Red Hat 7.2 B2 comments (rant)

[rir at attbi.com (Rob Ransbottom)]

On Thu, 29 Aug 2002, Derek D. Martin wrote:
> At some point hitherto, Rob Ransbottom hath spake thusly:

> something else.  I've been using Linux since 1995, have used both

Oh, a newbie.

> > I don't doubt rms' arguments were spurious, that does not de-legitimize
> > the request itself.

> How does it not?  The vendors name their products; that is their
> right.  Even in the world of printed text, the producer of a

What you say is true enough, but is not responsive to the statement I
made.  

That rms requests anyone distributing current linux distros to publicly
& obviously credit GNU is not unreasonable.
That he can be obnoxious, etc., is beside the point, except that it
will turn people away.  It is not has if SUSE/Redhat/Caldera/Mandrake/etc
were going to agree if he was pleasant or smooth.  rms' world has
been less friendly than Linus'.

> What exactly makes them GNU/Linux?  The fact that they include a fair
> amount of (OPTIONAL) GNU application software that may or may not ever
> be installed by the user?  It's true that there is a large amount of
> GNU software shipped with a Linux system; almost none of which is
> actually required to be installed for the system to be useful.  This

Try stripping a system of GNU stuff, then tell me how well it runs and
what you actually used it for.

> software was compiled with gcc, but if I were to use a Windows system
> with a MyCo web browser and MyCo office suite that was compiled by
> Borland C/C++ compiler, does that make it Borland/Windows?

Not the same issue.  Though Microsoft officially said that the browser
was a core element of the OS.  :-)  

> attempt to heal it.  Frankly, I find it repugnant, and in some ways
> directly counter to some of the ideas that he is trying to publicize
> in so doing.  Part of the reason that Linus has remained in the
> spotlight for so long, IMO, is precisely because he was always the
> timid but likable geek who was much more interested in writing good
> code for people to use, than in getting the credit for it...

I agree.  But it is easy to be uninterested in credit when you
are flooded with it.   You yourself might be happy to code for
150 an hour until you see the neighboring bozo, that you've been 
helping, is getting 1000.

> I AM a free software partisan, and support many of the philosophies
> espoused by rms, albeit to a lesser degree.  Nevertheless, his

Well I agree with some also, but I don't count myself a partisan.
The FSF is about free as in price not about freedom, and the license 
reflects a generous and paranoid mentality.

Gee, you've agreed with all the points I was trying to make in 
that post.  You also disagreed with some too.  Maybe I didn't 
express myself too well.  Or more likely rms is even more
abrasive than I think, that would color my response were I thou.


rob                     Live the dream.