[svlug] Who is the Demon Penguin?

[Derek Balling]

Time for me to throw in my $0.02 worth.

> And so what if egotism plays a role in his view of the issue? Isn't that
> his perogative? Stallman created an ethic, a mentality that Torvalds
> embraced when he wrote and released the Linux kernel. 

Stallman created no such ethic. He merely "remembered" an ethic that the
industry had left behind. You can credit him with keeping the flame alive,
but don't credit him with the discovery of fire.

> It's the idealogy of
> GNU/Linux as well its functionality that makes it appealing to most of us
> and Stallman has every right to feel that he isn't given proper credit for
> the work he has done. 

Linux has no "ideology". GNU has an ideology. Linus has always said that
people are free to choose their own licenses, and he just happened to
choose the GPL.

> It's the same idealogy that all the Linux developers
> embrace when they contribute their respective componets to GNU/Linux as a
> whole. The kernel is a rather important peice but realistically it could
> have been anyone that sat down to write the kernel. 

Obviously not the FSF, as we sit here waiting patiently for Hurd.

> Besides, GCC is just as important as Linux. 

Interesting theory, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that the new
glibc won't compile under GCC because of serious bugs in GCC, so you may
see its importance decline in the future unless that problem is rectified,
pronto.

> Do some Solaris or IRIX admin and you'll figure
> this out quickly. It's the way the kernel and its parts are made availble
> to people that really makes it worthwhile and Stallman really isn't given
> a lot of credit for facilitating this. 

Stallman's gripe appears to be "I gave people the right to do whatever
they wanted with the code, bundle it with other apps, package it up in a
pretty manner, change it, yada yada yada, and -- ACK! -- They DID!!! How
dare they not change the name of their compilation of code to suit my
needs?!"

Using Stallman's logic, the growth of GPL'ed applications over time would
lead to VERY unwieldy names, because, logically, you would HAVE to credit
those whose code you adapted and included in the title of the compilation.

> You'd be annoyed too and you'd have
> many reasons beyond ego for feeling that way. I think it's time we stop
> deconstructing people in light of the actions or statements they've made
> on certain occassions. It's a bit lame to stereotype someone as an
> egomaniac for feeling that they're not  given the credit they deserve.

Unless Stallman can point at the GPL he released his code under and show
where it says that the title of subsequent changed versions need to bear
the lineage of their predecessors, then there remains only one explanation
for his demand, and that is ego.
 
> Don't get me wrong, Stallman represents and preaches about a lot of things
> that I happen to disagree with, but he's done a hell of a lot more than I
> have to bring these things to the attention of everybody and it would be a
> disservice to myself to dimiss him as a whining egomaniac based on these
> stories. 

I agree with your first half and radically disagree with the second half.
It would be doing a disservice to the people who took Stallman and the FSF
at their word -- that they could use that GNU code without any hint of
indebtedness other than the source-code-availability restrictions -- if
the product they created from it would have its name co-opted from them
down the road.

======================================================================
Derek J. Balling          | "Bill Gates is a monocle and a white 
dredd at megacity.org        |  fluffy cat from being a villain in the
http://www.megacity.org/  |  next Bond film."  - Dennis Miller
======================================================================


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