Words to Avoid (or Use with Care) Because They Are Loaded or Confusing(gnu.org)
gnu.org
Words to Avoid (or Use with Care) Because They Are Loaded or Confusing
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.en.html
63 comments
I think this is a bit extreme trying to change words to adhere to your own worldview
Not really, considering that the "meanings" of words in everyday usage have already been deliberately reconstructed and promulgated by the billion-dollar PR engines of the tech industry. For example, how does the word "theft" possibly apply to a person sitting minding his own business on his own computer? It doesn't, so don't use it that way.
Which concepts you lump together under a single word, and which you split between different words, is important and also highly subjective - or transjective if you will (shared reality) - but it's a fallacy to think the delineation of concepts is an "objective" distinction.
For certain entrenched powers, it's useful to lump together carjackers with music downloaders into a single category ("thieves"). Others find it useful to distinguish, and avoid using the same word. Similarly, some find it useful to distinguish between licenses which are promote freedom, vs those which encumber freedom - rather than using a blanket term "BSD-like" that includes both.
Not really, considering that the "meanings" of words in everyday usage have already been deliberately reconstructed and promulgated by the billion-dollar PR engines of the tech industry. For example, how does the word "theft" possibly apply to a person sitting minding his own business on his own computer? It doesn't, so don't use it that way.
Which concepts you lump together under a single word, and which you split between different words, is important and also highly subjective - or transjective if you will (shared reality) - but it's a fallacy to think the delineation of concepts is an "objective" distinction.
For certain entrenched powers, it's useful to lump together carjackers with music downloaders into a single category ("thieves"). Others find it useful to distinguish, and avoid using the same word. Similarly, some find it useful to distinguish between licenses which are promote freedom, vs those which encumber freedom - rather than using a blanket term "BSD-like" that includes both.
Yes, RMS's obsession with clever wordplay is really a great example of Newspeak. It's always bothered me, but I hadn't made the connection to 1984 until you said it. This frustrates me, since he's otherwise fighting a good fight, but the rhetoric is marginalizing.
A little bit of wordplay is charming, but RMS just takes it so far.
A little bit of wordplay is charming, but RMS just takes it so far.
Then what alternative would you propose? The terms of the debate have been defined by totalitarians who themselves use Newspeak to get people to accept their systems. By disrupting the language, RMS makes dissent thinkable.
Is this using the RMS definition of "totalitarian", which makes moral judgements on the great evil of not releasing the source code to your software on very specific terms, or the one used by most of the world in reference to government institutions?
Much of this is GNU virtue signaling. And it comes off as very pretentious and off putting.
Example: nobody is ever going to use "SaaSS", because the replacement term conveys no extra meaning to someone who's not in the GNU in-group. For the same reason everyone says "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux".
Or the idea that "Photoshop" should be avoided only because it's a "proprietary" name and no other reason. One can imagine the speaker spitting the p-word as if an epithet.
The "hacker"/"cracker" boat sailed decades ago.
"Trusted computing" as another epithet ignores that such systems can be engineered to work for, or against the user. If you control your own keys, you're ensuring that the computer works in your interests and not the interests of the guy that wrote the malware that just arrived over the NIC.
Most of these re-definitions make the mistake of presuming that human communication is optimized for complete logical/ideological correctness rather than efficiency of communication or many other purposes. Imagine if every TCP packet contained a 1 meg checksum. You've ensured that the receiver got exactly what you sent, but it took ages and a lot of almost-certainly-unnecesary noise to get it across.
Much of this is GNU virtue signaling. And it comes off as very pretentious and off putting.
Example: nobody is ever going to use "SaaSS", because the replacement term conveys no extra meaning to someone who's not in the GNU in-group. For the same reason everyone says "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux".
Or the idea that "Photoshop" should be avoided only because it's a "proprietary" name and no other reason. One can imagine the speaker spitting the p-word as if an epithet.
The "hacker"/"cracker" boat sailed decades ago.
"Trusted computing" as another epithet ignores that such systems can be engineered to work for, or against the user. If you control your own keys, you're ensuring that the computer works in your interests and not the interests of the guy that wrote the malware that just arrived over the NIC.
