Stallman Claims Linux Trademark Doesn't Matter 589
Tontoman writes "ZDNet UK reports on an interview with Richard Stallman with the Sydney Morning Herald. From the article: '"Free software means you're free to run it, study it, change it, redistribute it, and distribute modified versions the way cooks do with recipes. What names you're allowed to call a program is a side issue." The Linux trademark became an issue last month after a lawyer acting on behalf of Linux creator Linus Torvalds wrote to 90 Australian companies asking that they sign a statutory declaration waiving exclusive rights to the trademark's use.'"
Then Stallman added... (Score:5, Funny)
No, it's *not* GNU/Linux (Score:3, Informative)
It says so quite clearly here:
http://www.linuxmark.org/attribution.html [linuxmark.org]
And page or post mentioning it should have the following attribution somewhere:
"Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries."
Obviously anyone using the word Linux without the ® as specified by the web page is using it incorrectly.
Re:Then Stallman added... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Then Stallman added... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Then Stallman added... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about this: You post your bio here and let us compare your accomplishments with his and decide whose life is a train wreck. Who the fuck were you again?
It would also be better if you made the effort to try to point out the errors or inconsistencies in his "crybaby" positions instead of engaging in simple-minded ad hominem attacks.
Does anyone really care about his opinion anymore?
Yes. Has anyone ever cared about yours (except me?)
Re:Then Stallman added... (Score:5, Insightful)
If he's a pompous windbag, he's in good company in this, or any other industry.
Re:Then Stallman added... (Score:3, Insightful)
yawn (Score:5, Funny)
Same old RMS (Score:4, Funny)
"Most of the time, when people call something 'Linux', it's the GNU system with Linux as the kernel. Maybe this policy will encourage people to call it GNU,"
Which he follows up with:
"I prefer to say GNU/Linux' so as to give the kernel's developer a share of the credit."
My, how generous!
Re:Same old RMS (Score:2, Insightful)
"GNU/Linux" was never about giving people credit. It was about ensuring that Stallman's work in establishing a free software community is never forgotten.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Same old RMS (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Funny)
Re:mod parent up! (Score:3, Insightful)
No, since /. moderation is more or less a democratic process, you sense the majority's opinion. You should call something "bias" if it falsely represents the minority's opinion as the only truth. Which is fine; there's nothing wrong with stating your opinion, but at the end of the day, when you lose a democratic election, you shouldn't whine that the voters
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is silly, because his organization is a leader in open source software by virtue of it's large size and diversity of projects. That is, it has that title by merit. As far as I can recall, he never asked us to call some of the platforms I worked on GNU/Digital UNIX, or GNU/Tru64, or GNU/HPUX. The only reason he's jumping on Linux is because it provides an easy target for cheap-shot advertisement.
Aside from that, there's little historical precedent to do what he is asking for. Many pieces of engineering are named after the one critical component that is essential for it's operation. It's evern sillier when you're attaching a conflicting brand name and you're not the creator of the critical component. For example:
Nuclear Reactor (not IBM/Nuclear Reactor)
Jet Aeroplane (not Goodyear/Jet Airplane)
Steam Engine (not Taco Bell/Steam Engine)
Computer Keyboard (not BOSE/Computer Keyboard)
Textbook (not Kelloggs/Textbook)
Linux Kernel (not GNU/Linux Kernel)
It's an even odder arrangement when adding two different brands in the same marketplace.
Kellogs/Quaker Oats
General Mills/Betty Crocker Biquick
Lexmark/HP printer
GNU/RedHat
GNU/SuSE
GNU/Linux
(the only reason the last one isn't odd is because you've been told via countless articles and advertisements that it isn't)
Stallman has done some wonderful things for computing, but now his tactics are hurting him just as much as they used to help him. It's sad to see him demanding equal air time in the name of a product. He should just require (as others do) that it mention somewhere in the materials that it uses GNU software.
If he just managed his project well, and got HURD out of the door, the need for a LINUX would probably have been met. Instead, GNU mostly lives as an add-on to other people's products. It's a shame that Stallman desires a "social license" that requires inclusion of his trademark in other people's trademark.
Like my Bridestone/BOSE/Pontiac Grand AM?
Critical component? (Score:3, Insightful)
Many pieces of engineering are named after the one critical component that is essential for it's operation. It's evern sillier when you're attaching a conflicting brand name and you're not the creator of the critical component.
What makes you say that GNU Compiler Collection (gcc) and GNU C Library (glibc), both maintained by FSF, are less critical to a free operating system than Linux, maintained by Linus Torvalds? A GNU system could run on a *BSD kernel [debian.org] for all I care.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:3, Insightful)
Stallman's not jumping on Linux, and Stallman isn't sending letters out of the blue to users telling them to license the word/entity/trademark/whatever GNU, or setting a fee scale for it. The Linux Mark Institute [linuxmark.org] is doing that.
The real reason Linux® is being "protected" and not given to the public domain as a generic trademark is not to prevent "tarnishing of the Linux name," it's being done
Re:Same old RMS (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't call it Perl/Slashdot, though.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:3, Funny)
Richard? Is that you?
Because it goes far beyond "22%" (Score:5, Informative)
Because 100% of the C/C++ programs are built with gcc, including the MIT/KDE software. People are forgetting that the FSF not only contributed the standard utilities and libraries, but ALSO gcc.
Without gcc being available to Linus, it is doubtful whether there would even have been a kernel to compile. Linus would have had to resort to a commercial compiler, which back then typically cost around $500.
