Happy birthday 🎊🎉 GNU/Linux.
Today GNU/Linux is 32 years old.
It was thankfully released to the public on August 25th, 1991 by Linus Torvalds when he was only 21 years old student.
What a lovely journey 🤍
Happy birthday 🎊🎉 GNU/Linux.
Today GNU/Linux is 32 years old.
It was thankfully released to the public on August 25th, 1991 by Linus Torvalds when he was only 21 years old student.
What a lovely journey 🤍
Did stallman coat-tail Linux on day one, or did he latch onto the “ackshually, it’s got some gun in there so we deserve top billing” only a little after?
Linux doesn’t have any GNU in it. Linux is a kernel that GNU runs on top of. That’s what Stallman means by “GNU/Linux.”
Maybe he is a little bitter about his life’s work and philosophy being erased by Linux fans, but that is understandable. Maybe he is a little too bitter.
People think it’s about Stallman being bitter. But it’s because GNU is a political project with the goal of total user freedom and control over their computer. The software is a step on the way there. But if people use free software without understanding, valuing or taking advantage of the freedom it gives them, the GNU project has failed.
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I thought it was funny that at one point he said “It’s not like I want to call it Stallmanix!”
What’s holding GNU/Hurd back? Can’t be hardware anymore since it became blazing fast
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Oh that’s sad. The nature of commerce and competition means that proprietary stuff will never go away because making closed stuff is the way MBAs are taught to create “competitive advantage”
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Probably after he gave up on his own kernel (Hurd) being a viable competitor.
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“Torvalds sold out.” Would you mind elaborating what you mean by selling out in this context?
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Have these members made any notable changes that hampered Linux’s freedom? How is not adding more restrictions for freedom to allow more freedom “not for thee”? How did “Torvalds historically didn’t even want to liberate his kernel”? It was open-source from the start, and also had his self-drafted free license which he later switched to GPL which also removed his no commercial distribution clause. By your arguments that sounds like he sold out to GNU. The FSF is way too idealistic to be able to move the world under the current status quo.
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macOS is based off FreeBSD, which is completely free. Not sure what you mean here. I don’t really see much documentation that shows GNU made Linus use GPL or not. You can’t assert that.
Being dedicated to software freedom doesn’t exclude you from being idealistic. They propose solutions that would require good sacrifices that many greedy people simply won’t follow. If you really think the status quo is “idealistic” then you don’t know what that word means. Computer science is already very much in the public consciousness and corporations have already been exposed, but they still operate. It’s idealistic to think they would sacrifice their greed. Despite how much software the FSF have funded, they’re still unable to attack.
Linux is a practical response to non-freedom. “sell out”, “liberated”, “changed his license” is all just word choice. There is still a long gap between open-source and proprietary. Nobody should co-opt words, including that “open-source” shouldn’t be redefined to libre software. You can argue that any promotional stuff, including FSF, is propaganda being blasted to you 24/7. Yes, these are very awful, but we need workable alternatives that can do many of the same stuff to switch to before we can rejoin freedom.
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Doesn’t this depend a lot on the vendors having a lock-in on the GPU market? Semiconductor manufacturing is super expensive and there is little incentive for Nvidia to release a Free as in Libre device driver. There aren’t any FOSS GPUs in development so FOSS drivers can’t be made.
So we either have the choice of accepting proprietary drivers or just not using the functionality of GPUs.
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If you’re willing to accept that, then why are you so critical of Linus? The fact that you can build a fully free version of Linux seems like the best of both worlds. From your perspective: get market share now by allowing non-free components, and then eventually transition them out while maintaining compatibility with the majority of the ecosystem.
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How the heck does “viable competitor” mean “we’re totally free”. Why are you dehumanizing Torvalds just for supporting more drivers.
Linux is in development heaven. HURD is not so much.
@jsnc @JuxtaposedJaguar that seems a bit too “zealot” to me. And viable competitor is exactly the right phrase to use, or am I mistaken in thinking I use Linux instead of HURD?
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Ok you sold me, I’ll go back to windows. Fine job building a community.
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I don’t want to admit using Linux because I’m worried people might confise me with annoying self righteous ideologue twats like you. Same reason I don’t identify as atheist anymore.
Idk what you think you’re doing, but you’re not helping your cause. That much is for sure.
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So, you’re going to punish yourself because of what somebody said to you?
I don’t feel punished by stepping away from people like him. If my choices are that guy and his ilk or the occasional ad for bing, I’ll take bing. At least that goes away when you click a button.
I first recall him trying to shoulder surf Linux’s popularity not long after the XFree86 project switched to a new license that included an acknowledgement clause, so around 2004/2005. I still chuckle when I see that he wants me to call it GNU/Linux, but he has a shit hemorrhage because XFree86 added a license clause requiring similar labeling. He’s made more than his share of contributions, but he takes pedantry to a whole new level.