Most of these re-definitions make the mistake of presuming that human communication is optimized for complete logical/ideological correctness rather than efficiency of communication or many other purposes. Imagine if every TCP packet contained a 1 meg checksum. You've ensured that the receiver got exactly what you sent, but it took ages and a lot of almost-certainly-unnecesary noise to get it across.
That is a false dichotomy. I don’t agree with every definition that RMS provides, but I agree with the legitimacy of his effort.
I think RMS updates the terms sporadically, and some of the definitions are now outdated. For the “hacker”/“cracker” thing, that effort is a lost cause that he just won’t let go, but it’s useful to preserve as a time capsule of the cultural events that led to our current state. There have been multiple complaints that computing is a pop culture, with no sense of the past or the future. RMS is connected to both past and future.
I think RMS updates the terms sporadically, and some of the definitions are now outdated. For the “hacker”/“cracker” thing, that effort is a lost cause that he just won’t let go, but it’s useful to preserve as a time capsule of the cultural events that led to our current state. There have been multiple complaints that computing is a pop culture, with no sense of the past or the future. RMS is connected to both past and future.
Trying to avoid the weeds that so many other people have argued, so:
“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” - Eric Schmidt, chairman of the board and former CEO of Google.
“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” - Eric Schmidt, chairman of the board and former CEO of Google.
That quote continues,
... But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time. And [...] we’re all subject, in the US, to the Patriot Act, and it is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities.
... But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time. And [...] we’re all subject, in the US, to the Patriot Act, and it is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities.
And your point is...?
You do not win the culture wars by using words defined by totalitarians. People who have no respect for others’ freedoms.
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You live in a parallel version of Earth I'd like to inhabit if you think the FSF is winning any culture battles, let alone wars.
They are winning battles. Back when they started, nobody thought software deserved to be free. Bill Gates published a letter where he asserted that nobody should use Microsoft software without paying Microsoft, and only Microsoft had the privilege of improving it. 30 years later, Microsoft releases a lot of stuff under the Apache 2.0 license. If you were not connected to the past, you would not recognize how huge this is.
And yet, Microsoft's releases are done under APL2, not GPL. I'd argue that that the FSF is culturally irrelevant - the hacker mindset (and so the sharing one) would exist with or without RMS.
Then what alternative would you propose?
Hmm. I'm not really sure, as I'm certainly not a rhetorical pro. But I feel like defining new negative terms and discussing them, rather than re-casting other terms, would be a good start.
The "Trusted Computing" example mentioned in the article and in a child comment is a good one to look at, I think. "Trusted Computing" sounds Orwellian to start with; as the rule of thumb goes, if you need to put an adjective in the name, it's probably not true [0]. So eschewing "Trusted Computing" makes good sense, but re-casting it as "Treacherous Computing" is goofy, and just sounds like a snide and kinda pathetic attack. Maybe it'd be better to create a new positive name ("Verifiable Computing", say) and discuss how it's better than "Trusted Computing"?
[0] cf. "Democratic" People's Republic of Korea, German "Democratic" Republic, "United" States of America, Computer "Science"
Hmm. I'm not really sure, as I'm certainly not a rhetorical pro. But I feel like defining new negative terms and discussing them, rather than re-casting other terms, would be a good start.
The "Trusted Computing" example mentioned in the article and in a child comment is a good one to look at, I think. "Trusted Computing" sounds Orwellian to start with; as the rule of thumb goes, if you need to put an adjective in the name, it's probably not true [0]. So eschewing "Trusted Computing" makes good sense, but re-casting it as "Treacherous Computing" is goofy, and just sounds like a snide and kinda pathetic attack. Maybe it'd be better to create a new positive name ("Verifiable Computing", say) and discuss how it's better than "Trusted Computing"?
[0] cf. "Democratic" People's Republic of Korea, German "Democratic" Republic, "United" States of America, Computer "Science"
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A (very small) few of these are responses to common Newspeak found in the industry. For instance, RMS insists on calling DRM "Digital Restriction Management".
