of the Linuxes you mean when you say 
something about "Linux"?

> You don't see
> them making asinine demands that we go around calling it Sendmail/Linux
> or Apache/Linux, do you?

When people talk about Sendmail they typically call it "Sendmail", and I don't 
think anyone believes that Linus Torvalds wrote Sendmail, so I don't see why 
the Sendmail Consortium would complain.

> I don't think anyone on this list is claiming that Fedora == Linux.  I
> think what has been said over and over is that Fedora is a Linux
> distribution.  The vast majority of the community and the industry calls
> Linux distributions just plain old "Linux."  

Fedora isn't Linux, it's a Linux distribution, but everyone calls all Linux 
distributions "Linux", so Fedora should be called "Linux" even though it 
isn't Linux? Is that what you're saying? Unfortunately that doesn't help much 
with defining what Linux *is*.

Or do you mean that Fedora isn't *equal* to Linux, it's just *a* Linux, but 
everyone calls all Linuxes "Linux"?

> It's easy, it makes sense, 
> everyone knows what is being said.

No, that's exactly the problem. I do *not* know what people are saying when 
they say things about "Linux", because I don't know what "Linux" means to 
them.

I'm more and more getting the impression that "Linux" is a word without a 
meaning, or with a meaning just as vague as "thingy". There seems to be lots 
of people who think they know what Linux is, but when asked to explain what 
Linux is they just answer with some hand-waving and a lot of arguments for 
why it shouldn't be called "GNU/Linux".

Should a thingy be called a thingy or a doodad? How can we answer that 
question without first specifying what thingy we're talking about?

Björn Persson