Re: [ProgSoc] redhat 6

[Telford Tendys <telford@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au>]

> RMS (Richard Stallman) is the founder of the Free Software Foundation
> and the creator of the General Public License. ESR (Eric Raymond) is the
> initial author of Fetchmail and author of "The Cathedral and the
> Bazaar". RMS wants software to be free for moral reasons (witholding
> the source is *bad*, man). ESR wants software to be good and thinks Open
> Source is a good way to go about making software good.

Correct me if I'm wrong but ESR got kicked out of the Debian group
``software in the public interest'' and tried to take the rights to the
tradename ``Open Source'' along with him. They are still arguing about
who owns the name ``Open Source'' while Apple and the like are calling
things ``Open Source'' in any which way they feel like and making the
words pretty close to meaningless. <sigh>

Anyhow, no mystery that ESR doesn't use Debian.

> They're both people, but computer programmers feel more comfortable with
> them if they're TLAs as well ;-)
> 
> SBG can describe himself. :)
> 
> Seriously, people shouldn't be choosing a distribution based on which
> god uses which. (Personally, I think the fact that Debian calls it
> GNU/Linux whereas Redhat doesn't does more to tip the balance in favour
> of Debian for RMS than anything else).

For sure. RMS seemed pretty touchy on the subject of GNU not getting
enough recognition. But to be fair, Linux has had input from a lot more
than just GNU, probably GNU is still the largest single contributor but
that is mostly because GNU is not a single contributor, it is many other
people who have (for the most part) donated their time.

Thus, if you wanted to give fair credit, the name wouldn't fit on your
screen! I think that there is plenty of room for credit in the comments
in the source files and the name should be something that sounds good.
Frankly, GNU is a dumb sounding name and Linux is pretty cool.

	- Tel
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