Some half formed thought about how insistence on the GNU/Linux thing isn't just about giving recognition to GNU, it's about the belief that GNU is somehow the only proper path to understanding free software

@mjg59 Especially as it is now not only possible but common, at least in containerized environments, to be running Linux with no GNU software at all (Alpine as popular container base OS)

@dpk (Cough cough Android)

@mjg59

"$Leader caused this to exist" is so old it's written on the inside of 4 thousand year old bricks.

Though to be fair, Free Software wouldn't be in safe hands over at the Linux Foundation. Cartels do a terrible job at looking after consumers.

@mjg59 Oh, yeah!

@mjg59 I don't insist others use it, but use it myself largely to distinguish the kernel from a regular GNU/Linux distribution (or Android.) I think it helps be accurate. Which is why... I'm disappointed it was ever controversial. If anyone other than RMS had suggested it, and the community didn't have so many "Don't bother me with politics unless it's about copying music" types in it, maybe it would be used in that context most of the time.

@mjg59 oh yea. During SCALE (a linux conference in Los Angeles) the discussion of the use of CDDL code in the kernel cause a ferverious conversation. This was mainly about ZFS.

@Mirppc I mean the issue there is that the CDDL isn't compatible with the GPL, it's not a GNU thing

@poundquerydotinfo So how do you distinguish Alpine from the kernel?

@mjg59
Yeah, I used to get mad at the "G/L is just RMS ego" argument because it threw away an opportunity to recognise the thankless efforts of early GNU contributors who had no high-profile OS releases to credit them.

Now I'm just happy to let references to That Guy melt in the rain.

@mjg59 I don't use Alpine so it's never come up ;-) But I guess I'd call it "Alpine" if it did, just like Android is Android.

@mjg59 That insistence ultimately became the beginning of the litmus test for one’s Free Software purity, spawning a purity spiral that many still find themselves diving into. It’s a prime example of a hill FSF does on that has done far more harm to “the cause” than any good.

Purism ended up being defined by that purity spiral and I think it led to more harm than good there as well.

@mjg59 I don't think it's about either of those things... GNU is one of numerous Linux operating systems, therefore GNU/Linux is useful to describe a specific subset of all Linux systems.

I think this view is shared by Alpine developers: https://ariadne.space/2022/03/29/it-is-correct-to-refer.html

@poundquerydotinfo I'd say in many cases special casing Alpine doesn't make sense, and in those cases "Linux distribution" and "Linux kernel" are clearer

@mjg59 but it is the GNU General Public License. Kinda hard to take the GNU out of GPL.

@Mirppc the gnu/linux thing isn't about the license

@dpk @mjg59 There should be a word that includes GNU/Linux distributions as well as things with a normal POSIX-y userspace like Alpine and Chimera, but not Android. That's often what people mean, but there's no short way to refer to it.

@noisytoot @dpk "Linux distribution" is, from all practical perspectives, clear there

@mjg59 @dpk I would count Android (and other systems with Linux and an non-POSIX-y userspace¹) as a Linux distribution. Other than perhaps using a non-mainline kernel, I don't see why Android wouldn't count.

If they're not Linux distributions, what are operating systems that use Linux with an alternative userspace called?

¹ This is not purely hypothetical. I am thinking of a specific proposal for a non-POSIX-y userspace for Linux which I cannot currently link here because the host of the git repo is down and it's not in archive.org (or anywhere else as far as I know).

@noisytoot @dpk that is very much not the common understanding of the phrase "Linux distribution"

@mjg59 @dpk I need to be able to refer to and disambiguate between both meanings ("any operating system using Linux" and "any operating system using Linux with a normal POSIX-y userspace") and I think it would make more sense to invent a new phrase for the latter. Otherwise I don't know what to refer to the former as ("It's a distribution and it uses Linux but it isn't a Linux distribution" seems... weird)

@noisytoot @dpk you can just call Android Android

@mjg59 @dpk I'm not just talking about Android, although Android does appear to be the only widely used (and actually existing) operating system like this. (The other specific example I'm thinking of hasn't actually been implemented yet, but presumably will be at some point and I still need a way to refer to it.)

@mjg59 I'll defer to you on that, you know a lot more about it than I do. I guess people do assume that a "Linux distribution" will be minimally Unix-like, and certainly it seems to fit that. (Judging from the website)

@gordonmessmer @mjg59 honestly, I think if that's what I meant I'd be more precise and say Linux+glibc or something depending on what actually mattered. With all respect to Ariadne, "GNU/Linux" is commonly essentially a political statement in actual usage, so if it's important to clearly communicate a technical point then it isn't the right choice of phrase.

@cjwatson @mjg59 ""GNU/Linux" is commonly essentially a political statement"

It's been my observation that refusing to say "GNU" is usually rooted in dislike of Stallman, so I think *that* is a political statement.

OTOH, "GNU" is objectively the name of the OS, given to it by the people who wrote it. I can dislike RMS and still discern objective facts. Like "GIF" with a soft 'g'. It doesn't matter how I feel about it, that's just how it was named.

@gordonmessmer @mjg59 I wasn't making a value judgement either way in describing it as political, just saying that it's not accurate enough if what you mean is e.g. that glibc's ABI is available.

@mjg59 @dpk I asked the author (@RunxiYu) what happened to the git repo and they put it on Codeberg. This is what I was referring to, if you're interested: https://codeberg.org/lindenii/avocet. It's not Android and it's also not a traditional Linux distribution with a POSIX-like userspace, but it does use Linux. I would still count it as a Linux distribution, despite the unusual userspace.

@mjg59

You will need some GNU userland tools and understand them, even if you want cross-compile a different toolchain.

And, then build your userland from source with your new toolchain. Most people will not try this.

@SpaceLifeForm why? There's a completely functional set of non-gnu tools

@hello accurate, but it's also a word used to describe a common family of operating systems built on top of that kernel

@mjg59

True that. But there wasn't last century. I think it still helps to learn some history to understand how the overall build process functions.

Few recall that the first assemblers where originally written painstakingly in machine code by hand.

Funny, that you can build make without make.

@mjg59 @SpaceLifeForm GNU tools are only a few GNU packages.

There are inferior implementations to some GNU tools, but I really wouldn't call them functional - those are just garbage and don't even have GNU/Freedom.

@Suiseiseki @mjg59

It depends. If you are trying to build something small (like embedded), you do not need every bell and whistle in the tool to accomplish your task. See ls --help for example.

Missing functionalty that you do not need reduces the size of your binary footprint. Also reduces exploit pathways.

#KISS

@Suiseiseki @SpaceLifeForm but from the perspective of the core OS, those are the only relevant GNU packages

@mjg59 GNU is the only path to free software - as every single other OS project becomes proprietary software every single time.

@mjg59 I've always found it telling that Savannah will deny hosting to free software projects if they don't agree to use the GNU-approved terminology. No "we'll agree to disagree", dogma / ideological purity is higher priority than actually providing hosting/support for free software projects that need it. Even if they're not GNU projects