a long rebuttal to the Linux-is-the-engine fallacy

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Jul 28, 2008, Antonio Olivares <olivares14031 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>> Of course there is.  If you want to help, call it GNU/Linux, or
>> GNU+Linux.  That's all we ask for.

> What will I gain if I do that?  Do I get a prize?

Feeling good and making for a better world, is there a better prize
than that? :-)

> I would do it for you, but not for RMS :(
> Is that fair? 

Sure.  It doesn't matter whom you do it for.  That's not important at
all.  The important thing is to spread awareness about freedom.

> I think that the FSF is not being fair to Fedora as well, when the
> original question was asked, why was not Fedora a free GNU/Linux OS?

Why isn't the FSF being fair?  Fedora actively refuses to take steps
that would make it a 100% Free distribution, and takes steps away from
that.  How could the FSF recommend and endorse this kind of behavior?

> gnewSense, BLAG and others did make it

Sure, and they do take the steps needed.  It's not just empty promises
and reluctance and delays and steps back to balance freedom with the
alleged needs of users not interested in freedom, it's hard work to
put freedom first and try their best to make sure people get what they
expect when they go after a 100% Free distro.  Today, with Fedora,
that's just impossible, and by Fedora's own decisions.

> Since Fedora is not a truly free GNU/Linux Distribution, why shall I
> call it Fedora GNU/Linux?

Because it *is* GNU/Linux, even though it has non-Free Software added
to it.

> Where is the script that I shall run to make my system a GNU/Linux system?

You don't need to run any script to do so, it already is a GNU/Linux
system.  In order to make it a Linux system, you'd have to run
something along the lines of this script (do NOT run it unless you
really know what you're doing ;-)

#! /bin/sh
umount /boot
rm -rf /

:-)

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
FSFLA Board Member       ¡Sé Libre! => http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}