The most common ones then came from either SCO or ATT.
The widespread adoption of Linux would've been slowed significantly if people had to fork over $500 for a development kit, and probably another $200-500 for a commercial OS, just so they could run Linux.
This is why we're indebted to the FSF for their efforts. And they are right to insist upon credit for themselves. Without the FSF, Linux wouldn't be nearly as far along as it is today. Giving the FSF due recognition seems quite appropriate; and frankly, I just don't see people giving the FSF the respect it deserves (witness your comments), let alone due credit.
And don't forget that it was RMS himself who encouraged Linus to adopt the GPL for his kernel. Without the GPL, it is also questionable how far along Linux would be today.
Obligatory quote... (Score:3, Insightful)
"All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
I honestly don't know why there is such hostility towards GNU or such a willngness to people to close their eyes to vast importance and goodness of what they've given us. Yeah, some mythical others could have achieved something, but they didn't. GNU was th
Re:Obligatory quote... (Score:3)
Not without the excellent communication channels provided by the Roman empire.
"empires rised and falled throughout history, Rome simply produced the first major one across Europe"
Empires rose and fell, surely. "Rised and falled"?? Clearly we have an academic genious lecturing us here.
Rome simply produced the largest empire in human history, ever - not "the first major one across Europe" - Yes, sorry to tell you, even bigger
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Interesting)
No, he would want you to remove it immediately and install a free PDF reader instead. Or, preferably, to stop using formats like PDF altogether in favour of something that's not so tied to a particular proprietary implementation.
That aside, the point is that the average "Linux" distribution does rely on a GNU foundation in a way that it doesn't rely on X, or Gnome, or KDE, or TeX, or any of the other major software packages that people like to cite when arguing against the GNU/prefix. You can run the Linux kernel without any of those, and a lot of people do. But it's pretty difficult to get a Linux kernel at all without using the GNU compiler collection, and it's pretty unusual to use Linux without the GNU userland.
Sure, you could try to compile the kernel with Intel's compiler instead, if you only want to run it on x86. And you could replace most or all of the GNU userland with the BSD equivalents, or with another alternative such as BusyBox. But firstly, most people don't; and secondly, RMS doesn't insist that such systems be called GNU/Linux anyway. The fact is that the Linux system, in its best-known configuration - the one configuration that RMS demands people refer to as GNU/Linux - is fundamentally reliant on the work of the many collaborators in the GNU project.
It's true that "GNU/Linux" is ugly, and it's true that hardly anyone uses that name, and it's even true that RMS appears to be obsessed with this minor issue well beyond the bounds of what's reasonable. But you can't deny that he has a valid point - even if, like most people, you choose to reject the conclusion he draws from it.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
I very much doubt RMS has a problem with PDF. The format may be controlled by a single company, but the full specification is released and developers are Free (in the full-on RMS-compatible sense of the word) to implement their own readers or authoring software (contrasted with SWF, where the specification is available for people wishing to output Flash, but not for those wishing to read it). If, at any point, they added feature that were not part of the published specification, then RMS would start objecting.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Funny)
Open source tends to be "You can do it any way you want. But if you dont do it my way you're an idiot."
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Informative)
Before you start lecturing other people on how to use the language, you might want to do a little brushing up of your own skills. The word you are looking for is probably 'retarded,' unless you are really trying to imply that the recursive acronyms in general, and GNU in particular, have been 'tarted,' through the addition of tart flavours, twice. That's not a word you're likely to find in any dictionary, but at least it would make some sense (by analogy to 'sweetened.) But retarded doesn't really work here either, it means slowed, hindered, or set back, none of which make much sense in this context.
Most likely I would think you were actually trying to say 'stupid' but 'retarded' is not really a synonym for stupid. In relation to a person, we might say that they are 'mentally retarded' as an explanation for their stupidity, of course, which is probably where you got the idea the two words are synonyms, but if true this is just a further sign of sloppy thinking.
The contention that recursive acronyms are grammatically incorrect is unsupported, incorrect, and generally leads me to suspect (particularly in context, next to the repeated use of 'retarted') that you might be mentally retarded to some degree yourself.
Perhaps because explorer was never a project to create an operating system, but simply a shell which runs as part of several OSs, on two entirely different types of kernel?
Perhaps because Darwin doesn't use the BSD kernel? It uses the XNU kernel, and a good deal of BSD userland, so a much better analogy would be calling Darwin the 'BSD/XNU OS.' Unlike what you posted, that would make some sense, and be recognisable as referring to something real, albeit in an unusual way. Of course it's not necessary, because in that case you have no ambiguity, but it would make sense to clarify things if Darwin somehow wound up with no proper name, and people were running around referring to the entire OS as 'XNU.'
No, GNU was a project with the explicit goal of creating a Free Operating System, which had progressed a very long ways already and produced everything required except a functional kernel. People were already running the GNU OS, on top of proprietary unix kernels, but without a Free kernel you still had to buy a proprietary system and then replace the userland to make a GNU system, so it was obviously important to get that last piece made. The GNU toolchain made linux possible, and linux completed the GNU OS in return.
Obviously in addition to the mental/linguistic difficulties noted earlier, your understanding of history is a bit deficient as well.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:3, Interesting)
--
Evan
Re:Same old RMS (Score:3, Insightful)
Furthermore, if RMS wants people to be remembered, he should fight for everyone to be remembered, whether he agrees with their development model or not. Otherwise, he's just being hypocritical.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:2)
Nonsense. There's nothing hypocritical about someone seeking recognition for themselves or for the organisation they represent without seeking recognition for everyone else in the world.
I call the system Linux. It's short, simple and has name recognition. However, that doesn't mean that any criticism, no matter how ab
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
Last I checked, there is no GNU in "Stallman", so yeah, he is fighting for everyone and not just himself. The whole idea of defending freedom is rarely about oneself, I don't see Stallman being oppressed, so yeah, he's doing it for other people.
And you might get some smug people dissing him out, but the bottom line is most developers, even when they have the choice of BSD-style mozilla-style, and whatever, STILL choose the GPL. I don't know why people have such a problem with this, people choose the GPL on their own Stallman doesn't force them to do it. It's their choice, and it's the most popular licence, why all this venom? Deal with it ffs. Every time Stallman is mentioned a flood of tears spills from BSD and other licence fanatics, fine, you chose yours, I don't mind BSD at all. But stop whinging about the GPL ok. People choose it, and IMO for good reason. I don't have some huge chip on my shoulder cause the BSD devs choose the BSD-style licences, but it seems some BSD and other (SUN) have a big cry everytime stallmans name is mentioned.
And yeah, I think it's reasonable to call it GNU, it is the GNU NOT UNIX system. It isn't Unix, and most of it is licenced under the GPL. And the vast majority of it wasn't coded by a one Linus T., the vast majority of it was coded by people who *chose* to licence under the GPL. So hey, why not call it GNU?
God there are some snarky people around, I wish they would all go to BSD-land and just STOP COMPLAINING. It happens EVERY time, and it's boring.
I've got a pretty simple solution, licence your stuff under the licence you think is best and STFU about personal attacks on other people ok?
Actually, ignorance is a factor. (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem some people have with the GPL is that lots of things that rea
Re:Actually, ignorance is a factor. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have some proof of this, or are you just making up facts ?
"Hmm. Picking GPL lets people redistribute and modify my software, but keeps them from preventing me from merging those changes back to the my version and keeps various companies from ripping off my work. It has also been used by lots of people for a long time, and was written by an actual lawyer who actually knows what the law says, so it is unlikely to have nasty surprises hidden in it. Yep, sounds good to me."
Despite the current emphasis on individuality, the tendency of humans to look what everyone else is doing and conform is actually a valid, well-working survival mechanism that only brokes down in exceptional circumstances or if taken too far. Most of the time, looking out your window and seeing what everyone else is wearing is a very good way of picking appropriate clothing for the current weather.
GPL, usually, for the reasons mentioned above.
Yes, I guess it really shows the importance of marketing in getting good ideas sold.
Readline is released under GPL and not LGPL for the exact reason that it would be available only to GPL'd programs. This makes being able to use readline an incentive to use GPL.
Why should Stallman care about how usefull some library is to people who license their programs under non-GPL-compatible licenses ? They are his competitors - one might even say enemies, considering his stated worldview. Why should he want to make it easier for his enemies to fight against him ?
It seems to me that the only people who have a problem with GPL are the people who want to make proprietary products that include GPL'd code; the very thing GPL was meant to prevent. The situation with readline, to me, seems like GPL working exactly as intended - giving software with GPL-compatible licenses an advantage over ones with noncompatible licenses, of being able to draw from other GPL'd programs and libraries.
Really ? What words has he redefined, exactly speaking ? What were their old and what are their new meanings ?
People usually argue against opinions and worldviews that conflict with theirs, especially if they are actively trying to promote theirs. One might even say that it is impossible to promote one worldview without arguing against those it conflicts with.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why he advocates for the system to be called GNU/Linux and not plainly GNU. Makes sense to me.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:3, Funny)
As others have indicated, why not call desktops GNU/Linux/BSD/X.org/KDE/WTF ? Where do you fraking draw the line?
Re:Same old RMS (Score:3, Insightful)
At the point where a usable system was achieved. X is nice, but not essential. A kernel, shell, binutils, editor, and compiler are.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:3, Funny)
> As others have indicated, why not call desktops GNU/Linux/BSD/X.org/KDE/WTF ? Where do you fraking draw the line?
Well, one can do as you did and draw the lines between the names.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
RMS shouldn't be blamed for encouraging people to say GNU/Linux. The system is just as much GNU as it is Linux.
Also:
GNU != RMS, as plenty of people seem to think. Wanting people to put GNU into the name of Linux is not trying to remember RMS. It's remembering GNU.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
So why call it anything? Do I call my Toyota a Ford/Toyota after the father of the production line? I mean, without the modern production line, where would Toyota be? We should give Henry Ford the credit, right?
So why does RMS care? Would he object to me changing the names of the variables in his GPL code? He has given me permission, under the terms of the license, to do with it what I please, so long as I release the code if I distribute binaries. Sure I can rename it. Just like I can with variables or methods in the code itself.
I can't argue that GNU's contribution is insignificant. But who cares what the name is? And prefixing things with GNU is just ridiculous. The point has been made - where do you draw the line? Am I running Mozilla/Adobe/Microsoft/Java/Darwin on my Mac at the moment? Maybe MacOSX is a better name for it, and is more easily marketable.
I think I've made my stand pretty clear on this one. Call Linux whatever you like. Part of something being GPL is that you can rename it if you so please. And please feel free (as in speech) to drop the GNU from GNU/Linux.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
It has do with promoting the beliefs of the Free Software Foundation, which are not about open source, but about Free Software!
So why does RMS care?
Because he cares about your freedom, not about the openness of the source.