.. A much more evocative and accurate title. You don't put DRM on something to make it more open, you put DRM on something to restrict it. The name itself is inherently weaseley, this inversion actually calls it what it accomplishes. Besides, nothing is lost, since the initialism is more common in everyday usage.
But a great deal of it is just tiresome pedantry.
.. A much more evocative and accurate title. You don't put DRM on something to make it more open, you put DRM on something to restrict it. The name itself is inherently weaseley, this inversion actually calls it what it accomplishes. Besides, nothing is lost, since the initialism is more common in everyday usage.
But a great deal of it is just tiresome pedantry.
Let me voice a dissenting opinion: I don't mind this nearly as much as other people do.
Entities invested in intellectual property have tried, and largely succeeded, to influence what terms people use to describe intellectual property. They do this because it's an effective way of affecting public opinion, by anchoring certain concepts against other concepts (it's more effective on people who don't have a strong opinion, which for copyright law is the majority of people). It's a common and useful marketing tactic.
RMS is observant enough to see this happening, and recognize that it is one of the battlefields of public opinion. He is trying to counter it. And he is doing it in an open and transparent fashion, unlike his opposition, which unfairly opens him up to criticism.
The main problem I have is that terminology seems to be the main front where RMS focuses most of his efforts. He spends more time on pedantry and very fine, subtle arguments about distinctions between different types of abstract freedoms. So much that actual messaging becomes a secondary priority, to his detriment.
Entities invested in intellectual property have tried, and largely succeeded, to influence what terms people use to describe intellectual property. They do this because it's an effective way of affecting public opinion, by anchoring certain concepts against other concepts (it's more effective on people who don't have a strong opinion, which for copyright law is the majority of people). It's a common and useful marketing tactic.
RMS is observant enough to see this happening, and recognize that it is one of the battlefields of public opinion. He is trying to counter it. And he is doing it in an open and transparent fashion, unlike his opposition, which unfairly opens him up to criticism.
The main problem I have is that terminology seems to be the main front where RMS focuses most of his efforts. He spends more time on pedantry and very fine, subtle arguments about distinctions between different types of abstract freedoms. So much that actual messaging becomes a secondary priority, to his detriment.
I'd like to point one thing: ever since I started getting more interested into etymology, I've sort of fallen in love with words, and came to see them as much more alive and powerful than before, and I've started to care much more about their weight, their truthiness, their application, etc, so that I'm precise, and of course I also started getting more annoyed when I see them malapplied. I sometimes think that nothing made me feel smarter and sharper mentally than etymology(like the same effect history, logic, philosophy has, but maybe a little bit more fundamental), the confusing there is not just "this is bad!", if you're using confusing words your thinking gets less clear, lies pass through, making sense of things is harder, more error-prone, etc. When you start to notice things this way, a lot changes. And we sort of have to defend ourselves from the tonnes of bullshit we're shot with everyday. So, yeah, I think this shit is real. Of course changing your vocabulary entirely can feel a bit extreme, but still, KNOWING words are loaded or confusing, or just marketing, or plain lie, plain propaganda, plain politics, is useful.
RMS of course cares much more about truthiness than he does what others think of him(and he was right before, remember it?). If one puts 'self-awareness' above 'truthiness' in their mind, it's no wonder they'll think this is weird, eccentric, etc. The cool thing about Truth, though, is that it's way above vanity and opinion. The former scratches the later two, the opposite, not so much or not for very long.
RMS of course cares much more about truthiness than he does what others think of him(and he was right before, remember it?). If one puts 'self-awareness' above 'truthiness' in their mind, it's no wonder they'll think this is weird, eccentric, etc. The cool thing about Truth, though, is that it's way above vanity and opinion. The former scratches the later two, the opposite, not so much or not for very long.
Agree with the Cloud one completely, but then again my laptop is adorned with the "There is no cloud; it's just someone elses computer" sticker so I'm very biased already.
