Re: [Phpgroupware-developers] GNU/Linux on the phpGW bug tracker

[Mathieu Roy]

"Chris Weiss" <address@hidden> said:

> I have a small problem with this change .... only Debain is actually
> GNU/Linux, Mandrake is close, and the rest are certainly not GNU.  "GNU/Linux"
> and "Linux" are not exactly the same thing, adding GNU to it means that it's
> not just GPL compatable but is strictly following the rules of the GNU,
> correct?

Linux is no way means that a distribution is GPL-compatible. Naming a
distribution Linux would just means that the kernel linux is shipped
with it.

GNU/Linux does not means either that the distribution is
GPL-compatible, neither does it means that the distribution follows
GNU policy.

GNU/Linux justs means that the distribution ship a system called GNU
along with the kernel called Linux.

There is no specific name that I know to describe a distribution
wholy GPL-compatible. And I'm not sure that such distribution
exists. Most of them ship Apache, for instance - and hopefully they
do; but apache license is not GPL-compabible.

And a project that strictly follows the GNU policy would be a GNU
package.


> I think the truely proper change would be to:
> Debian GNU/Linux
> Mandrake Linux
> Redhat/Fedora
> SuSE
> Other Linux
>
> I understand the want to put linux in front as it groups them, but if that is
> somehow against GNU policy (and I say wtf on that) then putting GNU/Linux on
> non-GNU distros should also be against the GNU policy.

What are non-GNU distros? All the distributions you mention are
distributions of the GNU system along with the kernel linux.

The only difference is the fact that the brand name of most of them
just mention "Linux", not GNU. Which is a problem according to GNU

<http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html>

But none of these brands starts with the word "linux" anyway.

When I seen the page, it was something like:
     Linux - Debian
     Linux - Mandrake
(not brand names).

What would be more helpful for GNU, according to GNU itself, would be
something like
     GNU/Linux - Debian
     GNU/Linux - Mandrake
which still disregard the brand name.

It is a very trivial change, however numerous members of the GNU
project thinks that using that name helps it. 




-- 
Mathieu Roy

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