The FSF was set up to achieve political ends - software freedom. Linux was written to achieve personal ends - Linus wanted a Unix.
Linus doesn't make political statements because he doesn't have a political agenda.
Stallman makes political statements because he has a political agenda.
By the way there is nothing WRONG in having a political agenda, after all, politics is about how we set the world up for ourselves, whether it's going to be a pleasant place to live or a shitty place to live.
So Stallman bangs on about GNU because he wants people to remember freedom.
More Weight (Score:5, Insightful)
1) GNU tools can be found in the following installations:
* FreeBSD, et al
* OS X
* SCO
* Solaris (GNU added by my IT department?)
2) However, I've not heard RMS insist these be called GNU/BSD, etc. -- only GNU/Linux.
Re:More Weight (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't include "Ford" in Toyota because there are no Ford components in Toyota's cars. But in virtually every Linux distro, there's far more GNU code running than Linux code.
I can't argue that GNU's contribution is insignificant. But who cares what the name is? And prefixing things with GNU is just ridiculous. The point has been made - where do you draw the line? Am I running Mozilla/Adobe/Microsoft/Java/Darwin on my Mac at the moment? Maybe MacOSX is a better name for it, and is more easily marketable.
Actually, using your logic, you wouldn't call OS X "Mozilla/Adobe/Microsoft/Java/Darwin," nor would you call it "MacOS X." You would call it "Mach" because that's the kernel it uses.
Re:Same old RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't include "Ford" in Toyota because there are no Ford components in Toyota's cars.
So; my Lotus, which has a Toyota engine, Toyota gearbox, Toyota running gear, and a Lotus-modified Toyota enigine control system, then logically be called a Lotus/Toyota
Makes sense.... after all a car without an engine wouldn' t do much, would it?
So.... why my isn't my car called a Lotus/Toyota Elise, but instead is just called a Lotus Elise?
Oh, I know why
Re:Same old RMS (Score:3, Insightful)
Honest opinion? They're called just Lotuses for the same reason they call Lexus a Lexus... People wouldn't buy them if they were Toyota Lotuses and Toyota Lexuses. It would still be fair and informative to call 'em that, I think.
I really think we ought to stop making these Operating System - car comparisons. They always come up, and they rarely bring anything to the discussion...
Re:Same old RMS (Score:3, Interesting)
RMS defenders always like to put the soft-spin on this thing. The fact is that RMS isn't just encouraging people to say "GNU/Linux", he is actively boycotting anyone who does not.
Of course, Stallman is just denying himself many outlets for his message. Problem is, there's a lot of people who believe in RMS's ideals and would like to give him the opportunity to preach them. But he's too busy telling them to buzz off because they're a "LUG
Re:Same old RMS (Score:3, Insightful)
I, along with everyone else, will just keep calling the whole system 'Linux', and by done with it.
\'Linux\' (Score:4, Funny)
* Yes, I'm aware this isn't an actual word.
Re:\'Linux\' (Score:2, Funny)
42,000 Google hits suggest that, on the contrary, it is an actual word - just one that some dictionaries haven't noticed yet...
Re:\'Linux\' (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:\'Linux\' (Score:3, Funny)
The correct term is "professionalityness".
The Squeezably soft OS. (Score:4, Funny)
Linux is now "Fluffy Marshmellow Prophylactic" I'm certain that'll do wonders for Linux's continued growth.
Re:The Squeezably soft OS. (Score:5, Funny)
If it is growth we're interested in, why not call it "Viagrux"?
Re:The Squeezably soft OS. (Score:2, Troll)
Yes, the names are just words as are "Richard Stallman". In future, I will refer to him as "Irrelevant Goat Man".
The price for openness (Score:2, Insightful)
So Linux is open for modification and distribution..... as long as Linus feels that you aren't harming his trademark? [sarcasm] Wow, that's certainly open.[/sarcasm]
I guess with Linux's userbase (both corp
Re:The price for openness (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The price for openness (Score:3, Informative)
You can call your distro "Aussie Linux" without paying as well. What you can't do is use Linux in a trademark i.e. naming your company "Aussie Linux" without getting permission and paying the fee.
Re:The price for openness (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The price for openness (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, trademark protection isn't new. Why don't you phone Red Hat and ask to make a RHEL based distro, still keeping all Red Hat's insignia? Or maybe try Debian, or Firefox, or anyone else. I don't understand why people have a problem with this.
Re:The price for openness (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The price for openness (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Linux is open for modification and distribution... but you can't call your modified version Linux unless Linus lets you. This is a very reasonable position, after all, if you make some modifications, and they turn out to crash the kernel after three minutes of uptime, why should the mainline Linux (and, by association, Linus) suffer a stain to their reputation from your crappy coding ?
You are still free to distribute your modified piece-of-shit version, you just can't claim that it's Linux.
Impossible, since almost all the code in Linux is copyrighted by someone else than Linus, and licensed under various GPL-compatible licenses. Linus (or his lawyer) would need to get all of these people to agree to either transfer the copyrights to Linus or at least relicense their code to him in some way that would let it be included in a proprietary product.
And even if they would, nothing would stop anyone from simply taking the last free version of Linux and releasing it under a new name.
Re:The price for openness (Score:3, Insightful)
How comes ? If someone writes, say, a device driver for Linux, or completely rewrites the scheduler, how is that derived from anything Linus wrote ? Sure, the system that has both Linus's code and that new scheduler would be a derivative work, but not the alternative scheduler itself.
I don't think that he could claim a copyright to something he didn't write, even in
Re:The price for openness (Score:3, Insightful)
Derivitive works involve a copyrighted (either still under copyright OR now public domain but formerly copyrighted) work being the source for another work that can also be awarded a copyright (These days that "can also be" is automaticly converted to an "is", but if that part of the law was stricken, say by a supreme court challenge, the derivitive definition wouldn't be affected.).
There is no c
Re:The price for openness (Score:5, Informative)
How does the trademark stop you from modifying and distributing Linux freely? The only thing it stops you from is using the name "Linux" commercially in ways he doesn't like.
Big. Difference.
You can't make your own OSS spreadsheet program either and name it "Microsoft Excel".
I guess with Linux's userbase (both corporate and private) continuing to grow, Linus (or at least a lawyer working on his behalf) feels that perhaps they need to begin regulating Linux a bit more closely.
FYI: "Linux" was trademarked in 1996 by a lawyer who didn't have anything to do with Linux and then proceeded to ask for royalties from companies using it.
After a legal scuffle, Linus Torvalds was assigned the copyright in 1997 (So this is news?), and has licensed it since. The Linux Mark Institute has been around for years as well. (Can't recall exactly when they started, but archive.org dates their page to at least 2002).
"Linux" is a term with commercial potential. If Linus didn't own the trademark, someone else would (and did). And they would hardly charge any less.
Re:The price for openness (Score:2, Informative)
Bullshit (Score:2)
Nope, Linux is still absolutely open for modification and distribution. As long as you follow the GPL you can do everything you want with it.
The only thing you can't do without getting a license is to use the name Linux for your bussiness. How some people can think that this is a bad thing is beyond me.
You are a blithering idiot (Score:4, Informative)
Yup, that has never changed.
as long as Linus feels that you aren't harming his trademark?
Yup, that hasn't changed, either. Linux (the kernal) is free for modification and redistribution. Use of the name Linux(R) is subject to trademark. In part to prevent say SUN, from marketing Solar Linux, which is really just Solaris with linux compatability.
[sarcasm] Wow, that's certainly open.[/sarcasm]
Yup, it is. Do what you like, just don't besmirtch the name. Thats just horribly closed. What would Stallman say if someone made a piece of software called GNU, but it was completly proprietary? What if some hardware company makes a software modem that only works with Windows, and calls it "the Linux modem"?
I guess with Linux's userbase (both corporate and private) continuing to grow, Linus (or at least a lawyer working on his behalf) feels that perhaps they need to begin regulating Linux a bit more closely.
The name, yeah.
Perhaps they will slowly begin to make it not-quite-so-open as well.
No less open than it's ever been.
Names *do* matter (Score:5, Insightful)
So, Stallman says that this issue is just blowing smoke, and that it distracts from the issue at hand, namely his pet causes...
Well, I would say that names are incredibly important, possibly even more so than all these political causes (simply because people can't be bothered to read long political theses, but can deal with name recognition).
Why do you think Linux has proven so much more "successful" that the *BSDs in the business sphere?
The name "Linux" has brand recognition - at the moment, it's trendy, hip and cool (go the Peter Russel reference =)...and companies want to be seen to be riding the wave. I've seen idiotic people say Linux is cool, I want to use Linux, with absolutely no idea what it is, simply because they've heard that all the geeky computer people are apparently using it.
Torvalds, and all the other contributors have worked hard to build up this name, and if companies can be made to respect this, then all the better.
cya,
Victor
To him they don't (Score:5, Insightful)
To him the name doesn't matter, because he's not after being successful in the way you imply. He doesn't care what the companies use.
To Stallman only the existance of a free development platform matters, and that existance is practically guaranteed due to the GPL and GNU by now (Technically HURD isn't necessary anymore, because the Linux Kernel is GPL'ed). If everybody used it, that'd be a bonus, but the mere existance is the one-and-only goal.
Try to see him more as the philosopher he is, not caring about marketing and commercial success, but taking care his ideas (Specifically that it should always be possible to use a free development platform) continue to exist (And one website, hosted privately, practically could do that), no matter what.
Oh, and, everybody, please don't automacally assume I'm on Stallmans "side" here, I just don't like him being misunderstood. He's an idealist, which is not necessarily moronic.
GNU/Linux (Score:2, Funny)
Re:GNU/Linux (Score:2)
Re:GNU/Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
"What names you're allowed to call a program is a side issue."
But when he's talking about GNU/Linux vs Linux it's not a side issue, it's the issue. Clear double standard.
Re:GNU/Linux (Score:2)
Hey, it's a fight! (Score:5, Insightful)
Point 1: RMS is the genius behind the GPL, the FSF tools, and has dedicated his life to making Linux, however you call it, come true. Insulting RMS is a sign of ignorance, bad manners, or bad faith.
Point 2: Linux is a mark and a commodity technology. The goal of trademarking Linux and enforcing that mark through licensing is to protect the "brand" from those who seek to harm it. But that is a short-term logic, and it ignores the underlying fact: a commodity technology needs no name, no brand, because it does not compete on that basis. No-one ever trademarked "TCP/IP" (afaik) and it would have been both ridiculous and counter-productive to have tried.
So RMS is spot-on, even if he does not explain it quite the way I'd like to hear. The name you give Linux is only meaningful if you're one of the vendors supporting it today. It's what Linux is, and does, not its name, that guarantees its place as the commodity OS of the future.
