Re: What to call Guix

[Olaf Buddenhagen]

Hi,

On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 03:21:25PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:

> We cannot give it a name like that.  To call a distro "the GNU system
> distribution" would come across as a rejection of gNewSense, Trisquel,
> etc.  Those distros are important contributions to our community, and
> promoting them is an important goal for the GNU Project.
> 
> Therefore, my decision is that the GNU Project will not name a distro
> by a name that appears to say it is above all other distros in
> importance to us.

Well, I'd propose a slightly more differentiated view: I share your
opinion that the name shouldn't imply it's the one and only true GNU
distribution (and thus "GNU system distribution" without any further
qualifier would be problematic); however, it should be OK (and in fact
desirable) to imply a *somewhat* distinguised position within the GNU
project.

The other free distros are about making the best of some existing
popular third-party GNU-based system distributions; but I'm sure their
developers have no illusions of these being true substitutes for a
system distribution developed from the ground up out of the middle of
the GNU project, in the spirit of what GNU was supposed to be from the
get-go. (C and Lisp as system languages, hint hint ;-) )

-antrik-