Re: Wikipedia extolled as an aide for getting history correct

From: Ade Malsasa Akbar <malsasa@mailo.com>
To: libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
Subject: Re: Wikipedia extolled as an aide for getting history correct
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2022 13:44:38 +0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <94c330a5-32db-b88a-5ec6-5726c9521bbf@mailo.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <202206180106.19778.jlturriff@mail.com>

Hello respected LibrePlanet people,

On 18/06/22 13.06, J Leslie Turriff wrote:
> 	Indeed, the failure of Wikipedia to differentiate references to the kernel (Linux) and
> OSs that depend on it (GNU/Linux et al) is unfortunate.  Many people, including those who
> actually use Linux-based systems, are wont to use 'Linux' as a short-hand for GNU/Linux*;
> and there are many who aren't aware of the distinction at all, which is where this
> shortcoming of the Wikipedia article is particularly unfortunate.
>
> Leslie
>
> *Me too.

I am glad apparently I am not the only one who think this way.

I 'd love to add that I myself had once fallen to misunderstanding of 
GNU/Linux naming, and so did many of people in my country, because 
Wikipedia taught us to call it "Linux" instead of GNU/Linux. This is 
very unfortunate. Once I learned my favorite article, GNU Users Who Have 
Never Heard of GNU [0], I understand it was a mistake and started to 
call it GNU/Linux.

On 21/06/22 09.57, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> *nod*.  I've witnessed several such efforts, from an editor who denied
> and suppressed references to blobs in Linux, even after being given hard
> evidence of it, to various efforts to reject writings that referred to
> GNU/Linux as such (rather than just Linux), and to remove wikipedia
> entries for 100% free distros.  It's definitely not neutral ground.

I know similar thing about this in real life. That, in my place, many 
people seem to systematically erase the presence of GNU Operating System 
in every chance they talk about GNU/Linux --regardless they did that 
consciously or not--. It is obvious to me that "something" taught them 
to not talk about GNU at all, or significantly decrease its role in the 
Free Software Community. This occurs for years up to today. And now I 
can see that Wikipedia perhaps one among that "something".

For that reason I really like The GNU Project website www.gnu.org.

Sincerely yours,

Ade Malsasa Akbar

----------

[0] https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-users-never-heard-of-gnu.en.html

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