> +This variable is missing on all non-glibc platforms:
>
> How about we just say "non-GNU systems" -- the majority of operating
> systems in the world are 'non-glibc platforms', and there is no
> platform that is called 'glibc'. Our system is called GNU after
> all...
First, "glibc platforms" and "GNU systems" are not the same thing.
True, since there is nothing like a "glibc platform", it is a bad term
that has no good meaning.
The text reads strangley anyway, if you use gnulib (or via some other
means, in the case of argp there used to be a libargp that was
portable across many systems) on a operating system that does not use
the GNU C Library, then .. it does exist. But the text claims that it
does not.
Does a system become a `glibc platform' if one uses gnulib? Seeing
that all or most of the things glibc provides, so does gnulib.
* RMS decided that the NetBSD kernel, plus the NetBSD libc, plus GNU
userland is a GNU system and to be called "GNU/NetBSD". [1]
Whereas the NetBSD kernel, plus glibc, plus GNU userland is to be
called "GNU/kNetBSD". [2]
I could not find this decision in those two references, both are pages
from Debian, and nothing from RMS on the topic.
* According to the definition of GNU system [3], it looks like a
distro based on Linux, glibc, and lots of proprietary software
would not be a GNU system.
Second, in technical documentation, I prefer to have unambiguous terms,
and there is ambiguity in the term "GNU system":
We have plenty of texts that clear up any ambiguity, where as there is
nothing on 'glibc platform'. There is little ambiguity about what it
means, and even if it did the little extra is worth to mention our own
operating system in a list of other operating systems.
- Is Alpine Linux a GNU system? (It uses musl libc instead of glibc.) [4]
No, Alpine is not based on the GNU system, much like Android. See
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.en.html
- Is Windows with WSL and a GNU distro a GNU system? [5][6]
Windows is the operating system here, that is what your computer is
running. Just becaues you run another operating system inside an
existing one, doesn't mean that one becomes the other.
