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Comment by BrandonM | Hacker News Reader

> What I found interesting on reading the 'rider' is that he still refers to the GNU operating system as though it is in daily use. I've yet to see a HURD based system do anything useful in production but half the world wide web seems to run on Linux these days. Of course linux is 'merely a kernel'.

Considering that glib, libc, gcc, emacs, the vast majority of the Unix utilities, bash, grub, autoconf, make, readline, gzip, tar, screen, wget, and Gnome are all GNU projects[0], I would say that GNU is most definitely in daily use. The Linux kernel isn't much use without the software on top of it, and it's nothing at all without the compiler that turns it into machine code.

[0] See https://www.gnu.org/software/software.html#allgnupkgs for the full list.

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I think I have more KDE code on my computer than GNU code. Both are undeniably useful, but no one is insisting on calling it KDE/Linux.

I wasn't referring to the name GNU/Linux; I was specifically refuting the comment I quoted. The funny thing is that the comment effectively justifies RMS's insistence on using GNU/Linux. Because so many refer to the entire distribution as Linux, a lot of people fail to realize the hugely-important role that GNU software plays in Linux systems.

Linux is still useful without KDE, but the functionality provided by GNU is critical and would require a large effort to replace.

> the functionality provided by GNU is critical and would require a large effort to replace

This isn't really true. You could just grab your userspace from a BSD, or Plan9Port. Clang and LLVM do well enough to replace GCC on most important architectures.

Clang and LLVM do well enough to replace GCC on most important architectures.

25 years later. Very few works are relevant for that long.

I would like to see someone go make a free operating system without using a single GNU piece. Just for the kicks.

Android.

You do http://pedrocr.net/text/how-much-gnu-in-gnu-linux

However since GNU software is the foundation on which most of the system is built you can argue that it has a much greater importance.

"Measuring software productivity by lines of code is like measuring progress on an airplane by how much it weighs"

But that's taken from all the software available in the repos, not the software that's actually installed on people's systems. For instance, the pie chart shows slices for both Gnome and KDE. How many people have both installed on their systems? Or neither?

Now compare that to how many people have none of the GNU software on their systems.

I would imagine (purely anecdotal) if you take just installed software then the GNU percentage increases as its generally installed on most systems. I would also imagine in the Linux/BSD world the number of people running without GNU software is in the very low single digits.

It's really difficult to determine the relative importance of one software project at this level over another they reliant on each other. The Linux kernel needs GNU as much as GNU needs the kernel (at the moment anyway). You can run the OS without KDE (hence not calling it KDE/Linux).

I can see Stallman's point as he set out to create an operating system called GNU, created almost all of the parts required which were then used by someone else to create a Kernel which was then packaged up with a different name.

Personally I think you can call GNU/Linux whatever you want as the licence its released under has nothing in there saying you need to give mention to GNU in the name. If you package it up you can call it Fred for all I care and I will refer to it as Fred.

Actually in BSD/UNIX people generally don't use the GNU tools, except, maybe for gcc on BSDs (UNICES have their own compilers). We believe GNU tools are of very poor quality.

GNU is, essentially, a clone of Unix except for the kernel, which is supplied by Linux. Calling your computer a GNU system is about as accurate as calling it a Unix system. Calling it a KDE computer is also technically accurate.

You could also form stacks, like KDE/GNU/Linux, or go all the way and just draw a directed graph of the major software dependencies. This isn't a serious proposal, but I would be kind of pleased if someone actually did this.

The Linux kernel isn't much use without the software on top of it, and it's nothing at all without the compiler that turns it into machine code.

Or without the its own license, the GNU GPL.

And yet, his "words to avoid" talks specifically about "GNU is not a tool set", either...

Are you going to argue that it is? Is GRUB merely a "tool" for booting your computer? Is libc a "tool" for exposing OS-provided functionality to software? Is GNOME a GUI "tool"?

Ok clearly you think the rest of your argument is obvious, but I'm going to be dense and say "yes", those are tools. Just as the Linux kernel is a tool for managing the various resources of the system. Maybe it's the word "merely" that's tripping things up, but I don't see how any of these things fail to fit the word "tool".

It would be easy to argue that most software fits the "tool" label. As far as I know, rms objects to describing GNU as a set of "programming tools" or "development tools" as he (reasonably, in this case, I think) finds those labels unfair. GNU software is required for any operating system using the Linux kernel, as far as I'm aware, and those systems are not limited to programming or development.

You could compile Android with Clang and be GNU free.

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