When I saw the topic and the URL I was taken back to the coreboot fiasco, and I was sure this was related.. but no, it's just a load of recommendations on changing language that nobody will follow. And mostly there is strong justification for not following, even if GNU/FSF had a huge following.
Who on earth wants to replace "Photoshopped" with "GIMPed" or "digitally manipulated", it's not going to win friends with suggestions like this.. even if I see their point.
When I saw the topic and the URL I was taken back to the coreboot fiasco, and I was sure this was related.. but no, it's just a load of recommendations on changing language that nobody will follow. And mostly there is strong justification for not following, even if GNU/FSF had a huge following.
Who on earth wants to replace "Photoshopped" with "GIMPed" or "digitally manipulated", it's not going to win friends with suggestions like this.. even if I see their point.
A little offtopic, but could someone explain to me what the free software philosophy as espoused by Stallman/GNU is doing that is both good AND separate from the open source movement? Everytime I have seen the differences highlighted, it's been in some condescending article like this from GNU themselves where they are telling everyone how they are thinking wrong. I'd really like to know what the benefit of their philosophy is that isn't shared by the OSS movement
Well, there was this last month:
https://opensource.com/business/16/11/open-source-not-free-s...
https://opensource.com/business/16/11/open-source-not-free-s...
Stallman wants "GLAMP" instead of "LAMP" for the stack, but if someone's already talking about the LAMP stack, how much of the gnu userspace tools are they bringing in anyway.
Yeah, once you're committed to the AMP, the first part doesn't matter.
If you ran a LAMP shop, and you told the developers that the company is switching to BAMP (BSD) or IAMP (Illumos), it wouldn't change the code the developers write one iota. Honestly, the important parts are "free as in beer" and "Unix-like" (and you could probably replace "Unix-like" with "command-line driven" and it'd work just as well).
If you ran a LAMP shop, and you told the developers that the company is switching to BAMP (BSD) or IAMP (Illumos), it wouldn't change the code the developers write one iota. Honestly, the important parts are "free as in beer" and "Unix-like" (and you could probably replace "Unix-like" with "command-line driven" and it'd work just as well).
Larry Ellison is a software developer? That's news to me. Last time I checked he was the CEO of Oracle.
Can't help but feel that this would carry more weight if RMS did not do his thing or redefining perfectly good words to match his ideology - which I noticed is done here again with 'Service as a Software Substitute'
The perpetual problem of this ideology is that so many people have "wrong" thoughts and speech. I'm surprised only that the list doesn't include a narrower redefinition of "freedom" to mean "free to agree with our definitions."
I don't really see it as that much of a problem, to tell the truth. Every company with a marketing department worth their salt makes sure to figure out the "correct" terminology to market their product or service in order to present a unified message to the outside world. This is very similar, except the FSF, true to form, is making their terminology (and justification for that terminology) open to the public.
The other major difference is that they're not marketing a product or a service, but rather an _idea_, which makes them come off a lot more pretentious than I think they actually are. Okay, scratch that- a _little_ more pretentious than they actually are. ;)
But I mean, let's also consider that in the market of ideas, the idea of free software IS, and always has been, under siege by companies who _really don't_ want it to be a Thing. Or at least, companies who have ideas which are only profitable if free software isn't a thing. If you're going to establish an organization whose entire purpose is to keep an idea relevant and un-subverted for a long period of time, it's crucial to come up with practices for "memetic sanitation".
I mean, look at U.S. political discourse over the last, say, 30 years. Politicians are experts at this sort of subtle semantic manipulation- repackaging old ideas under new names, giving disparaging/complimentary nicknames to existing ideas they want to reject/promote, or recombining names so that one idea gets mushed up with another in the minds of the public. It's memetic warfare.
And so, for the most part, I sympathize with the FSF for doing a hard job. They're playing the game with their cards face-up, and trying to keep their side of the Overton window from getting dragged to a place which they, and I myself, believe will cause the world to become a worse place.
tl;dr- if you're not worried about the Green Party's political ideology, you probably don't need to worry about the FSF's political ideology.
