Re: When can we expect a version 1.0 of the GNU Operating System?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi, Brandon,

Brandon Invergo <address@hidden> skribis:

> I would argue that rather than talking about producing The Official GNU
> System, we should be talking about producing a *reference* distribution
> of the GNU system.  The Guix guys are effectively doing that in my
> opinion and I think it's great.  Now, instead of us saying "these are
> the strictly necessary components", we're saying "here is, to us, an
> excellent way to put together the GNU system" with an extra advantage of
> being able to highlight some GNU Project packages that don't normally
> get included in the other distros (again like lsh vs openssh).

I agree that it’s a nice constructive way to view things.

Yet, the question of how to name things is interesting.  While (say) the
“Debian operating system” (sic, as per www.debian.org) can indeed be
downloaded and installed, the “GNU operating system” seemingly cannot,
to the www.gnu.org visitor¹.  This is arguably a hindrance for GNU as a
project.

My 2¢,
Ludo’.

¹ On that topic, see the analysis Mike Gran made a while back:
  <http://lcinexile.blogspot.fr/2013/01/new-gnu-recruits.html>.