[Pan-users] Re: OT: GNU/Linux Was: clearing headers?

[Duncan]

Yavor Doganov <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Thu, 09 Oct 2008
08:53:31 +0000:

>> Yet I don't see the big deal about GNU/Linux, either.
> 
> Don't you agree with the reasons at
> http://gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html?

Within context, no.  It'd be a very good thing if distributions better 
differentiated free and unfree and let people know the difference, but 
that has little to do with whether they call it Linux or GNU/Linux.

>> And no, I'm /not/ going to start calling my particular subset of what
>> my distribution makes available
>> Gentoo/~amd64/KDE/X.org/GNU/Linux!
> 
> You don't have to.
> http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#many

... And I say they get credit if they wish it, in the individual 
applications.  That's appropriate.  Demanding the entire distribution 
give them credit in the form of the name chosen, is not, and strikes me 
as very similar to the old SugarCRM style license, considered non-free 
due to the requirement for logos, etc, on the various resulting content 
pages (it's a web app, the logo was required on the web pages) to 
identify them.  Were the GNU in GNU/Linux to be legally required, it 
would be in exactly the same position.

Luckily, it's not, altho someone that so clearly sees the evil of unfree 
software in other contexts seems to think ethics (if not legality) 
requires it here.

It doesn't matter whether the name in question is Linux or "A heifer 
jumped over the moon".  Requiring, so-called ethically or legally, a 
specific name extension, "GNU/"whatever, would be unfree.

>> As I said earlier, ask any linguist,
> 
> There is an easy solution if "GNU/Linux" is so hard to pronounce -- say
> just "GNU".  I often do that when I refer to all GNU variants in general
> (GNU/Linux, GNU/kFreeBSD, GNU/Hurd).  Besides, "GNU/Linux" is not hard
> to say and write in the languages I know.

But Linux has an accepted general meaning.  So does GNU, but its meaning 
is different, and neither one is required, nor can it be, legally or 
ethically.

OTOH, trade-mark-wise, one can require that a name /if/ /used/ be used in 
a particular way and under particular conditions, with the usual fair use 
exceptions.  Thus we have "Firefox", which comes with certain 
requirements for what any browser software claiming that name must 
contain, but there's nothing wrong with calling it "Iceweasel" instead, 
and indeed, calling it /something/ else is required if the conditions for 
calling it Firefox are not met.  In that particular example, I think 
they're being a bit petty, but that's a legal and even Stallman would 
argue to some degree, ethical right they have.  Certainly, he defends the 
use of the GNU rights and trademark logo, for instance.


-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman