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Comment by pedrocr | Hacker News Reader

The vast majority of what runs on a modern Linux system doesn't come from GNU at all and that percentage is trending down over the years with things like LLVM making even the last few generally used core pieces replaceable. I don't think there's now anything to stop you from running a fully recognizable Linux distribution without any GNU software at all.

It was a silly argument to be getting into 10 years ago. These days it just seems like trying to take credit for other people's work. I have great respect for the GNU project and the GPL was a great invention that I use when I release stuff. Beating this dead horse just detracts from that.

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The availability of alternatives does little to detract from the utility of what is actually used. Ex gcc

glibc and bash are needed to have a traditional Unix-like Linux-based system and I don't think they have any fully compatible replacements (musl and BSD sh aren't).

I think ZSH is a valid alternative to Bash.

OS X Catalina even made ZSH the default.

I don’t.

IIRC, not just a alternative, but a full super-set.

No, Zsh is not a full super-set of Bash.

To the extent this is true, it's because other software relies on specific features (and sometimes quirks) of bash and glibc, not because you can't have a workable Unix without them.

Which is to say - ironically, these last remaining dependencies wouldn't be there if open standards were followed more rigorously.

Ah yes, textbook "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" strategy. Very ironic that GNU now looks like it's following this pattern (obviously unintentionally).

llvm-libc is in the planning stages.

Alpine Linux and many other distros use musl and busybox (non GNU projects, although busybox is GPL).

And I would definitely call them Unix systems, since they run almost all the same software.

Although GCC is still a good argument, since very few distros use Clang by default, I think mostly because of the Linux kernel.

Even macOS runs with GNU Bash.

Not for long, most likely.

Was replaced with zsh recently

Bash is still available.

Apple's Command Line Tools installer installs GNU Bash.

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