OK, this is a post I’ve been planning for months, I think? Several past drafts have been injured and killed before I gave birth to this one, the succesful one. So, let’s jump straight into it: I wanna talk about GNU. GNU. Not the FSF, not RMS… Why are all these three letter acronyms? Are all of these cover operations of some three letter agency? I hope saying that doesn’t get me into any trouble, so you better read my post before I suddenly disappear… Just kidding!
  • @stopit@lemmy.ml
    4•3 years ago

    I don’t understand the point of your post? You don’t like GNU, you clearly stated, with examples, how to use Linux without GNU…so why hate on something you don’t need to use?

    I have no problem with other people not saying “GNU/Linux” especially if they are not even using GNU, but I don’t call you stupid, why are you judging me for my choices? I say “GNU/Linux” for two reasons - one, that is what I use and more importantly, to me, it is also a way to acknowledge free software. I don’t “just care about the tech”, I do care about the movement as well, that is my choice and there is room for both of us. There is an open source movement - and it seems maybe this is what you should be focused on, according to your own interests?

    Just a few comments: I don’t think RMS ever attempted to sell any of the tools he re-wrote. In the book “Just for Fun”, written by Torvalds, the free (in beer and speech) was what drew him to use the gnu tool set in the first place. Also, in the same book, he explains his choice of licensing , at that time, was because of the stipulation that he would have to get his code improvements back under the GPL. His primary goal was to get a working system as quickly as possible.

  • @adrianmalacoda@lemmy.ml
    4•3 years ago

    You might’ve heard more than once that “You can’t use Linux without GNU.”

    Where does this claim come from? Certainly not from GNU or RMS, who make great pains to distinguish between Linux (which is a kernel) and the userland (which is something entirely different from the kernel). Indeed, if GNU is “just a userland” then Linux is “just a kernel” and it can be, and often is, used independently of GNU - in fact, I imagine Android comprises the majority of Linux installs out in the world.