Re: GNU/Linux Naming

[David Kastrup]

"Noah Slater" <nslater@bytesexual.org> writes:

> On 05/12/2007, mike3 <mike4ty4@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> I do not understand why *names* are the
>>appropriate place to give credit. What's the reason, anyway?
>
> For the same reason [...]

I think it is enough to feed the trolls with a reference.  In particular
since it is easy to mess up:

> Of course, the proper name for the operating system is GNU and Linux
> provides one of it's kernels. The combination of these two words is
> GNU/Linux. If you used Sun's kernel you would call the system
> GNU/Solarix and if you used the BSD operating system (as an
> alternative to GNU) you would be running BSD/Solarix.

There is no such system as "Solarix", and Sun calls the _complete_
system "Solaris" with a "SunOS" kernel.

So you would actually be talking about GNU/SunOS in that hypothetical
case (and that only when indeed the kernel is all that you have taken
from Solaris).  Where you have a GNU userland, but augmented with all of
the system utilities from Solaris (not an entirely unpopular setup),
things become quite muddier.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum