Re: Irony

[Klaus Fischer <klaus at ptpp03 dot phy dot tu-dresden dot de>]

Manfred Hollstein wrote:
> "Christoph" == Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org> writes:
>
>   Christoph> Right, let the company change it's name because the FSF
>   Christoph> Fuehrer wants it!
>
> This is embarrassing! _Everybody_ should accept that Linux is nothing
> without GNU, and that GNU wouldn't be/have an OS without Linux. RMS
I'm just a user. And I *do* accept that Linux contains lots of GNU
software. And I think nobody has ever claimed the opposite.

Nevertheless I call that thing Linux, not for political reasons but just 
because that's the name of it. Its a short, clean name and there is no 
ambiguity with the kernel of the OS, even the kernel developers call 
that thing `kernel' or `linux kernel' in their discussions.

> is not asking you to call Linux the "GNU OS", but he's correctly
> requesting that people call a Linux system a "GNU/Linux" system,
How can such request be correct? It is not justified, neither legally
nor morally. That is as if the steel companies want me to call a car 
`steel/car', just because a car was nothing without steel. Most people 
know cars are made of steel anyway, and the rest don't care. 
Additionally, a great argument against a similar request was given by 
RMS himself:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html .


> which is a simple way to describe the two parts it consists of.
>

People using the name `Linux' don't want to describe it. They just want 
to name it. Anyway, Linux consists of much more components and its 
impossible to name them all.

Nevertheless I admire RMS for most of his political campaigns and can 
happily live with that one claim as long as I can simply ignore it.

But his reputation will be spoiled by this ridiculous request.

Regards,
Klaus Fischer