Sometime Today, NG cobbled together some glyphs to say:
X, Mozilla, Apache as also important projects and equating them to the core GNU system is to confuse the issue. This is not a new argument.
I'm not equating them to the GNU system, I'm saying that in today's world, the distinguishing lines between core operating system and system that allows the user to operate the computer are very blurred.
What this argument misses is that none of these appendages can be compiled or distributed as freely as on GNU systems without depending on commercial libraries. You should think of the situation where X, Mozilla, Apache, or for that matter Linux kernel get distributed without the GNU system, and get compiled with Borland, Visual Studio
But we're not talking about compiling, we're talking about executing. The fact that some software was compiled using Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler does not make that software Microsoft's and no credit needs to be given to them. The same holds for any compiler. The fact that you can compile software with the GNU compiler collection does not change anything. The OS that the software was compiled on may have been a GNU system. It may also have been a BSD system running the GCC or a Windows system running the GCC or a Mac OSX system running the GCC. The outcome is still a usable piece of software with NO remaining connection to GCC.
etc. Then people will relaize that GNU is not just an appendage, it is indispensable and others cannot even be implemented as free software in the real sense without GNU. Others are appendages, kernel
Actually they can. Apart from all the free languages, people also write Free Software in Java, VB and C#, many released under the GPL, but _all_ compiled with non-Free compilers. That doesn't make the software any less Free.
and GNU are not. That is why there is no need to go on appending p/q/r/s/GNU/Linux. GNU + Linux is enough, and FSF's claim is legitimate.
GNU is enough. Adding linux to the end of it only serves to give credit to Linus Torvalds for doing no more than posting his code to usenet. However, if you are going to add Linux to the end of the GNU operating system, then you must add all the others as well. Give credit where it is due.
So the point is, why dont people become fair and credit an indispensable contribution of FSF?
It's not crediting the contribution of the FSF. The FSF set out to write an operating system called GNU. They did that, and that's why we call the operating system GNU. Why add anything to it?
Philip.
PS: Kapil contends that the OS should be called "Kapil" because it sounds better.