On Thu, 2005-07-28 at 16:51 +0200, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote: > Please, this is just unproductive, the GNU system has was named by > Richard in 1984, lets keep it like that.
I would like to move this debate along, as I don't believe that it is unproductive. I appreciate the points being made on all sides of this debate. Let me try to summarise. If I misrepresent your opinion or position, please send corrections to the list. 1. Barry wants to name an entity in the same class as (what is known in the popular press as) a Linux distribution (or a BSD distribution, or whatever) 2. Responders to his idea seem to believe that he is talking about renaming either (1) the community that produces the software, or (2) the "system". 3. Barry is talking about things from a consumer point of view, others are taking a producer's point of view. Barry is saying "let's talk to people in a language they understand" and others are saying "no, let's teach them new words and concepts". 4. "System" is highly ambiguous. When we say "GNU is not Unix" this begs the question "what is Unix"? It is certainly not a kernel, a product you can buy, or an ISO you can download. It is a computing platform (software) in the broadest sense of the word, perhaps most usefully defined as a set of interfaces (POSIX). All this is geek-speak of the highest order. 5. People able to differentiate between Windows, Mac OS, GNU/Linux etc. understand the term "Operating System". Nowadays the distinction between what we think of as an OS and the applications bundled with it are becoming blurred. But people understand the difference between OSs in an operative sense like this: A: "Hey, I've found this really neat software that fulfils my innermost desires!" B: "Cool! Does it run on Macs?". 6. All the above leads me to conclude that we should call it (what Barry is talking about) the "GNU OS". For those with American accents, this of course expands to "(guh) new OS", or "New Operating System". To me GNU is a collection of software that embodies and implements socio-political principles in addition to IT/CS principles. We should distinguish between "a bunch of software" and an operating system. 7. We should not publicise the existence of the GNU OS until it is in a state where one can download a bootable CD or DVD image, pop it in the drive of a computer with an unformatted hard drive, install it, and end up with a GUI login to (probably) a GNOME session. The GNOME session should provide ethernet access to the Internet and run the most useful free software for end users: Email, WWW browser, IM client and Office suite. (OpenOffice? GNOME Office?). OK, that last point was just a wish. But how far away are we from achieving this? And I presume in all this we are talking about the kernel being the Hurd, not Linux? I am sorry if I am being naive and stupid by butting in here. I have been waiting 20 years for the release of what I think of as the GNU OS. I want it to happen, and I am willing to help, but I am a very poor programmer. Is there room for a non-programmer to help in this project? thanks for listening, John -- John Williams Research Analyst Department of Marketing, Otago University http://www.commerce.otago.ac.nz/marketing/staff/williamsj.html _______________________________________________ gnu-system-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-system-discuss
