linuxos and GNU (Was: Re: correct way to do state machines in elisp?)

[Jonathan Walther]

On Sat, Aug 24, 2002 at 11:27:32PM -0600, Richard Stallman wrote:
>    I have written a bot in C; source here:
>         http://reactor-core.org/linuxos/bot.c
>
> I can't help noticing that the directory name appears to refer to a
> Linux operating system.  Since that operating system is more GNU than
> Linux, it's not really right to call it "Linux".  Would you please
> call it "GNU/Linux", and give its principal developer a share of the
> credit?  See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html for more
> explanation.

I don't think that would be reasonable; the linuxos in the URL does not
refer to any mythical "Linux Operating System", but to the channel
#LinuxOS on IRC.  Many people drop in there, and have been since 1996
when the GNU/Linux issue was muddy to many people.  Changing the channel
name won't steer people towards GNU, but keeping the channel name will,
since I spend a lot of time in there and tell people myself that the
operating system is properly called GNU, not Linux.  Linux also is not
inappropriate, in that we often discuss our hacking activities on the
Linux kernel as well.

The channel topic, which everyone sees for the duration of their stay in
the channel, reads:

   Want to be a guru? Hang out here! | GNU is the operating system,
   Linux is the kernel | Channel webpage: http://reactor-core.org/linuxos

Jonathan

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