We are organizing our very first Wikipedia Edit-a-thon to help fix Wikipedia's technological illiteracy.
We'll start by swapping all "Linux" references to "GNU/Linux"
Inspiration from
1st Jow Forums Wikipedia Edit-a-thon
Luis Thomas
Other urls found in this thread:
en.wikipedia.org
jwz.org
twitter.com
Camden Robinson
Those autists with hgih Wikipedia lvls will just revert it.
Nolan Long
Why don't you spend some time cleaning up installgentoo wiki rather than making edits to Wikipedia only to have them reverted within a day?
Jordan Collins
No, Richard, it's 'Linux', not 'GNU/Linux'. The most important contributions that the FSF made to Linux were the creation of the GPL and the GCC compiler. Those are fine and inspired products. GCC is a monumental achievement and has earned you, RMS, and the Free Software Foundation countless kudos and much appreciation. Following are some reasons for you to mull over, including some already answered in your FAQ. One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS -- more on this later). He named it 'Linux' with a little help from his friends. Why doesn't he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff -- including the software I wrote using GCC -- and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. You don't want to be known as a nag, do you? (An operating system) != (a distribution). Linux is an operating system. By my definition, an operating system is that software which provides and limits access to hardware resources on a computer. That definition applies whereever you see Linux in use. However, Linux is usually distributed with a collection of utilities and applications to make it easily configurable as a desktop system, a server, a development box, or a graphics workstation, or whatever the user needs. In such a configuration, we have a Linux (based) distribution. Therein lies your strongest argument for the unwieldy title 'GNU/Linux' (when said bundled software is largely from the FSF). Go bug the distribution makers on that one. Take your beef to Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware. At least there you have an argument. Linux alone is an operating system that can be used in various applications without any GNU software whatsoever. Embedded applications come to mind as an obvious example.
Christopher Rivera
Next, even if we limit the GNU/Linux title to the GNU-based Linux distributions, we run into another obvious problem. XFree86 may well be more important to a particular Linux installation than the sum of all the GNU contributions. More properly, shouldn't the distribution be called XFree86/Linux? Or, at a minimum, XFree86/GNU/Linux? Of course, it would be rather arbitrary to draw the line there when many other fine contributions go unlisted. Yes, I know you've heard this one before. Get used to it. You'll keep hearing it until you can cleanly counter it. You seem to like the lines-of-code metric. There are many lines of GNU code in a typical Linux distribution. You seem to suggest that (more LOC) == (more important). However, I submit to you that raw LOC numbers do not directly correlate with importance. I would suggest that clock cycles spent on code is a better metric. For example, if my system spends 90% of its time executing XFree86 code, XFree86 is probably the single most important collection of code on my system. Even if I loaded ten times as many lines of useless bloatware on my system and I never excuted that bloatware, it certainly isn't more important code than XFree86. Obviously, this metric isn't perfect either, but LOC really, really sucks. Please refrain from using it ever again in supporting any argument. Last, I'd like to point out that we Linux and GNU users shouldn't be fighting among ourselves over naming other people's software. But what the heck, I'm in a bad mood now. I think I'm feeling sufficiently obnoxious to make the point that GCC is so very famous and, yes, so very useful only because Linux was developed. In a show of proper respect and gratitude, shouldn't you and everyone refer to GCC as 'the Linux compiler'? Or at least, 'Linux GCC'? Seriously, where would your masterpiece be without Linux? Languishing with the HURD? If there is a moral buried in this rant, maybe it is this:
Oliver Mitchell
Be grateful for your abilities and your incredible success and your considerable fame. Continue to use that success and fame for good, not evil. Also, be especially grateful for Linux' huge contribution to that success. You, RMS, the Free Software Foundation, and GNU software have reached their current high profiles largely on the back of Linux. You have changed the world. Now, go forth and don't be a nag. Thanks for listening.
Sebastian Lopez
Jack Martinez
We did it, Reddit!
Angel Lewis
>shouldn't the distribution be called XFree86/Linux
>xfree86
how old is this copypasta?
Chase Turner
Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
Many users do not understand the difference between the kernel, which is Linux, and the whole system, which they also call “Linux”. The ambiguous use of the name doesn't help people understand. These users often think that Linus Torvalds developed the whole operating system in 1991, with a bit of help.
The GNU Project was not, is not, a project to develop specific software packages. It was not a project to develop a C compiler, although we did that. It was not a project to develop a text editor, although we developed one. The GNU Project set out to develop a complete free Unix-like system: GNU.