The other major difference is that they're not marketing a product or a service, but rather an _idea_, which makes them come off a lot more pretentious than I think they actually are. Okay, scratch that- a _little_ more pretentious than they actually are. ;)
But I mean, let's also consider that in the market of ideas, the idea of free software IS, and always has been, under siege by companies who _really don't_ want it to be a Thing. Or at least, companies who have ideas which are only profitable if free software isn't a thing. If you're going to establish an organization whose entire purpose is to keep an idea relevant and un-subverted for a long period of time, it's crucial to come up with practices for "memetic sanitation".
I mean, look at U.S. political discourse over the last, say, 30 years. Politicians are experts at this sort of subtle semantic manipulation- repackaging old ideas under new names, giving disparaging/complimentary nicknames to existing ideas they want to reject/promote, or recombining names so that one idea gets mushed up with another in the minds of the public. It's memetic warfare.
And so, for the most part, I sympathize with the FSF for doing a hard job. They're playing the game with their cards face-up, and trying to keep their side of the Overton window from getting dragged to a place which they, and I myself, believe will cause the world to become a worse place.
tl;dr- if you're not worried about the Green Party's political ideology, you probably don't need to worry about the FSF's political ideology.
All legal and political discourse is a struggle for control of linguistic territory.
You comment would be a bit more relevant if the article actually include a definition for "freedom". You can't create a narrower definition when there is no definition.
If you don't like the word, just do a word-replace for "freedom" with "liberty". Liberty has a extremely long history of people trying to define it, and John Locke (1632–1704) once wrote on that subject: freedom is not as Sir Robert Filmer defines it: 'A liberty for everyone to do what he likes, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws.' ".
And if we talk about liberty, we must acknowledge the difference between liberty as the freedom to act and liberty as the absence of coercion. FSF focus heavily on the absence of coercion part, like not having patents, proprietary licenses and DRM coercing user and developers of software.
If you don't like the word, just do a word-replace for "freedom" with "liberty". Liberty has a extremely long history of people trying to define it, and John Locke (1632–1704) once wrote on that subject: freedom is not as Sir Robert Filmer defines it: 'A liberty for everyone to do what he likes, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws.' ".
And if we talk about liberty, we must acknowledge the difference between liberty as the freedom to act and liberty as the absence of coercion. FSF focus heavily on the absence of coercion part, like not having patents, proprietary licenses and DRM coercing user and developers of software.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
I don't imagine the FSF has really spent a lot of resources on this page, so it isn't really troubling in the sense of "so much effort, what a waste," so it's more of an amusing, "not much effort, but what a waste".
Those sorts of language changes happen, and it's just never worth fighting for. Especially hacker vs cracker, that one was lost a long, long time ago.
Several of these fit into the same mental territory as genericized trademarks, i.e. digital audio player instead of mp3 player, or Kleenex-brand facial issues instead of Kleenex, again, not worth fighting for.
And several of these carry political loading of their own (e.g. don't say "theft"), as well as that perpetual lost cause, GLAMP.
Oh well. Happily the FSF does a lot of other good work.
Those sorts of language changes happen, and it's just never worth fighting for. Especially hacker vs cracker, that one was lost a long, long time ago.
Several of these fit into the same mental territory as genericized trademarks, i.e. digital audio player instead of mp3 player, or Kleenex-brand facial issues instead of Kleenex, again, not worth fighting for.
And several of these carry political loading of their own (e.g. don't say "theft"), as well as that perpetual lost cause, GLAMP.
Oh well. Happily the FSF does a lot of other good work.
It's not necessarily that the FSF spends a lot of resources on this page, but that Stallman appears to spend a lot of his time and resources on the issues that are repeated throughout this page (or the whole "Philosophy" section of their website). In some ways, it's good to have someone like Stallman around to remind us that there is another way to look at some of these things, and to push the political debate.
One of the biggest issues in my mind is that the GNU camp likes to expropriate words with established meanings, then attempt to categorize everyone else's use of the words as inappropriate. However, that is only a part of the in-fighting which tends to occur between the "free" and "open source" software movements and helps to marginalize them in the eyes of the layman.
