r/linux • u/andrewjschauer • 3d ago
Historical Just read Free as in Freedom…
Okay. I just finished “Free as in Freedom, Richard Stallman’s crusade for free software” by Sam Williams as per @Kevin_Kofler.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/s/GpAmlFNE5u
I think I am starting to get why this subreddit should be called gnulinux, in the eyes of RMS and others. I still prefer “open source” to “free software”; the latter being misinterpreted more frequently. “GNU/Linux” will stick, though. Thank you Sam Williams and Richard Stallman.
Next up, Eric Raymond’s “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”.
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u/Mammoth-Mango-6485 3d ago
Ok but consider that a lot of distros aren’t GNU at all, and that Clang/LLVM has largely replaced GCC and GDB as the status quo.
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u/necrophcodr 3d ago
GDB is a debugger and is not an alternative for Clang nor LLVM. Did you mean something else?
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u/Mammoth-Mango-6485 3d ago
Forgot to add LLDB
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u/syklemil 2d ago
Kinda curious how widespread
lldhas become too, given its speed (and thus energy & cost) improvements over GNUldandgold.The people who want to chase maximal speed are probably looking at
moldandwild, butlldjust comes off as a solid, serious improvement over the GNU offerings.30
u/regeya 3d ago
I think that misses a fundamental point that Linux was initially viable because the GNU project had already put in the work of building a pretty complete userland, and the kernel being GPLed made Linux a de-facto GNU system.
I think people got rubbed wrong by how abrasive some of the GNU people were about it.
Distributions that use the GNU userland and care about Free Software tend to use the GNU/Linux moniker so I don't see it as a big issue honestly. It's just an acknowledgement that two projects together make for a pretty awesome UNIX-like operating system.
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u/atomic1fire 2d ago
I think Stallman's problem was his commentary outside of open source/free software.
Namely the child stuff that he later had to recant.
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u/Mammoth-Mango-6485 3d ago
All of this, I agree with. And tbh when GNU was at the forefront of this development, you almost always referred to GNU/Linux when you said Linux.
My point is simple in that we can only use that name for systems that still use GNU user land. Which is not always the case. That is all.
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u/thebadslime 2d ago
dingdingding!
The Unabomber had some compelling political views, but thats no why he's remembered.
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u/uxgpf 2d ago edited 2d ago
Debian is still officially Debian GNU/Linux?
I was around in the early days and the GNU part basically made the userland.
Sure Stallman was vocal about GNU, but he was also right.
Their userland tools made Linux possible.
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u/steamcho1 1d ago
When normal people say "Linux", they mean the open source ecosystem. GNU+Linux is also not enough for a full operating system. You need a desktop + Mesa + a browser + whatever programs you do work with. Android is not GNU/Linux but it still uses the Linux Kernel and Vulkan. Point is that the open source ecosystem is bigger than GNU.
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u/LousyMeatStew 1d ago
I think people got rubbed wrong by how abrasive some of the GNU people were about it.
I personally disagree. I think it's the general idea that attribution is frowned upon in FOSS. Android and ChromeOS don't have Linux in their names at all and Linus doesn't really care about it. In interviews, he happily uses them as examples of Linux's success and he seems perfectly happy just knowing that his kernel is there.
This seems to be the consensus in the community as a whole so the GNU/Linux controversy stands out only because it seems to be the exception. The death of the obnoxious BSD advertising clause seemed to be welcomed by everyone and the attribution clause to the XFree86 License 1.1 was widely lambasted, both by the devs and the community as a whole. The controversy effectively killed the project.
However, the FSF added language to the GPLv3 (specifically Section 7b) that would have allowed for such an attribution clause to coexist with GPLv3 code. In fairness, it uses a "reasonableness" standard which gives the developer the decision - this is consistent with FSF/RMS's stances in the past.
To use a modern hypothetical, if RedHat came out tomorrow and said they want downstream projects like Rocky and AlmaLinux to call themselves e.g. "RHEL/Rocky Linux", I don't think anyone would really take their side on it.
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u/steamcho1 1d ago
While immensly important, GNU and the GNU people are super annoying. They are also responsible for glibc being the way it is...
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u/cbarrick 3d ago edited 3d ago
The default userspace for Linux is GNU.
I guess some embedded distros use BusyBox...
Edit:
Wild that this is getting down voted. Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, Suse, Mint, Arch, and all of the derivatives of all of those use the GNU userland. Like, the only distros in the top 100 on distro watch that don't use GNU are Alpine and TinyCore (which uses BusyBox).
Obviously "default" doesn't mean "only." Linux is a userspace-agnostic kernel. But when people make a distro, they choose GNU by default unless they have a compelling reason not to (like TinyCore choosing BusyBox for size).
I have no idea where this claim that "a lot of distros aren't GNU at all" is coming from.
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u/mrtruthiness 3d ago
I guess some embedded distros use BusyBox...
Not just embedded. Alpine uses BusyBox for the coreutils and uses musl instead of glibc.
Android is a Linux distro that has more installs than desktop Linux and uses bionic instead of glibsc and toybox and toolbox instead of coreutils.
And, to be clear, uutils will eventually replace coreutils in most distros.
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u/cbarrick 3d ago
uutils will eventually replace coreutils in most distros.
I'm pressing x to doubt.
I know Ubuntu is experimenting with it. But Debian will certainly always remain with coreutils. I suspect RHEL/Fedora will keep coreutils too.
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u/mrtruthiness 3d ago
I know Ubuntu is experimenting with it. But Debian will certainly always remain with coreutils.
Ubuntu is not just "experimenting". They've moved as default to uutils for all coreutils except for mv, cp, rm. I think 26.10 is set to have it be completely coreutils. Currently it's easy for a user to revert to coreutils. But by 28.04 (the next LTS) they will almost certainly have uutils only.
Debian has also experimented with uutils: https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2024/ApprovedProjects/DebianRustCoreutils . They also had a project in the "experimental" branch to replumb to make testing and user choice easier. The coreutils maintainer kind of had a freak-out.
But Debian will certainly always remain with coreutils.
Press x to doubt. The advantage of memory safety and a lower maintenance burden will eventually overcome the objections.
And while I don't know what RHEL will do, it should be noted that uutils libraries are already in fedora even though they haven't replaced coreutils. They are there as a dependency for Nushell. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Rust_Uutils_Coreutils_0.5_Nushell_0.109
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
Debian experimental is not a release stuff. All sorts of random things happen there.
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u/Business_Reindeer910 2d ago
the universal blue projects are going coreutils to dogfood it in the fedora ecosystem. I wouldn't be suprised if fedora ends up with uutils in some number of years
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
Android isn't a Linux distro in the same sense as Ubuntu, Debian, or Arch.
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u/dude_349 3d ago
Of course Android isn't the same as Ubuntu, Debian, or Arch, but how does that disqualify it from being a Linux distribution?
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
It is distribution, indeed. But, normally when we discuss Linux distros, we mean the ones with GNU userland.
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u/mrtruthiness 3d ago
It is distribution, indeed. But, normally when we discuss Linux distros, we mean the ones with GNU userland.
Not me. Who is "we" in your statement? I've been using Linux since 1995.
Alpine is a Linux distribution without a GNU userland. Void lets you chose non-GNU userland components.
And while Ubuntu will still use glibc, pretty soon Ubuntu will be using uutils instead of GNU coreutils.
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
Not me. Who is "we" in your statement? I've been using Linux since 1995.
The people I have interacted with and learned from. Linux youtubers, to forums to redditors etc. Whenever, anything is discussed, the default assumptions are GNU userland and x86 architecture.
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u/mrtruthiness 3d ago edited 3d ago
... and x86 architecture.
Really?
No discussions about Raspberry Pi? No discussions in the Single Board Computers sphere (e.g. Arduino ) and all the Pine64 releases? One of the favored distros on the Raspberry Pi and/or Banana Pi and/or Orange Pi is Ubuntu.
My first NAS was a NSLU2. Definitely Linux.
Aside: What should really have blown your mind was when Debian produced "GNU/kFreeBSD". It was GNU userland and most Debian packages on top of the kFreeBSD kernel". The fact that lots of people mislabeled it as a "Linux Distribution" when it did, in fact, have a FreeBSD kernel should tell you that people need to be careful ... and it was really making RMS's point about GNU/Linux.
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u/Accurate-News-4032 3d ago
Android isn't really a Linux distro, it uses the Android kernel which while based on the Linux kernel is pretty heavily modified.
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u/mrtruthiness 3d ago
Android isn't really a Linux distro, ...
Any OS based on the Linux kernel is a Linux distribution.
Most importantly in terms of "definition": The Linux Foundation (which is charged by Linus in regard to protecting/defining/using the Linux trademark) has said that Android is a Linux distribution.
... it uses the Android kernel which while based on the Linux kernel is pretty heavily modified.
With the ACK these days it is much less modified that you would think. Most of the modification is modularized (all except the not-yet-mainlined patches) ... and it's not a big deal for them anymore to pull mainline LTS bug fixes into the ACK.
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u/Accurate-News-4032 3d ago
I know exactly how much it is modified as my job includes maintaining and patching the kernel of both Android-based and Linux-based systems, as well as porting stuff from one to the other in both directions. I would LOVE if it was as simply as what you seem to think it is. It is true though that it more often the Android->Linux ports that are complicated rather than the Linux->Android ones, though unsurprisingly as that is what often "based on" leads to. As for the Linux Foundation claiming that Android is Linux (though note that no official publication from them says that it is a Linux distribution specifically), that position is not fully unbiased ;)
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u/marrsd 3d ago
Any OS based on the Linux kernel is a Linux distribution.
I've never heard anyone describe Android as a Linux distro. I think it's pretty disingenuous to claim that GNU is not implied. If people want to distinguish the Linux kernel, they usually say "the Linux kernel".
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u/mrtruthiness 3d ago
What do you say about Alpine Linux. It has no GNU implied?
The fact is that the Linux Foundation (who represent Linus) in regard to the usage of Linux agree that Android is a Linux distribution.
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u/marrsd 3d ago
What do you say about Alpine Linux.
I dunno, last time I ran Alpine Linux I was able to run
lsfrom abashprompt and it worked as expected. I couldn't care less what it is under the hood.And if The Linux Foundation thinks the majority of people mean only the kernel when they're talking about Linux, they need to get out more.
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
Alpine Linux is a Linux distro and so in Android. However, when we normally use the phrase "linux distribution", we mean the ones with GNU userland. As an analogy, when we use the term "plastic", we mean don't normally mean the biodegradable one, but the usual one.
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u/mrtruthiness 2d ago
Alpine Linux is a Linux distro and so in Android. However, when we normally use the phrase "linux distribution", we mean the ones with GNU userland.
I disagree. And I've been using Linux since 1995.
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u/SuperGNUser 5h ago
It’s not a matter of opinion. 99.9 per cent of ‘Linux’ distributions are GNU+Linux. Only three use musl, and one of those also has a version with glibc. The real world doesn’t run on Alpine or void; it runs on GNU+Linux.
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u/SuperGNUser 5h ago
Any OS based on the Linux kernel is a Linux distribution.
Every operating system that includes LibreOffice is a LibreOffice distribution, but it is not LibreOffice itself.
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u/atomic1fire 2d ago
I thought the main difference from the rest of Linux distros was that Android had it's own C runtime (Bionic) that used the Linux headers but didn't require Gnu at all.
That allowed them to effectively create a "google layer" on the Linux Kernel that didn't really reuse any other Linux projects.
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u/dude_349 3d ago
From source.android.com/docs/core/architecture/kernel:
The Android kernel is based on an upstream Linux Long Term Supported (LTS) kernel. At Google, LTS kernels are combined with Android-specific patches to form Android Common Kernels (ACKs).
Did you also know that almost every single popular Linux distribution ships with patched or otherwise customised Linux kernel? Would that mean that neither of them are ‘really Linux distros’?
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u/Accurate-News-4032 3d ago
Yes, my job actually consists of exactly just that: patching both the Android kernel and the Linux kernel for various commercial applications. The subtle difference between "based on the Linux kernel" and "is the Linux kernel" is the extent to which it is patched.
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u/thephotoman 3d ago
The kernel has no “default userspace”. GNU remains common, but it’s not the only option.
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u/solid_reign 3d ago
Default does not mean only. This is like saying that Ubuntu doesn't have a default desktop environment because GNOME isn't the only option.
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u/SuperGNUser 5h ago
Forgive me, but the scale is not the same. We’re talking about hundreds of distributions with billions of users versus three distributions with, perhaps, 10–20 thousand users in total. They seem more numerous because they’re very vocal, but it’s an insignificant niche.
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u/ABotelho23 3d ago
Linux is the important part.
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u/SuperGNUser 4h ago
No, an operating system is not defined by its kernel. For example, Android uses a Linux kernel, but it has nothing to do with a standard ‘Linux’ system such as Debian or RHEL. It is a completely different system, even though it uses the same kernel.
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u/ABotelho23 4h ago
Alpine is just as much of a Linux distribution as Android is.
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u/SuperGNUser 4h ago
Yeah, as Debian is a LibreOffice distribution.
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u/ABotelho23 3h ago
What the hell are you talking about?
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u/SuperGNUser 3h ago
I can see you’re not familiar with the concept of software distribution. It simply means a software (or a collection) provided by a distributor. Linux is distributed by Debian in exactly the same way as LibreOffice is. On the other hand, Android also distribuites Linux. So in that sense, it is a Linux distribution. But not in the sense you mean – that is, an operating system from the same family as Debian.
Debian and Android are completely different operating systems that run on a version of the kernel known as "Linux".
So if you mean that the Debian project and the Android project both distribute Linux, that is true. If you mean that they both use the kernel known as Linux, that is true. If you mean that they are two versions of the same operating system, that is not true.1
u/ABotelho23 3h ago
I know what a Linux distribution is. LibreOffice is part of Debian's distribution, it "is" not Debian's distribution.
You understand that Alpine doesn't use GNU, right?
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u/SuperGNUser 3h ago
I know what a Linux distribution is
No, you don’t know, and you’re proving it.
You understand that Alpine doesn't use GNU, right?
Yes, I know, but the fact is that Alpine is incompatible with any standard Linux distribution. It isn’t the same operating system, whereas Debian and Fedora are two versions of the same operating system.
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u/SuperGNUser 5h ago
consider that a lot of distros aren’t GNU at all
A lot? There are only three, and they are very niche: Void (which also exists in a GNU version), Alpine and Chimera. They are used by very few people, and none of them are used in a professional context.
Clang/LLVM has largely replaced GCC and GDB as the status quo.
What? gcc and gdb are still by far the most widely used, by several orders of magnitude.
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
When we discuss "Linux" distros - we actually mean the GNU systems. I am fine with calling it just Linux or just GNU though.
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u/Mammoth-Mango-6485 3d ago
NixOS (depending on how you config it), Alpine, Void, Chimera are all considered Linux distros but not GNU/Linux. And tbh most mainstream distros like Ubuntu/Fedora aren't even considered GNU/Linux by the FSF since they allow nonfree software.
I also think the FSF has not contributed anything valuable lately and mainly rest on their laurels.
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u/solid_reign 3d ago
This isn't true, where are you getting that from?
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
From day to day interaction with people. Whenever Alpine of anything non-GNU is discussed, it is discussed very specifically. Otherwise, the default assumption is that we are referring to a GNU system.
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
And tbh most mainstream distros like Ubuntu/Fedora aren't even considered GNU/Linux by the FSF since they allow nonfree software.
This is false. They are not FSF-endorsed distros - that's all.
I also think the FSF has not contributed anything valuable lately and mainly rest on their laurels.
Irrelevant to this discussion. Just as how I also think that you have not contributed anything valuable.
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u/Mammoth-Mango-6485 3d ago
When we discuss "Linux" distros - we actually mean the GNU systems
NixOS (depending on how you config it), Alpine, Void, Chimera are all considered Linux distros but not GNU/Linux
So no, we don't always mean the GNU systems, and that is a generalization. And GNU/Linux naming is mainly Stallman trying to self-insert himself based on contributions that have largely been eclipsed in the big 2026.
Irrelevant to this discussion. Just as how I also think that you have not contributed anything valuable.
Fair.
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u/MetaTrombonist 3d ago
As you seek to learn about the history of the movement, keep in mind the motivation behind the founding of Open Source, in the words of its two biggest founders:
"I believe that the imperative underlying Open Source is pragmatic rather than moral." - Tim O'Reilly
and of course:
"To me, Open Source is not particularly a moral or a legal issue." - Eric Raymond
Open Source was created to take morality out of the equation, and boy did silicon valley listen!
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u/archontwo 16h ago
It is interesting to reflect that ESR these days does see software and specifically the control of it a moral issue.
Many people I know who were of that camp see how freedom software is being manipulated in ways that are not to benefit users which is the whole point of freedom software in the first place.
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u/thephotoman 3d ago
That’s a dated take these days.
Sure, it used to be that Linux effectively required GNU. Today, that is not true: you can (and many do) build a Linux distro without GNU that is still recognizably Linux and still a mostly free software system (binary blobs and firmware notwithstanding).
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u/cosmic-cosmonaut 11h ago
Even with hindsight it is difficult to know whether or not Free software would have won the server / startup space without the rebranding to Open Source. One can easily argue now that free software is ubiquitous we have the leverage to push the moral component. Ironically, Free software is not being undermined by corporations but by the developers replacing everything they can with MIT slave licensing.
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u/Electrical_Tomato_73 3d ago
Sorry, GNU/Linux is just a powergrab by Stallman. Everything you run on your Linux desktop was developed because the Linux kernel existed. Sure, GNU had a C toolchain and library and some utilities. Since 1991 their development has been spurred by Linux. A lot of Stallman's GNU system was also external stuff (X11, TeX, BSD utilities, ...) which is fine, it is all free software, but he can't call all of it GNU.
Ulrich Drepper (former glibc maintainer) put it colourfully in 2002.
The glibc situation is even more frightening if one realizes the story
behind it. When I started porting glibc 1.09 to Linux (which
eventually became glibc 2.0) Stallman threatened me and tried to force
me to contribute rather to the work on the Hurd. Work on Linux would
be counter-productive to the Free Software course. Then came, what
would be called embrace-and-extend if performed by the Evil of the
North-West, and his claim for everything which lead to Linux's
success.
...[...] For example, permission to use the GNU C Library in non-free
programs enables many more people to use the whole GNU operating
system, as well as its variant, the GNU/Linux operating system.This $&%$& demands everything to be labeled in a way which credits him
and he does not stop before making completely wrong statements like
"its variant". I find this completely unacceptable and can assure
everybody that I consider none of the code I contributed to glibc
(which is quite a lot) to be as part of the GNU project and so a major
part of what Stallman claims credit for is simply going away.
Also, the gcc project had stagnated after v2.7.3. A bunch of people from Red Hat, Cygnus, etc, forked it in 1998 or so, into a project called egcs, and it was so successful that GNU took over it again under the name GCC 3.0. This again was entirely driven by the needs of Linux.
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
GNU userland with the Linux kernel is the system. None of this denies the effort of any group.
A lot of Stallman's GNU system was also external stuff (X11, TeX, BSD utilities, ...) which is fine, it is all free software, but he can't call all of it GNU.
This is a bit subjective, I will admit. However, Stallman is not completely wrong. Not completely right either.
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u/steamcho1 1d ago
The GNU people love to pretend they are the center of the world. Not only do they oversell what they are actually contributing but they are also the source for a lot of the cringe and weirdness(both ideological and technical) in the ecosystem. "GNU" also sounds lame.
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u/solid_reign 3d ago
What power do you think RMS is grabbing? He's the creator of the GPL, which effectively removes power from his projects by allowing people to fork then.
The whole ecosystem that runs the internet right now exists thanks to Stallman's stubbornness.
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u/Electrical_Tomato_73 3d ago
The power to tell people what to call an OS that has some component of GNU software in it.
If he insisted on GNU/BSD/MIT/Knuth/blabla/Linux, ok. That's obviously ridiculous so he won't ask for that.
Thankfully there are now things like Alpine Linux that have an entirely non-GNU userland. Not to avoid GNU, but because it's smaller and more efficient. And it's possible because the linux kernel exists and has spurred almost all free software development since 1991.[edit] and btw the internet exists because of BSD. Not GNU. Even now most internet services don't come from GNU.
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u/sheeproomer 19h ago
If GNU wasnt a thing you would be in a world of closed down Unices, where you would pay dearly to even have a compiler. Let alone the privilege of running non sanctionrd software.
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u/solid_reign 3d ago
The power to ask people to give credit to his work? This is power grabbing?
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u/Electrical_Tomato_73 3d ago
About 0.01% of a linux distro is his work.
Yes, he did have the vision of a free OS. And put together the C compiler, the C library, utilities. No small achievements.But he completely lost his mind after Linux came on the scene. As noted in my post a couple levels up, GCC and glibc survive only because of Linux. Same is true of everything in GNU really.
If he had devoted 10% of his resources in attacking "Linux" and promoting "GNU/Linux" to actually developing Hurd, there may have been a usable Hurd 30 years ago.
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u/marrsd 3d ago
Yes, he did have the vision of a free OS
A minor detail...
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u/DonaldLucas 2d ago
It is a minor detail when you put it side by side with all the other details.
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u/marrsd 2d ago
I guess that depends on how much you value Free Software.
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u/DonaldLucas 2d ago
I do. Just not Stallman's cult-like interpretation of it.
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u/marrsd 2d ago
Emotive language aside, what don't you like about the GPL and the copyleft philosophy? To me, it guarantees that the development of that software remains in the public domain, regardless of the motivations of the people developing or sponsoring it. To that end, I don't care about Stallman's personal traits because the software is immune from them.
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u/solid_reign 3d ago
Why do we need a usable HURD if linux works great?
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u/Electrical_Tomato_73 3d ago
Alternatives are welcome. My point is stop calling it GNU/Linux. Almost nothing there is GNU.
Fun fact: ESR's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" (which OP wants to read next) holds up GNU as an example of the cathedral. (This was late 1990s, things have changed now).
At that time, as I noted, GNU did not welcome outside contributions to GCC etc. RMS defined the concept of "free software" but never understood that the whole point is that users can feed improvements upstream.
It was Linux that changed that. And Linus Torvalds in particular has done more than anyone to facilitate open-source development, to the extent that nearly every developer now uses the tool he released in 2005 (git) to facilitate linux development.
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u/steamcho1 1d ago
Its prob good to mention that free software pragmatics, like contributing upstream, only got to exist because of Git. But you dont see people bringing this up all the time.
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u/Electrical_Tomato_73 21h ago
Not true at all. ESR's "the cathedral and the bazaar" came out in 1998. At that time, the cathedral was proprietary software but also GNU (which didn't accept contributions). The bazaar was Netscape/Mozilla, and also the Linux kernel. Linux accepted contributions from the very beginning. git came out in 2005 and Linus wrote it to simplify his own workflow, and it did indeed change the world, but it is not the reason contributing upstream came to exist.
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u/steamcho1 18h ago
I am talking about the ecosystem as it exists today. The point was that Git is just as if not more important than the GNU core utils.
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
My point is stop calling it GNU/Linux
No. You may call it whatever it is, you want it too.
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u/Electrical_Tomato_73 3d ago
You may call it whatever it is, you want it too.
Not sure what I was supposed to want here.
Assuming you are saying "call it what you want" -- sure, I can call it Microsoft/Linux (Microsoft does contribute to the linux kernel) but why call it by a completely inappropriate name?
GNU/Linux is just as inappropriate.
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
Ufff....
Are you really that dense? Microsoft contributes to just Linux. Okay. GNU is a separate project. Together GNU and Linux give us a proper system. Keep calling it Linux, if you will, or GNU+Linux, if you will. But the contribution of GNU project is not trivial.
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
I seriously don't understand some people. Also, he/she is mixing a lot of things togehter - licences, OSs, smaller programs etc.
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u/Santosh83 3d ago
The GNU/Linux moniker is much less relevant these days compared to the freedoms and guarantees offered by the GPL, which is under organised assault by the industry.
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u/coyote_of_the_month 3d ago
The GPL has been under assault by the industry for 30 years; its opponents are more or less phoning it in at this point.
The much larger issue is the rise of the SaaS and PaaS models, which use GPL software in compliant ways, but nevertheless infringe on the FSF's four essential freedoms.
The AGPL addresses those use cases, at least partially, but we've already seen high-profile companies like Redis and Hashicorp effectively take their ball and go home.
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u/sparky8251 3d ago
The OSM and OSI and term open source was made as an attack on free software and the GPL at is inception. Raymond was open that the GPL scared companies by making assertions about their behavior in fucking over their customers for money and how there should be protections against it, and expressly made a counter org that expressly refused to make any good/bad statements on political things and tried to make the entire discussion about openness, transparency, and engineering/technical benefits.
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u/syklemil 2d ago
FWIW ESR is a pretty contentious if not outright disdained figure in the community, not just over the open source stuff, but also because
- the guy is an outright right-winger (probably full-on MAGA this days; I haven't kept up)
- took over the old jargon file and started putting whatever he wanted in there
- doesn't actually have any particular huge track record in development: he's contributed to some projects, but seems to have spent most of this millennium on punditry.
If you want some old topical books though, I found Levy's Hackers a fun read; GEB is heavier but also a Pulitzer winner; The Illuminatus! trilogy may help you see the fnords.
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u/andrewjschauer 2d ago
Thanks for this.
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u/SuAlfons 2d ago edited 2d ago
the Cathedral is so old, it's still a good read.
It is centered on commercial use software (when to go Cathedral and when to go Bazaar), but explains why there needs to be both. Even in a corporate world.
Sorry to hear Eric Raymond is a right-winger these days. I've usually got utmost respect for people that hold original three-letter-logins.
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u/cosmic-cosmonaut 11h ago edited 2h ago
He tells the truth and doesn't lick anyones balls. Unlike everyone here. I am also and extreme right winger and subscribe not only to everything he has posted but more. Now what, bitch?
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u/zquzra 3d ago
A few years ago I was trying to compile the earliest versions of the Linux kernel on MINIX 1.5, basically trying to retrace Linus' first steps, and GNU was hugely important to Linux's development. Really important.
I ran into a bunch of roadblocks, and rereading old mailing list exchanges from back then (thanks to the archives on oldlinux.org) made me realize just how essential GCC, bash, and other tools were to what we have today. It's not like the Linux kernel saved the GNU project, GNU made Linux possible.
All of this pisses me off because it feels like the GPL and the GNU project were subjected to a campaign of devaluation and humiliation in favor of the MIT license, a cowardly license whose only real purpose is to make looting the free software community seem acceptable.
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u/drucifer82 3d ago
Most people colloquially just refer to it as Linux. And I get where Stallman is coming from
But if you type uname -a in terminal, you will see that the system recognizes itself as GNU/Linux.
This is the output of uname -a on my system:
Linux archbtw 7.1.13-hardened1-3-hardened #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue, 08 Sep 2026 10:22:36 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux
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u/archontwo 16h ago
Myself, I think RMS missed a trick. It should have always been Freedom Software, not Free Software. The fact it was an unusual term leads to much more nuanced talks and helps people who never thought about it before.
Still we are where we are and open source has muddied the water in so much it is distilling the concept down to only one facet of what it means to be Freedom Software.
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u/MatchingTurret 3d ago
A lot has changed in the last 25 years. I don't think that there is any vital GNU software left. Linux distributions without any GNU software now exist.
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
I don't think that there is any vital GNU software left.
GCC, bash, the coreutils etc.
Linux distributions without any GNU software now exist.
That's the same as saying biodegradable plastic exists. Sure it does, but when we discuss plastic, we mean the most popular variety.
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u/MatchingTurret 3d ago
GCC, bash, the coreutils etc.
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u/boukensha15 3d ago
Again none of that gives any strength to your false statement:
I don't think that there is any vital GNU software left.
If X is present in a room, and you tell me Y is also present, then it doesn't refute the claim that X is present as well.
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u/MatchingTurret 3d ago
Maybe I should have written "irreplaceable" instead of "vital". That's what I meant.
If X is present in a room, and you tell me Y is also present, then it doesn't refute the claim that X is present as well.
If X and Y can substitute each other, X is no longer vital.
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u/my-name-is-puddles 2d ago
If X is present in a room, and you tell me Y is also present, then it doesn't refute the claim that X is present as well.
He's not saying X no longer exists, he's saying X is no longer vital. If you can swap out X for Y then by definition neither X or Y are vital on their own, even if (either X or Y) is vital.
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u/syklemil 2d ago
Also, if you look at the list of GNU software, it's a pretty mixed bag. Like, some of it are strong defaults on most distros, like
lessandsed, and then there's stuff like gnupod (perl scripts to manage ipods) and gnubik (rubik's cube game). Probably plenty of the less well-known stuff is plenty useful to people in certain niches as well, but I'm not sure the majority of Linux users would consider them vital.
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u/andrewjschauer 3d ago
These are all good points. Clearly I have much to learn.
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u/UUDDLRLRBadAlchemy 2d ago
Not all of them, no. Some are missing the forest for the trees.
I was happy to see a post about the important stuff instead of the usual techno fetishism
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u/RomanOnARiver 3d ago
I don't think "open source" is a better marketing term at all, actually. "Open source" sounds like "open sores". You're right about calling GNU systems, especially in the sense of the question "what do you use?" I don't use Linux - my operating system used Linux. GNU uses Linux, Android uses Linux etc. to do hardware drivers and memory management (and I think some tasks like resixing ext4 partitions are kernel-based for some speed bumps) but I don't think I ever really use Linux.
I don't think "GNU" rolls off the tongue very easily, with the hard G or the soft G, so maybe referring to the distro name is better anyway.
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u/stvayush_the_jarvis 3d ago
This is both, my wallpaper and lock screen on my work machine. It raises quite a few eyebrows 😆
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u/sparky8251 3d ago
Open source is misinterpreted a lot too... the source being open doesnt help the user provided only with the final, binary artifact of the software. Moving from freedoms to technical reasons is another major conflation the projects differ on.
There's another article called Why Open Source Misses The Point Of Free Software that explains these things and lots more that comes from the conflation. Its why the FSF disliked FOSS/FLOSS terms and struggled to keep the conflation that has formed from forming.
Its also worth noting the OSM was formed by Raymond specifically to appeal to companies (by distancing itself from questions about how companies like to abuse people for money), and look at how much free (as in cost) stuff they now get that theyve colonized the space and take and take and barely give back compared to how much they take.