Some come to me and say, “but dude, we should give recognition to the kernel and say GNU/Linux”, and I tell them I don’t care about the kernel, am not saying GNU/Linux every time, it’s way too long and doesn’t roll off the tongue. Plus “Linux” sounds nerdy af, like, “blip bop kernel source code 00101000 10100100”, while GNU’s all about freedom, what really matters, being all like “am not your proprietary crap” repeated ad infinitum through the recursive acronym that is GNU, that’s proper big brain stuff right there rather than technical gibberish about a kernel.
This one paragraph abode is very tongue in cheek of course, but I still mean it though.
I’ve spent a few years arguing for GNU/Linux or even just GNU on reddit, mostly in r/linuxmasterrace, and I was pleased to get quite a few upvotes every now and then, in a place where you can find people that will say things like “I make a point of never saying GNU/Linux, it’s called Linuuux!!!111!”
Here’s some comments I still can hardly believe got upvoted :
68 points! - https://old.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/d01jb1/richard_stallman_is_giving_a_talk_at_microsoft/ez5tv3t/
35 points! - https://old.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/5vivqm/stallman_id_just_like_to_interject_for_a_moment/de2k344/
13 points! - https://old.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/iyds65/no_richard_its_linux_not_gnulinux/g6enrjc/
14 points! (this copypasta works well it seems) - https://old.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/jh0tb9/the_real_os_king/g9vra1r/
14 points! - https://old.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/bu2yh8/i_use_gnu_btw/ep7hy91/
And many more but with less upvotes or less interesting.
By saying Linux is a corporate term I don’t mean that it’s only that, that it started as a coporate term, but just that it is the term preferred by corporations to refer to the system in general. It’s useful to them as a way to refer to the system without mentioning anything else than a component that is not a project done for the sake of freedom, that doesn’t imply freedom for the sake of it, a component that just happens to embrace the ideology without representing it, like GNU does.
Obviously, that’s kicking an open door. Am talking about Linux as a slang to talk about all GNU/Linux distros. It’s as correct as GNU or GNU/Linux is, meaning, both GNU and Linux, by themselves, when used to refer to the whole systems in general, neither of them is factually correct, they are both a vulgar nickname, nobody has lawful power to decide on which one is the correct like for the Linux kernel for instance, or any other copyrighted piece of software.
Unless you want to, as I said in the passage you are quoting, refer to all system that sport a Linux kernel. Linux systems makes sens, GNU/Linux systems doesn’t because, as you would be prompt to point out, not all systems using the Linux kernel use GNU software. Linux distros the same way refer to all distros running this kernel. From there if I continue to type am goingto repeat again stuff from the copypastas linked in the previous comment or other comments linked in the original post.
and by the rest of the world.
Who is them? Canonical refer to its own product as Ubuntu. By the name of the distro and is the same with every company that produces a distro.
The Linux Kernel and/or the many distros out there does not represents freedom? Really? If anything the Linux kernel is the poster boy for FLOSS.
No I wasn’t, I wasn’t even thinking about it. Maybe when it became more relevant to our conversation.
I see that we agree on some things and I understand the worry about corporations spins on things for their benefits. But I don’t see anything but a unsupported opinion about it, an anti-corporations bias making you believe GNU needs its due recognition and at this point, trying to force the notion Linux should be called GNU/Linux. Except that’s not how language evolves. Linux as an OS is not slang, because it means:
As Linux IS written in formal writing and is not informal in any way except by the GNU/Linux advocates.
That’s substantially due to the exposure that the world get from all corporate media. Being adequate to the ideology of the powers that be surely helps being much more renowned.
I really don’t understand, that’s again kicking a door that’s wide open. Do you imagine that I say GNU fedora in lieu of just Fedora every time for instance? I really don’t understand.
The many distros, yes, of course, the Linux kernel, not by itself, no. Again everybody already uses it, big corps like google have put it in the majority of smartphones and tablet for instance. Google enjoys the freedom provided by this kernel project, but in the end the systems shipped are not giving the same freedom to the end users, because Linux is just a project to make a kernel, that happens to be GPLed, and would be worthless to us, GNU/Linux users, if it wasn’t GPLed. The Linux kernel really helped open source get renown, but not really software freedom.
And no, really, I don’t think a specific piece of software, created for fun by a CS student, that is already wide popular yet doesn’t necessarily bring freedom to end users in the end because it’s not its goal as its goal is just a being a piece of a system, not an entire OS for a personal computer, is as representative of freedom for the sake of it as the system that basically starting the work on our beloved distros simply because they thought you, I and everybody else deserved to be free to use their computers on their own terms, and that created the license that protects libre software from being privatised by big corps that the previously mentioned adopted or else it wouldn’t even be in this discussion.
The Linux kernel is an ambassador for open source, the corporate clean version, the one that has microsoft state that it “loves Linux”. Tell me, does Microsoft really love freedom, if “Linux” really is THE flag carrier of freedom in the computing world then? Again, corporate can say it loves linux without exploding under the weight of large contradictions because it’s just a standard more for them, like html is for instance, not an actual symbol for a paradigm shift that would imply libre software being the rule and proprietary software the exception, for a whole ideology of computing freedom for the sake of it, like GNU is.
For microsoft, a kernel like Linux is not a threat of any kind really, it’s in your microwave, your router, your phone, but does it translate to software freedom down the line for you the user? absolutely not, because it’s not a system. But GNU is a system, a system that aspire to give everybody, end users foremost, freedom. That’s completely incompatible with microsoft, that would mean replacing windows as well as the proprietary software ideology as the ruling one in the computing world.
Am not, Linux really is just a kernel and nothing more. People already often use the GNU/Linux denomination by the way, although you won’t see it promoted in anything produced by big corp. Hell, when saying just GNU on reddit people have never budged or said anything, if it’s around a crowed that know about the GNU/Linux denomination they understand it and don’t have a problem with it. So, as said again to the many people that argued and that didn’t want to hear about it, you do you. Personally I really don’t mind at all typing 4 extra characters to give exposure, that the media won’t give btw, to the software project that started to work on our beloved libre systems for personal computers and that did so much pioneering for our computing freedom, specially when the freedom really is what I care about in those systems, and corporate, that don’t wan’t any of it, won’t talk about any of it; while I don’t really care if it runs this or that kernel, like Linux, that I and so many others run anyway through very much not freedom respecting smartphones.
semantics, english is not my first language, I didn’t knew the right word, looked for translation, came up with stuff like “nickname” and “slang”, I think you understood what I meant.
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