Re:Hey, it's a fight! (Score:3, Interesting)
RMS used to live on the 7th floor of LCS. That's where he used to have his office before he resigned in protest over the commercialization of something or another. But they let him keep his office, and he lives there, because he refuses to have an apartment. (Given the rent rates in Cambridge, the assholeness of most landlords, I don't blame him. Rather than live in my office, I chose to move to Texas, and the change in rent rates and lack of state income tax resulted in an immedi
Re:Hey, it's a fight! (Score:3, Informative)
business model (Score:5, Interesting)
As a philosophy it is fraught with problems, the most significant problem being the utter destruction of much of the financial incentives that exist today for people to sit down and build software. It is hypocritical to enjoy the fruits of someone's capitalist labor and then attempt to take those fruits (a form of looting) and claim some philosophical justification.
Re:business model (Score:4, Informative)
The fiscal incentives do CHANGE and are displaced, from middle management's ability to seal the box and not have their clients able to use any other product and thus the growth of monopolistic and anti-competitive, even non-capitalist companies, and allowing a much smaller start-up cost in buying the software licenses to do development. The money instead goes in-house to local developers, and far more smaller opportunities for local variation is created.
It's fun, it's profitable, and I'm certainly making a living at working with tools at least 5 years ahead of where they'd be without such open source tools.
in other news (Score:2, Funny)
Can't possibly be a problem. (Score:4, Interesting)
Terribly Unfortunate Situation, BSD view (Score:4, Insightful)
I never really got why trademarks are important, but this sorry case (and the Unix (TM) AT&T stuff) makes it clear -- this stuff, in the real world, really does matter.
I'm surprised Tux is not trademarked. The BSD world works a bit different: McKusick trademarked the red-demon who represents BSD. That's his, and you need permission to use it. Although I guess you could make your own red-devil mascot -- but that's a trademark issue, and perhaps you'd better talk to a lawyer.
What do we call it then? (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, how does someone get a trademark on a term that has been in general use for a decade without previous trademark protection? My understanding is that this trademark would never have been granted in the US because of the lack of enforcement. There is a good reason that unprotected trademarks cannot get protection, it's becaue you end up in this type of ridiculious situation where they can now go after everyone who has been using it openly for years without so much as a peep. There is little difference between this and the submarine patents that have irked the computing community for many years. They should have used another new and unique word or combination to trademark ( "Linux certified"? ) rather than linux.
Oh, and while I'm at this rant... In the past the community decided what was acceptable for the linux name. Although they may not have had much legal "teeth" the community would quickly respond to people who misused the name or the license. Now we have one entity that is claiming all future protection for the name, it's bullshit. We now have another corporate entity that is claiming providice over our work, work that we gave openly to the community. It is wrong and I will not abide by it.
*Approved use only, what about non-approved use.
Re:What do we call it then? (Score:3, Informative)
Basically, the situation works like this. Let's say you want to create a version of Linux. To use a ridiculous example, we'll call it Cthulhu Linux (the operating system from the dawn of time!). If you want to use the name "Cthulhu Linux", you have to pay the trademark fee.
However, you can use a different name for it, say, "Tentaclix". The
GNU/Linux or Linux/GNU (Score:3, Insightful)
From TFA:
You know, I wouldn't have a problem with RMS trying to get "GNU" in there if he didn't want to put it on the front of the name. The way he wants it, the name sounds like "GNU Linux", so it sounds like a product of the FSF ("GNU Emacs", etc.)
Whenever it comes to that naming issue, I prefer Linux/GNU instead. As RMS states on the GNU site [gnu.org], "the whole system is basically GNU, with Linux functioning as its kernel" and "Many people have made major contributions to the free software in the system, and they all deserve credit." So Linux/GNU should be just as good as GNU/Linux.
Re:GNU/Linux or Linux/GNU (Score:3, Insightful)
The GNU contribution to GNU/Linux is an order of magnitude greater than the Linux kernel. And almost all of your routine interaction with the operating system is GNU-centric. If you switched the kernel to something else, it would still be fundamentally the same experience. So I can see perfectly good logic for GNU/Linux instead of Linux/GNU.
Refusing to give GNU proper credit is to do them a great disservice, because it
Cartoon (Score:4, Funny)
Linux=Kernel ( != Operating System ) !?!?! (Score:3, Interesting)
When did Linux become the operating system?
I must have missed something, or was it just mass media brain washing that has caught on? But last time I looked, when I installed something like SuSE, Red Hat, or Debian, it was an operating system built on open source tools, which compirsed of the linux "kernel", some variant of the unix file system, a whole suit of gnu replacements for unix commands, and a range of open source packages from folk like Apache and such?
If we were to talk about perhaps Solaris, then indeed, we are talking about the Solaris kernel, the Solaris operating system tools which were all written from scratch, alebit with access to the source from BSD and SYS V variants, and agian a unix file system and some packages from folk like Apache and such, but in this case it's a complete solution from Sun and it's called Solaris.
The same can be said surely for the likes of OpenBSD, NetBSD, and FreeBSD, where they are complete systems, built around kernels, from scratch, although in each case they too lean heavity on the GNU replacements for Unix commands and tools.
Windows for example once refered to itself as Windows NT, where the NT part was essentially the kernel, designed and built by some smart folk who had a hand in the likes of OS/2 and VMS kernels and operating systems if I recall corrently, but it was clear that Windows was the GUI and NT was the underlying kernel.
