that old GNU/Linux argument

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Jul 29, 2008, Antonio Olivares <olivares14031 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> If you ever come to the US close to the border with Mexico,

I went to San Diego some 9 years ago, to speak at a Usenix
conference.  Is that the location you're speaking of?

> I would invite to a couple of beers :)

I'd pass the beer, but I'd enjoy the company :-)  Thanks,

> I might seem like a bad person, because I question many things.

Questioning is actually a good trait, but some people indeed mistake
that for a bad one.

> Many people do not like me because they say that I am a rebel
> without a cause.

They must have some hidden reason to put such a label on you :-)

> I am sorry but I happen to like the Linux name very much.  At school
> they call me the Linux Man/Linux Dude.

Hey, people do that to me, too.  I promptly correct that, and if I get
a blank stare, I know I have work to do :-)

> IT will be very hard to convince them to call me GNU/Linux man.

You could try, but even if you don't succeed, it would be very
important that *you* used it, because you're a role model to them.

> I believe Les has a very strong point when he wrote:

>> GNU is a radical political movement.  Putting the name next to
>> Linux makes it seem as though Linus himself endorses the movement.
>> But that's rather dishonest, given that Linus has always stayed
>> away from such political zealotry.

> So I added a +1) and sent it in.  

So it would be dishonest to retain the name of the system that Linus
chose to use along with his kernel because of imaginary concerns that
he himself waved away when he said he didn't care if it was called
GNU/Linux, but it's honest to rename it to something that makes it
harder for the software to achieve its goal, and denies credit to its
authors while at that?

Double standards?

If Linus was concerned about having the GNU name next to Linux, he
wouldn't have oked the name.  If he was concerned about distancing
himself from GNU, he might as well have kept a distance from all that
GNU software.

That argument doesn't hold even ice, let alone water :-)

> Similarly I agree with many things from the FSF, I do believe in the
> ideas that software be free and made available to all.  What I do
> not believe is in the approach that they take.  I also do not agree
> to certain things about the Free and Open Source licenses.

We can get back to that one or two months from now :-)  Please Cc: me
explicitly when you want to start talking about these.a

> It creates a great deal of confusion that many users on this list
> and creators of softwares are not excited about dealing with the
> FSF.

The confusion is created mostly by spreaders of FUD.  The best way to
deal with it is to educate people as to the facts, which ends up
exposing and denouncing the FUD.

> But you have opened my eyes in some ways.  While I do not agree with
> you 100% of the way, I have learned many things that I did not know
> before :)

Good.  (part of the) mission accomplished :-)

Best,

-- 
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}