Re: GNU/Guix

[Kaz Kylheku (gnu-misc-discuss)]

On 2020-02-27 13:46, ams@gnu.org wrote:
> I was wondering if it would be better to call GUIX GNU/GUIX.

Why is that? The GUIX home page has "GNU Guix" plastered all over
the place. Is that not good enough with the space instead
the slash? People usually don't pronounce the slash in
GNU/Linux anyway; they just say it like GNU Linux rather
than GNU on Linux or GNU over Linux.

If it is sometimes called GUIX, that's just the same as GNU Bash
sometimes being called Bash, GNU Bison sometimes being called Bison.

GNU/GUIX is not like GNU/Linux, where there are GNU programs on
top of a non-GNU kernel; GUIX isn't a kernel in the first place,
but a packaging system.

Suppose GNU Tar were used to package a system, and the result
were called the GNU Tarball distro. Would it make sense to tell
people, "You can't call it Tarball when writing about it;
please use GNU/Tarball." :)

> I was
>    reading the wikipediea page of GUIX and there is a large dispute
>    over its naming in the project.

Are you saying that this dispute is described in the wikipedia page?

I'm looking at this, the English one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Guix

I can't seem to find anything about the naming dispute in that,
or its Talk page.

  Wouldn't this all be solved if
>    they called GUIX GNU/GUIX or even better, GNU.Hurd and to kill off
>    the Guix name.

GUIX doesn't exlusively use the Hurd kernel. The page says that it
was ported to Hurd in 2015, and that it uses either Linux-libre or
Hurd.

A build of GUIX with Linux is an example of GNU/Linux. The GNU part
of that includes GNU GUIX, like it includes GNU Bash and whatever else.

There is a GNU/Hurd usage out there for the category of systems
that are GNU userspace on GNU Hurd, like 
https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/
A Hurd port of GUIX seems to fit that category; it is *a* GNU/Hurd.

To me, GNU/Hurd being a distro category and GNU Hurd being just
the kernel is pointlessly confusing. The whole slash thing is
only required when there is a non-GNU kernel underneath the GNU system,
and when that kernel's name is a popular metonymy for that entire 
system,
failing to give credit to the GNU project.