Yavor Doganov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted [EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:39:38 +0000:
> Oddly (or not), if you take out the linux-2.6 package from a "Linux" > system, and replace it with FreeBSD's kernel, it runs! It is the same > "Linux" system, but there's no Linux there. How come? Ask a linguist. GNU/Linux hasn't been and isn't likely to ever be popular, because it's simply too long and inconvenient, both to say and to write. Thus, correct or not, "Linux" it becomes. FWIW, that's what I use in the general OS context as well. OTOH, I'm familiar with the technical references, GNU/Solaris (GNU tools and in particular, system library, on a Solaris kernel, GNU/FBSD (GNU tools/syslib on a FreeBSD kernel) ulibc/Linux (micro-libc on a Linux kernel), etc. In that context, GNU/Linux has a specific technical meaning, and I'll use it there. However, that's not discussion of the OS in general, but a technical description of two modules, each generally interchangeable with others to create a *ix-like system, when used together. Of /course/ there's no single "true" Linux OS. Correctly spoken, there's no single "true" Linux kernel, either, as there are all sorts of (generally friendly) forks. It /is/ generally Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS), after all. But there's a lot of to a large degree interchangeable Linux distributions, plus the freedomare BSDs, which I often refer to as "distributions" in the generic sense as well, tho not /Linux/ distributions. I often use either of the terms FLOSS OS or Linux/ BSD to refer to the combined community as well, or simply *ix to refer to the Unix/POSIX/Linux/BSD/OSX (for the *ix side of Apple's BSD based offering) community, freedomware or proprietary. -- 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 _______________________________________________ Pan-users mailing list Pan-users@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pan-users
