MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-02-05 |
| FROM | From: "Kaz Kylheku (gnu-misc-discuss)" <936-846-2769@kylheku.com>
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] about the GNU promise
|
On 2020-02-03 07:28, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> The second sentence says: "The GNU Project provides a software
> system..."
> The word "system" is both too vague and too all-encompassing; it sounds
> as
It's just missing "operating" in front of it.
> if it wants to be a single, massive block of software. I would say
> that
> the GNU project "provides software packages...". The second section
> then
> nicely elaborates a bit on this.
The GNU project's goal is in fact to provide a complete operating
system;
that's been that way from the beginning.
If the GNU project provides some ad hoc "packages", that implies that
there is some non-GNU system where they have to be installed to be used.
Perhaps a non-free system (where GNU packages can be used due to the GPL
exception for system libraries).
See where that is going?
> The third section begins: "Free software extends beyond the GNU
> Project..."
> Huh? Vague. Does this want to say that there is also free software
> that
> is not part of the GNU project? If yes, then say so. It continues:
> "which
> works with companion free software projects that develop key components
> of
> the GNU System". Oof... Who are those "companion free software
> projects"?
This is basically just taking a mile-wide detour around saying "Linux".
:)
The kernel is a key component of the GNU system, an the most popular
kernel
that everyone is using with GNU stuff on it is not part of the GNU
project.
Another example: the X Window system.
Another: Apache.
> How can such projects "that develop key components of the GNU System"
> not
> be part of the GNU project itself?
Lift up a corner of your glibc, and look underneath.
> And then: "The GNU Project aims to extend the reach of free software to
> new fields." Huh? What new "fields"? Again: what is the promise
> here?
> Is it that we intend to assimilate everything?
Machine learning, social networking, crytptocurrency, bioinformatics,
...
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