Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing

[Imran Ghory]

On Tue, 12 Mar 2002, MJ Ray wrote:
> Imran Ghory <address@hidden> wrote:
> > I think the term "GNU" should be dropped as it just causes confusion, I my
> > experience a lot of people who aren't techies but aren't newbies either
> > often know what Linux is, but get confused when people say GNU/linux (and
> > also often get confused about the different distros).
> 
> Sorry, no dice.  Without the GNU software, Linux alone is not much of an
> operating system, is it?  

I doubt anyone here is going to disagree with that. But many people,
especialy the current generation of new linux users think that
KDE/Gnome/whatever is a vital part of the OS (in the sense that if the OS
didn't have it they wouldn't use it).

>Further, if not even a Free Software supporting
> group gives the GNU project their credit, what hope is there for anyone else
> doing it? 

>From what I understand from http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html the
GNU part is not about "credit" but ensuring people are aware of the
freedoms. In a document which is about free (ais) software we can assume
that people are aware of the freedoms so we can drop the GNU bit.

I think that unless we explain the GNU bit in the text, we should use the
name that people recognize.

Imran