One of the biggest issues in my mind is that the GNU camp likes to expropriate words with established meanings, then attempt to categorize everyone else's use of the words as inappropriate. However, that is only a part of the in-fighting which tends to occur between the "free" and "open source" software movements and helps to marginalize them in the eyes of the layman.
The problem for me isn't that "this is a waste", for me it's "this is demonstrating embarrassingly pretentious immature behavior that puts the FSF in a very unfavorable light".
"Please don't spread this mistake. People who break security are “crackers.”"
No, no, no. "crackers" has its own sordid baggage.
No, no, no. "crackers" has its own sordid baggage.
'cracker' has been used in this context since at least as far back as my first computer, an Amiga 500. I got a lot of games from a bloke called "Norm the Cracker"...
Hmm. I've always taken the recent hacker/cracker as the following:
Hacker: One who breaks into computer systems or networks one does not control or have access to.
Cracker: One who breaks into software and firmware on their devices as to gain control of root over their machines. This may be in contention with the arbitrary licenses they may have agreed to prior to installation or purchase.
Hacker: One who breaks into computer systems or networks one does not control or have access to.
Cracker: One who breaks into software and firmware on their devices as to gain control of root over their machines. This may be in contention with the arbitrary licenses they may have agreed to prior to installation or purchase.
I bet kittihawk is talking about the usage of cracker as a derogatory term as it regards to white people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_(pejorative)
[deleted]
Crackers has been the term for decades. Have you never read the jargon file?
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/C/cracker.html
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/C/cracker.html
This page is a succinct introduction to the important concepts of free-software thought and GNU ideology, regardless of what problems you might have with the actual definitions it supplies.
Try and understand the different culture before condemning it all!
Try and understand the different culture before condemning it all!
I agree.
It's definitely the worth the time to actually read it.
Sadly the title of the page predicts what most people commenting seem to have done -
Skimmed, got triggered by a word or a turn of phrase and came to type their first objection really quick.
It's definitely the worth the time to actually read it.
Sadly the title of the page predicts what most people commenting seem to have done -
Skimmed, got triggered by a word or a turn of phrase and came to type their first objection really quick.
Honestly, pages like this hurt the free-software movement much more than they help.
Someone might randomly stumble on this page and see "oh, supporting the free-software movement means using newspeak" and decide it's a crackpot movement on the same level as Alex Jones.
Someone might randomly stumble on this page and see "oh, supporting the free-software movement means using newspeak" and decide it's a crackpot movement on the same level as Alex Jones.
Nah. I'll keep using Photoshopped, even if it's a name of the ubiquitous image manipulation program.
What's my comparison? Yeah, that's been GIMPed. Gimp has meanings other than "Gnu image manipulation program", like talking about handicapped peoples. In the wrong places, saying it's GIMPed can get you in real trouble.
What's my comparison? Yeah, that's been GIMPed. Gimp has meanings other than "Gnu image manipulation program", like talking about handicapped peoples. In the wrong places, saying it's GIMPed can get you in real trouble.
I think the implication is that we should say something akin to "the photo has been edited", not just replace the verb with a free alternative to Photoshop.
"Photoshopped" usually implies the photo was edited with the intent to deceive. Regular editing (e.g., removing red eye) is not malicious.
The very confusing term "free software" isn't on this list, and that fact speaks volumes.
There's a whole page[1] dedicated to defining "free software" in the same Philosophy section. Of course that page also defines the "copyleft" pun which is loaded and confusing on its own.
[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
> The term “WC” has been suggested for a computer running Windows.
LOL
Thinking about what words to use is worthwhile for any language user.
Obsessing about it at this level, and trying to cram so much meaning into them, is confusing surface with substance.
In the end, a word is just a few syllables some people use as shorthand for deeper concepts. It can never be the concept.
Obsessing about it at this level, and trying to cram so much meaning into them, is confusing surface with substance.
In the end, a word is just a few syllables some people use as shorthand for deeper concepts. It can never be the concept.
These are honestly kind of ridiculous, and they come off as unbelievably pretentious. They also lack self-awareness, since they're supposed to avoid being loaded.
