What's in a Name?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| rht Aug 26, 2005 4:57 PM EDT |
"Free software means you're free to run it, study it, change it, redistribute it, and distribute modified versions -- the way cooks do with recipes. What names you're allowed to call a program is a side issue." If the above quote is accurate and not taken out of context (both of which are suspect) then I think that RMS is being a tad hypocritical and inconsistent -- traits that have heretofore been conspicuously absent in his remarks. First, the four freedoms are the principles and trademarking, linences, etc. are merely the tools used to implement those freedoms. So, of course, the principles are "more important" than the tools. In fact, they are not even comparable. Secondly, the GNU Foundation uses existing intellectual property law to protect its products -- notably the GPL. Making derogatory remarks about the Linux community doing the same thing is not quite kosher. Finally, as for names being a side issue, try using the term "Linux" simpliciter in front of RMS. You'll very quickly get "corrected". I have even read -- though have no means of substantiating -- that RMS will not give interviews nor make appearances unless the OS is always referred to as "GNU/Linux". Come now, RMS, are you the pot calling the kettle black? |
| Tsela Aug 27, 2005 11:21 AM EDT |
It has definitely been taken out of context. I read what RMS said in another article (can't find it at the moment), and what he said was completely different. By calling "naming" a side issue, he referred to all the people that said that enforcing trademarks was again Free Software philosophy. He thus countered them by saying that how you name something and how you enforce naming has nothing to do with how Free the software is. In this sense naming is *really* a side issue. In other words, that was a defense of what Linus does. The rest referred to himself, and to the fact that he won't enforce a trademark on GNU (he said something like "we don't want that people have to pay to give credit for our work"). Nowhere he said that names by themselves are not important. He just said that they were not what Free Software is about, and that's correct. As for what you read, I don't believe that's true. I've seen many interviews of RMS where the interviewer refers to "Linux" as the full OS. Each time RMS explains again why he prefers the term GNU/Linux (the OS *is* GNU, after all), but he doesn't force anybody else to say the same. He just points out that it's factually incorrect. Seen that yesterday I even read an article that referred to Torvalds as "the inventor of the Linux operating system" (that made me shiver!), if anything RMS is not insisting on this point enough! |
| tuxchick Aug 27, 2005 2:54 PM EDT |
RMS would not speak to our LUG unless we changed the name from "Portland Linux/Unix Group" to something containing GNU/Linux. Much hilarity ensued, with suggestions like "Pluglug". And RMS did not come to speak. |
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