Mac OS X even now is pretty open about the split between it's Mach kernel, Darwin core, and BSD / NeXT Step tools, but we don't call Mac OS X "Mach" do we - nope, it's OS X, or if you're like me and you favour what uname -a tells you, it's Darwin
I think Stallman summed it up pretty well when he ended the piece with:
quote:
Stallman thinks the issue of naming the product is not so clear cut. "Most of the time, when people call something 'Linux', it's the GNU system with Linux as the kernel. Maybe this policy will encourage people to call it GNU," Stallman told the Sydney Morning Herald. "I prefer to say GNU/Linux' so as to give the kernel's developer a share of the credit."
Now I do agree that GNU/Linux is perhaps a mouthfull, but on the other hand, I think it's particularly lame to refer to the GNU/Linux operating system as just Linux, so perhaps it's time for a new name, label, whatever, for whatever it is many of us run.
It could be like the Musician formerly known as Prince, now known as some Egyptian hyrogliph - we could have the operating system formerly known as Linux, now known as #$%^&#!?
It might actually be worth many of you taking time to read Stallman's FAQ on GNU/Linux over at:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html [gnu.org]
It does go a long way to answering and clearing up much of what is in this horribly messy series of threads and sub threads, basically emotive and guess work, rather than fact.
For example, from that URL:
quote:
Why do you call it GNU/Linux and not Linux?
Most operating system distributions based on Linux as kernel are basically modified versions of the GNU operating system. We began developing GNU in 1984, years before Linus Torvalds started to write his kernel, and we developed a larger part of the resulting system than any other project. In fairness, we ought to get equal mention.
quote:
Why is the name important?
Although the developers of Linux, the kernel, are contributing to the free software community, many of them do not care about freedom. People who think the whole system is Linux tend to get confused and assign to those developers a role in the history of our community which they did not actually play. Then they give inordinate weight to those developers' views.
Calling the system GNU/Linux recognizes the role that our idealism played in building our community, and helps the public recognize the practical importance of these ideals.
quote:
Misleading impression of RMS's words (Score:4, Informative)
'Free software means you're free to run it, study it, change it, redistribute it, and distribute modified versions the way cooks do with recipes. What names you're allowed to call a program is a side issue..The Linux trademark became an issue last month after a lawyer acting on behalf of Linux creator Linus Torvalds wrote to 90 Australian companies asking that they sign a statutory declaration waiving exclusive rights to the trademark's use.'
On first reading this, I got the idea that the whole thing was a quote from RMS, since it was from an interview with him.
However, the second sentence (after the ellipsis) is a quote from the article, not from RMS.
what the whole issue means: (Score:3, Informative)
Once upon a time, somebody named Richard Stallman got pissed off because he needed to see the source code to a program so he could fix it, and the code author told him he was restricted by an NDA.
http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch01.html [oreilly.com]
He was so miffed at this that he went off and founded GNU (Gnu's Not Unix), meant to be a free version of Unix.
http://www.gnu.org/ [gnu.org]
"dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, understanding, and modification of computer programs." But there was (and still is) one problem with the GNU operating system...it didn't have the kernel (the part of the OS that talks to the hardware at the lowest level), which project was known as the HURD
http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html [gnu.org]
which is STILL "not ready for production use, as there are still many bugs and missing features."
Enter Linus Torvalds, who, unaware of the GNU project, undertook to write his *own* kernel upon which he would then put an operating system that was to be, you guessed it, a free version of Unix. Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman got adjascent seats on an airplane with their luggage mixed up or something; however they met, they met, and with Torvalds' kernel and Stallman's operating system it was indeed the birth of the blues.
Fade out, fade in. Today, we have the Free (as in freedom *and* beer) Operating System that is part GNU, part Linux, and even part BSD (I stumble upon the occasional BSD program running on my Linux system ), and part everything else. In a commercial world, there'd be trademarks and copyrights and logos and every other byte of binary on your disk would be the stupid trademark/OS EULA/NDA warning of legal repercussions, etc. Windows users, get *any* hex editor, open *any* Windows program, you'll see "Microsoft" written in the ASCII somewhere: this is what I'm talking about. But this is Linux. Nobody really owns it all per se, because we basement hackers and renegade computer users and indignant MIT lab rats wrote it all ourselves, and don't really care about becoming millionaires or dominating the world about it, so long as we have our free system.
He's right... (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that this is getting stirred up now is fishy, because the trademark has existed in the U.S. for quite some time.
what it means, part two: (Score:4, Insightful)
Fade out, fade in. Today, we have the Free (as in freedom *and* beer) Operating System that is part GNU, part Linux, and even part BSD (I stumble upon the occasional BSD program running on my Linux system ), and part everything else. In a commercial world, there'd be trademarks and copyrights and logos and every other byte of binary on your disk would be the stupid trademark/OS EULA/NDA warning of legal repercussions, etc. Windows users, get *any* hex editor, open *any* Windows program, you'll see "Microsoft" written in the ASCII somewhere: this is what I'm talking about. But this is Linux. Nobody really owns it all per se, because we basement hackers and renegade computer users and indignant MIT lab rats wrote it all ourselves, and don't really care about becoming millionaires or dominating the world about it, so long as we have our free system.
Now, let's pull our heads into the Physical, Real World for a minute and quit worrying about hypothetically this and pedantic definition that: What we're talking about is what most of the world calls "Linux". So, when you go shopping for Linux distros, you don't type "free software distros" in Google, and when you need help installing Linux, you don't go into a #GNU chat and say, "I need help installing my free software". You call it Linux, Slashdot calls it Linux, we all found this discussion because we recognized the name of Linux.
