Re: A rose by any other name (was Re: [OT] Re: configure script)

[David Kastrup]

desj@Math.Berkeley.EDU (David desJardins) writes:

> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> > Calling the system GNU/Linux is easiest and most efficient way to help
> > correct the confusion.
> 
> My experience is that this doesn't work for anyone.  The people who
> understand the history and the components already have an opinion.  The
> people who don't know the history or the components think, at most, that
> GNU/Linux is some sort of variant of Linux, like "FreeBSD" is a spinoff
> of BSD, and "SCO Unix" was a spinoff of Unix.
> 
> On the other hand, I don't have any problem with the request, and I
> don't understand why Mr Kastrup rants about it.

I am not ranting about the request: as it is laid out in its current
form in writing, it is close to be expressed in reasonable words,
probably because it has been through several stages of mitigation by
third sides.  I still find some points rather dubious, and I am
appalled at the relentless priority with which Stallman pursues this
in public as if there was nothing more important, or if there were not
a dozen less confrontational or self-destructive ways of achieving
similar goals (basically recognition of and for GNU).  I know that
every interview with Stallman I read will waste probably half of the
space with GNU/Linux admonishments, one reads off-topic posts from
Stallman about GNU/Linux on Linux developer lists, Stallman refuses to
let a site (in Japan?) serve as a GNU mirror because it has Linux in
its name, Stallman cancels a visit to a national user group because
they have Linux in their name.

Of course I may be lacking the visionary power of RMS here, but I
simply fail to see how this is supposed to strengthen the stand of
Free Software and the GNU project.

Call it ranting, if you want to.  At least it appears that both RMS
and I care enough about Free Software to be susceptible to getting
into rant mode...  By the way, this is entirely off-topic here as
well, and I am sorry to have been drawn into discussing this here.  So
this will be my last post on this matter here.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
Email: David.Kastrup@t-online.de