[Note: This reply could have gone anywhere in this thread, I just picked here because it was convenient.] At the risk of prolonging a discussion that probably shouldn't be prolonged I'll recommend "Free as in Freedom" for anyone who hasn't read it. I was in the camp that found RMS a little more than a distraction. Then I read FaiF and developed a new respect for him. It's available online at: http://www.faifzilla.org/ Follow the Faifzilla 1.0 link for the text of the book. Jack On Wednesday 16 August 2006 3:17 pm, rwh wrote: > I hate it when I realize how long I've been doing this ... > > I can remember reading RMS's original DDJ article in 1984 while stuck in > traffic headed to the airport and thinking the guys was off his rocker. > It wasn't the whole free software thing because that was well underway > with the public domain stuff that offered at least reduced versions of > unix utilities, editors, small-C, etc. that ran under CP/M and PC-DOS. > It was the idea that the intellectual property underlying the software > would eventually be freely available and we'd have to make a living off > of providing services that had everyone in the car in stitches. > > Thirty years later it pretty clear that he was right. BTW, in 1990 he > was awarded a $240,000 MacArthur Fellowship for that work and in 2001 he > was awarded the Takeda prize, and another $250,000, in recognition of > his efforts. A MacArthur Fellow doesn't need GNU slapped on Linux for > personal aggrandizement, although he might want to do it to recognize > the effort of all of the people who devoted their free time to producing > things like gcc that made Linux possible. > > Then in the early '90's he moved on to the anti-competitive effects of > software patents. Again a lot of people figured him for being a wing > nut, and again I think his concerns turned out to be well grounded. > > Linux is an impressive engineering/management accomplishment, but please > don't confuse it with an intellectual movement. > > --rick > > Munir Nassar wrote: > > markring40 at ippimail.com wrote: > >> Then a sys admin for a local, South Dakota ISP gave me (years ago) his > >> Slackware 7.0 CD's. That is the distro that I learned the most from. > >> It has good documentation and it's own package utility. > >> http://www.slackware.com/ > >> > >> By the way, the Slackware Kernel was written by a one-time student of > >> Moorhead State (Patrick Volkerding), where my son starts on Monday! > > > > I think it is time for another quick primer and history: > > > > kernel: this is the core of the operating system, the most basic program > > that runs the hardware. This is what drivers plug into to make your > > whizbang hardware able to whizbang. Under Debian, Gentoo, Slackware and > > all other Linux distributions this kernel is called Linux. under windows > > it is called NTKRNL.EXE, under dos it is msdos.sys(sorta). > > > > Distribution: In the olden days Linux was a complete distribution onto > > itself, Linus Torvalds released it to replace minix on your computer so > > it included gcc, getty, bash and a kernel(no name for the kernel at the > > time); nowadays Linux is just the kernel and other people such as Pat > > Volkerding put this kernel along with many other software packages onto > > media to make a distributibution. Distributions usually include the > > software that talks to the hardware via the drivers to make the whizbang > > hardware actually do its whizbanging. Many of the basic application in a > > distribution come from a project by Richard Stallman(rms) called GNU. > > His idea was to make a OS to replace Unix(or minix as the case may be) > > the only problem was that they never got around to actually writing a > > kernel, last i heard they are still working on it 20 years later. > > > > If you are not confused yet, rms wants you to call every linux > > distribution GNU/Linux because the majority of code in a distribution > > was writted for GNU. > > > > I know i an opening a can of worms here but these are things that people > > need to know about so that they do not go around saying stuff like: the > > Slackware Kernel was written by Patrick Volkerding. Because that just > > makes you look like an idiot. > > > > I have tried to be objective in my above descriptions, but i also need > > to be subjective to keep my sanity. Stop reading if you do not care > > about my opinions. Personally i think rms needs to smoke less, if he > > wanted recognition he should have written it into his license; oh wait > > he does get get plenty enough recognition as it is because of his > > license(who does not know the GNU GPL?). I think he is just miffed that > > some 20year old Finnish college student was able to release his GNU > > system before he was and got all his glory, the this student did not > > even make it to MIT, to add insult to injury this system now is not > > known as GNU as it was supposed to, but linux after this upstart kid. -- Jack Ungerleider jack at jacku.com http://www.jacku.com