Re: Wikipedia

[David Kastrup]

"Phil Holmes" <address@hidden> writes:

> I note that someone has updated Wikipedia to change the title of the
> LilyPond page from GNU LilyPond to LilyPond, stating (somewhat
> accurately) that GNU isn't actually part of the name.  I don't
> understand the principles around the use of GNU as part of the title,
> but wondered whether anyone could comment whether this is an
> acceptable change.

Well, if you take a look at
<URL:http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/>, you'll see that Emacs is
presented as "GNU Emacs".  What does that mean?

<URL:http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/faq/Difference-between-Emacs-and-XEmacs.html#Difference-between-Emacs-and-XEmacs>
says:

    If you want to talk about these two versions and distinguish them,
    please call them “Emacs” and “XEmacs.” To contrast “XEmacs” with
    “GNU Emacs” would be misleading, since XEmacs too has its origin in
    the work of the GNU Project. Terms such as “Emacsen” and “(X)Emacs”
    are not wrong, but they are not very clear, so it is better to write
    “Emacs and XEmacs.”

What the takeaway from that is that "GNU" is not a necessary constituent
of the software name.  It means that the package has passed a number of
tests and has managed to become part of an exclusive cycle.

Removing "GNU" from its name is not wrong in itself, like removing "Dr"
from Richard Stallman's name is not wrong in itself.  But it's
disturbing when done as a deliberate change.

-- 
David Kastrup