[Savannah-hackers] Re: Help wanted (sysadmin work)

[Yaroslav Klyukin]

Richard Stallman wrote:

>     I don't think the project looses a lot of credit because of the name.
>     People are still using GNU licenses everywhere.
>
> Most users never think about the GNU GPL.  They talk about the
> operating system which is basically GNU, but they call it "Linux".
>
> The GNU GPL is one small part of the work we did to develop the GNU
> system.  We need to get credit for the system, not just the license.

Ok. I think I am missing something important here.
How do you distinguish a software that was written by GNU people from 
the software, that just uses GPL license?
In both cases it will contain GPL license.

Do you differentiate between the two cases?

I always thought that if somebody wrote a piece of code and used GPL 
license, this software will be called GNU.

>     > These cases are not the same.  FreeBSD is basically a different
>     > operating system.  It uses a few pieces of GNU, but overall it was
>     > developed separately.  It would not be right to call it "GNU/FreeBSD".
>
>     Which parts do you refer to?
>
> As I understand it, FreeBSD uses just a few pieces of GNU software,
> such as GCC and a few others.  However, if you want to check this
> factually, how about if you make a list of GNU packages which are
> standard parts of FreeBSD?

Well, standard parts are very small - just enough to boot the OS.
FreeBSD uses a huge ports collection, which consists of ported 
applications. Pretty much the same set, which you can encounter in 
GNU/Linux.

It makes it double difficult to calculate GNU involvement in FreeBSD, 
because of the misconceptions mentioned above:
1. Can software which uses GPL license be called GNU?
2. Do we count only the base of the OS, or the whole distribution, most 
of which consists of ports?

> What we gain by informing them where the system comes from is that
> they will hear more about the GNU project';s philosophy, and will
> pay more attention to it when they do hear about it.
> See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#lost.

Well, if this is the case, I believe more effort should be spent for 
propoganda. Like graphic banners for instance.

BTW,
What is the GNU's involvement in legal issues of the license?
For instance, some parties create CDs, which they don't make immidiately 
available from ftps, and force people to buy GNU/Linux this way. Do you 
think it's legal?