[kwlug-disc] Permissive vs copyleft licenses

[Chris Craig]

On Thu, 17 Dec 2020 at 14:29, Andrew Sullivan Cant <
acant at alumni.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

>
> > For the GPL, I agree wholeheartedly.
> > But when it comes to that darn GNU bot...well...no :P
>
> What is the GNU bot?
>

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux,
is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus
Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another
free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU
corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS
as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU
system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events,
the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and
many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system,
developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are
using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the
kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to
the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an
operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the
context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in
combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically
GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions
are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
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