Many people have made major contributions to the free software in the system, and they all deserve credit for their software. But the reason it is an integrated system—and not just a collection of useful programs—is because the GNU Project set out to make it one. We made a list of the programs needed to make a complete free system, and we systematically found, wrote, or found people to write everything on the list. We wrote essential but unexciting (1) components because you can't have a system without them. Some of our system components, the programming tools, became popular on their own among programmers, but we wrote many components that are not tools (2). We even developed a chess game, GNU Chess, because a complete system needs games too.
Nicholas Morris
No... No... I'm not doing this again...
Tell you what, the next time you step out of mommy's basement, try telling people you use a "Guh-noo" or "Guh-noo slash Linux" operating system and tell me what kind of looks you get versus the people you told you use "Linux".
Andrew Mitchell
>Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system
At one point this may have been true, but in the modern day, Linux is normally used in combination with Android.
Easton Gonzalez
Most people have never heard of GNU. Even most of the people who use the GNU system have never heard of GNU, since so many people and companies teach them to call it “Linux”. Indeed, GNU users often say they are “running Linux”, which is like saying you are “driving your carburettor” or “driving your transmission”.
Nonetheless, those who know about GNU associate it with the ideals of freedom of the free software movement. That association is no accident; the motive for developing GNU was specifically to make it possible to use a computer and have freedom.
A person seeing the name “GNU” for the first time in “GNU/Linux” won't immediately know what it represents, but has come one step closer to finding out. The association between the name GNU and our goals of freedom and social solidarity exists in the minds of hundreds of thousands of GNU/Linux users that do know about GNU. It exists in gnu.org and in Wikipedia. It exists around the web; if these users search for GNU, they will find the ideas GNU stands for.
Bentley Bennett
>This message was brought to you by the Church of Latter Day Stallmans.
Anthony Allen
Good thread.
Grayson Anderson
Android is very different from the GNU/Linux operating system because it contains very little of GNU. Indeed, just about the only component in common between Android and GNU/Linux is Linux, the kernel. People who erroneously think “Linux” refers to the entire GNU/Linux combination get tied in knots by these facts, and make paradoxical statements such as “Android contains Linux, but it isn't Linux.”
The extreme example of this confusion appears in the site linuxonandroid.org, which offers help to “install Linux [sic] on your Android devices.” This is entirely false: what they are installing is a version of the GNU system, excluding Linux, which is already present as part of Android.
Absent this confusion, the situation is simple: Android contains Linux, but not GNU; thus, Android and GNU/Linux are mostly different, because all they have in common is Linux.
Ethan Carter
Then we proceed with replacing Android with Linux.
>referring to an operating system based on the Linux kernel (TM)
Camden Edwards
>what they are installing is a version of the GNU system
do they not offer the option for a GNU-free system, such as Alpine or certain Gentoo configurations?
Carter Watson
>People who erroneously think “Linux” refers to the entire GNU/Linux combination get tied in knots by these facts
You say that as if the majority of people actually think Linus Torvalds created the whole shebang, like boo hooooooo where's muh credittttt :'( ... No, people call it "Linux" because it's short and sweet and that's what everyone knows it as and the rest likely either wouldn't exist or would have fallen into obscurity without it anyway. Nobody's trying to steal your fucking credit, you GNUtards just need to grow the fuck up.
Ayden Carter
Don't things like this here, are root trying to make GNU a hate word as defined by the ADL?
Aaron Butler
I've been using the system for a year and thought the creator of the system is Torvalds. Then I discovered Jow Forums.
Bentley Torres
How can i help?
Isaiah Moore
Fix our shitty outdated wiki first faggot.
Clean Jow Forums's room.
James Clark
kek
Zachary Thomas
Either the user controls the program or the program controls the user. It's one or the other. I choose to use only free software: software that respects the users' freedom.
David Mitchell
gnu/linux prevents this because it stops me from editing stacks, and thus preventing my freedom by spamming memory access violations!.
Leo Bell
I thought the penguin created Linux
Ayden Edwards
David Murphy
>that pic
i can hear him in my mind saying
>GNUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Easton Stewart
>anime girl said it
It's true, period. If anime girl says something then it's alway true.
Joseph Ortiz
I've discovered the same. It's true.
Lincoln Moore
Truth is a function of anime, cuteness, and smugness.
Anthony Ross
Touhou isn't an anime therefore what he said is incorrect
Lincoln Watson
breddy old user.
Elijah Kelly
Doesn't make it any less true.
Wyatt Gonzalez
>.
stopped reading right there
Jeremiah Gomez
It's a fight again windmills
Dylan Phillips
Reported ;)
Christian Jones
Go away you anti-funner!
Owen Collins
ignorance*
Juan Cooper
>announcing reports