- As mentioned, verbing "GIMP" can give it at least two loaded meanings which have _nothing_ to do with the image editor.
- "Cracker" also has a very, very different and loaded meaning outside of software.
And holy heck, the whole GNU slash Linux debate has gotten to the point of mass parody with the "I'd like to interject for a moment" meme. The worst part of it is that it's easy to argue against this point because there are Linux systems out there which don't necessarily use the GNU toolchain. The statement tries extremely hard to generalize the idea that Linux is irreparably crippled without the good graces of the GNU toolchain.
Ugh.
I want to push for the adoption of free and open source software and hardware, and I really do care about the ability to see the internals of, and tinker with, and break, and then fix the stuff I run in my day-to-day, but this kind of article makes the FOSS community (the free community especially; but the OSS community by extension) look bad by imposing this image of snobbishness and obsession over honestly minute details.
The movement to popularize free software and hardware won't be won by making people stop calling digital audio players "MP3 players," when it's an accurate term for an overwhelmingly large part of the digital audio player market.
- As mentioned, verbing "GIMP" can give it at least two loaded meanings which have _nothing_ to do with the image editor.
- "Cracker" also has a very, very different and loaded meaning outside of software.
And holy heck, the whole GNU slash Linux debate has gotten to the point of mass parody with the "I'd like to interject for a moment" meme. The worst part of it is that it's easy to argue against this point because there are Linux systems out there which don't necessarily use the GNU toolchain. The statement tries extremely hard to generalize the idea that Linux is irreparably crippled without the good graces of the GNU toolchain.
Ugh.
I want to push for the adoption of free and open source software and hardware, and I really do care about the ability to see the internals of, and tinker with, and break, and then fix the stuff I run in my day-to-day, but this kind of article makes the FOSS community (the free community especially; but the OSS community by extension) look bad by imposing this image of snobbishness and obsession over honestly minute details.
The movement to popularize free software and hardware won't be won by making people stop calling digital audio players "MP3 players," when it's an accurate term for an overwhelmingly large part of the digital audio player market.
While I have no opinion either way, the argument for GNU/Linux is not due to using the GNU toolchain. The argument is that it's the GNU userland and Linux kernel, thus GNU/Linux.
There are very few (just android?) distributions that don't use the GNU userland[0].
[0] - https://www.gnu.org/software/software.en.html
There are very few (just android?) distributions that don't use the GNU userland[0].
[0] - https://www.gnu.org/software/software.en.html
Not according to this article:
> The operating system in which Linux is used is basically GNU with Linux added.
I'm not sure how you lump all distros into a single "operating system".
And anyway, I'm not sure what the point of this argument is anyway. Why stop at the GNU userland? An OS with only GNU userland and the kernel would be nearly useless, so there's a lot more to it than that.
"Please stop saying GNU/Linux. It's really KDE[1] with some GNU programs and Linux kernel tacked on".
"Please stop saying KDE/GNU/Linux; your OS is really just Firefox[1] with some other apps, utilities and a kernel somewhere underneath."
[1] Insert your favorite desktop/shell/browser if appropriate.
> The operating system in which Linux is used is basically GNU with Linux added.
I'm not sure how you lump all distros into a single "operating system".
And anyway, I'm not sure what the point of this argument is anyway. Why stop at the GNU userland? An OS with only GNU userland and the kernel would be nearly useless, so there's a lot more to it than that.
"Please stop saying GNU/Linux. It's really KDE[1] with some GNU programs and Linux kernel tacked on".
"Please stop saying KDE/GNU/Linux; your OS is really just Firefox[1] with some other apps, utilities and a kernel somewhere underneath."
[1] Insert your favorite desktop/shell/browser if appropriate.
> I'm not sure how you lump all distros into a single "operating system".
I think a lot of people agree there and don't do that. My machine is running Debian, not "linux", and the fact is that the kernel is just one of many packages which can be replaced. It holds no more special places on my machine than Emacs, GNU or Firefox.