Now, the copyright infringement you're hearing about has, in fact, already started. Porn sites are already trying to snag hits using the word "Linux". No, I'm not kidding, and I'm not about to post links to them and let them enjoy a lot of hits. Type "Linux" into search engines with the most unexpected keywords that would only imply you were looking for guides, HOWTOs, and such, and you'll get the occasional Easter Egg. This demonstrates the shaky legal ground that Linux is on, and why we're doing this.
PS, when you hear somebody blowing off their big bazoo about "Linux", "Open Source", "Free Software", or "GNU", take into account that Stallman, Torvalds, and their tribal bard, Eric S. Raymond, are 99% less likely to be full of hooey than anybody else.
Should't this read (Score:3, Funny)
Linux vs Open Source (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder about the utility of trademarking the term Linux - in reality rejecting a license application is going to be difficult at best, and to do so will go against the spirit of open source in general. My use of the term Linux is not necessarily going to appeal to everyone, and vice versa, but that shouldn't result in an application being denied; consider SpamLinux, PornSurfingLinux, BibleBashingLinux, etc.
Stallman and GNU/Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Stallman also made of fool of himself on Leo's old show, "The Screen Savers" on TechTV before it was raped by G4. Apparently, Stallman forced everyone to say GNU/Linux, so Leo got his revenge by having Stallman sing the Free Software Foundation ditty. Although Stallman didn't see the humor in it, the viewers sure did.
Bad article (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead of watered-down ZDNet thing, you should read the original Sydney Morning Herald interview [smh.com.au].
ZDNet failed to see the importance of the following paragraph (so they just omitted that):
Without this, ZDNet article might give a false impression that Mr. Stallman is inconsistent (i.e., on one hand he says that the name is irrelevant, on the other hand he implies that the name is important, i.e. GNU/this GNU/that).
Re:Stallman is obsolete (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stallman sounds a bit hypocritical (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Linus attitude is dangerous... (Score:4, Insightful)
When RMS said that "names don't matter", I thought it was pretty damn obvious that he meant "names don't matter to the freedoms Free Software provides". Upon reading all these comments, I guess it wasn't so obvious after all.
If you read the GPL, it says:
Trademarks are a legal way of enforcing something the GPL states as being favourable.
Yeah, when it comes to marketing, names matter. But in the context of what RMS actually promotes, Free Software, being able to use somebody else's trademark is not a necessary freedom that must be protected. In fact, if anything, the opposite is true.
Re:Stallman whining again (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stallman whining again (Score:4, Informative)
``and here comes Stallman with his, "Hey, news people, the issue isn't the Linux trademark! It's that it's not called GNU to give me credit!"''
That's not what he said at all. Quoth RMS:
"Free software means you're free to run it, study it, change it, redistribute it, and distribute modified versions -- the way cooks do with recipes. What names you're allowed to call a program is a side issue."
So he said that naming doesn't matter, what matters is that you can freely modify and redistribute the software.
As for the GNU/ prefix, it's true that in a typical Linux distribution, far more of the code comes from GNU than comes from Linux. Your arrogance and ignorance w.r.t. the contribution of GNU to the success of Linux makes me think that maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the GNU project were more loudly credited for their work.
``The fact is, GNU was going nowhere without Linus' kernel.''
Give me a break. People were using GNU utilities on their proprietary Unixen all the time. If you look at a contemporary proprietary Unix system, you will probably find GNU software there. Often, the GNU utilities are more usable than the vendor supplied ones; if the vendor even supplies them. If you look at a BSD system, they invariably use the GNU C compiler. And what utilities do you think are used to build the Linux kernel?
``HURD (the intended GNU OS) is still a pipe dream because Stallman couldn't write a kernel if you paid him.''
Come on man. Stallman was one of two people working at Lisp Machines Inc before he started GNU. He and the other guy (what was his name again?) developed a system that was competitive with the one developed by the much larger Symbolics. Do you _really_ think RMS doesn't know how to write a kernel?
The HURD was never successful, because (contrary to the rest of GNU) it incorporated too many revolutionary ideas. It had to be better that the monolithic kernels found in Unix. Sadly, microkernels were (and are still) badly understood, which is why HURD development stalled. Then along came Linux and the free BSDs, and now people simply don't see a point in developing HURD anymore.
Interestingly, Linux allows most drivers to be built as modules, which brings it closer to the microkernel model that any other Unix kernel has been. With the sheer amount of gadgets, filesystems, etc. that are supported, modularity is almost a necessity. Could it be that the world is converging toward the model that HURD tried to push from the beginning?
``The facts are, that Linux was a kernel project without the rest of the OS, and GNU was....an incomplete OS. The two coming together didn't put one over another.''
Yes. So why are you saying that "GNU was going nowhere without Linux"? Sounds like you're putting one over another, doesn't it?
``A common statement is that "Linux is just the kernel" but that's not quite true. It's also a "brand name" that companies slap on their products''
You're spot on about the brand name, but it really is true that Linux is just a kernel in a technical sense. Linux needed GNU to be competitive with the free BSDs, which provide both a kernel and a userland. That's what the statement "Linux is just a kernel" really means.
``['Linux' is] also a shorthand term used by users of GNU/Linux (who do know there's plenty of GNU in there).''
Seriously, no. Do you know how many people have equated Linux with Red Hat? Do you really think that leaves a realistic chance that these people will realize the contribution the GNU project has made?
Too many people think that glibc, GNU make, GNU C, GNU emacs, etc. etc. etc. were developed for Linux, or, worse, these are the utilities that "Linux" supplies. RMS is whining about this issue, because it hurts him. How would you like it if