The problem comes when people want to lump together several operative systems under the same umbrella. We could call them Unix systems, Linux distributions, GNU/Linux, and even systemd-based distributions, and it is a solution to a problem that I find unnecessary inflammatory and over debated.
I think a lot of people agree there and don't do that. My machine is running Debian, not "linux", and the fact is that the kernel is just one of many packages which can be replaced. It holds no more special places on my machine than Emacs, GNU or Firefox.
The problem comes when people want to lump together several operative systems under the same umbrella. We could call them Unix systems, Linux distributions, GNU/Linux, and even systemd-based distributions, and it is a solution to a problem that I find unnecessary inflammatory and over debated.
Thanks for following up with the point that these things could stack almost indefinitely. It's hypocritical to put GNU at the forefront when, obviously, the kernel alone would be totally useless except as a portable-ish interface to talk to hardware and process syscalls with very little abstraction.
-- Sent from my <textarea>/HTML/Hacker News/Gecko/Firefox/GNOME/GNU/Linux
-- Sent from my <textarea>/HTML/Hacker News/Gecko/Firefox/GNOME/GNU/Linux
Nowadays, the programs most users interact with on a day-to-day basis aren't GNU.
For example, my graphical environment comes from X.org and KDE. And I spend a lot of time in my web browser, which doesn't come from GNU, either: that's either Chromium (code by Google) or Pale Moon (fork of code by Mozilla). Keep in mind that modern web browsers are full-fledged virtual machines that run applications developed by thousands of organizations all across the globe.
On the command line, my shell is zsh. The servers I run come from organizations like the Apache Software Foundation (httpd) and OpenBSD (openssh). Most of the hobbyist dev work I do is in Python, which certainly isn't GNU. While many of the command-line utilities I use do come from GNU, you could probably swap most of them out for BusyBox and it'd take a while for me to notice. That leaves, what, gcc? Well, even that isn't safe what with clang gaining traction and all...
At a high level, GNU is irrelevant.
And thanks to systemd, the init system is now closely coupled to so many functions of the system that systemd-based distributions and non-systemd distributions are wildly different. A kFreeBSD distribution using GNU "userland" and a traditional init system feels wildly different from a Linux distribution using GNU "userland" and systemd. Really, systemd vs. sysvinit makes far more difference than glibc vs. some other libc. We're reaching a point where the init system is what makes different OSes feel different at a low level, not the CLI utilities and the libc.
So if GNU is irrelevant from both a user-interactive level and a core system level, then how is it relevant?
For example, my graphical environment comes from X.org and KDE. And I spend a lot of time in my web browser, which doesn't come from GNU, either: that's either Chromium (code by Google) or Pale Moon (fork of code by Mozilla). Keep in mind that modern web browsers are full-fledged virtual machines that run applications developed by thousands of organizations all across the globe.
On the command line, my shell is zsh. The servers I run come from organizations like the Apache Software Foundation (httpd) and OpenBSD (openssh). Most of the hobbyist dev work I do is in Python, which certainly isn't GNU. While many of the command-line utilities I use do come from GNU, you could probably swap most of them out for BusyBox and it'd take a while for me to notice. That leaves, what, gcc? Well, even that isn't safe what with clang gaining traction and all...
At a high level, GNU is irrelevant.
And thanks to systemd, the init system is now closely coupled to so many functions of the system that systemd-based distributions and non-systemd distributions are wildly different. A kFreeBSD distribution using GNU "userland" and a traditional init system feels wildly different from a Linux distribution using GNU "userland" and systemd. Really, systemd vs. sysvinit makes far more difference than glibc vs. some other libc. We're reaching a point where the init system is what makes different OSes feel different at a low level, not the CLI utilities and the libc.
So if GNU is irrelevant from both a user-interactive level and a core system level, then how is it relevant?
Remove GNU glibc, then, because you use Firefox, not GNU glibc.
So let me try to find something similar from a different perspective:
Copyleft Free Software: You may not be able to use copyleft licensed code together with code licensed under a different license. Better words are CDDL-proprietary or GPL-proprietary. An example in a sentence: ZFS can't be integrated into Linux because Linux is GPL-proprietary.