Re: On gratitude and free software

["J.B. Nicholson" <jbn@forestfield.org>]

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Dennis Payne wrote:
> The resistance to GNU/Linux comes from the term being annoying to
> say/write.

Personal annoyance strikes me as no justification for not giving people a fair share 
of the credit for their work.


> Lego insists that it is Lego bricks not Legos but people use the shorter one.
Either way, Lego gets credit for their work. That alone means that this request from 
the Lego Group is not comparable to the reason behind what the GNU Project is asking for.

If I understand Lego Group's request correctly (such as the attached snapshot 
ostensibly from someone who officially represents the Lego Group on Twitter which I 
found on https://reddit.com/r/lego/comments/1jrr3z/lego_bricks_not_legos/ ), their 
request is based in trying to avoid trademark dilution. Thus this matter is not at 
all related to the GNU Project asking people to give them a share of the credit for 
their work when people refer to a GNU system with the Linux kernel a GNU/Linux system.


> Also the blatant attempt to jump on the success of Linux annoyed people. Why
> didn't they argue this from day one?
On day one of the GNU system there was no Linux kernel to speak of. On day one of the 
Linux kernel, Linux was largely unknown as it was just another personal project of 
which there are too many to count. More importantly, not asking for a share of credit 
"from day one" fails to state why GNU is somehow undeserving of any credit at all today.


> Why didn't they argue it with BSD?

See https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#bsd for the GNU Project's response.


> Unless you are a developer, a Linux user may not interact with any GNU program.
> Why shouldn't it be Gnome/X11/Linux or KDE/Linux?
See https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#many for the GNU Project's response.


> Interestingly most people do not refer to Android phones as Linux systems. While
> you might argue it is because they don't know it runs Linux. I think the
> knowledgeable don't because they understand that Linux encompasses the standard
> tools/UI which Android throws out.
Without agreeing with your assessment, just because the Linux kernel developers don't 
ask for a share of the credit for their work doesn't make the GNU Project's request 
incorrect, a bad idea, or somehow wrong.

I recommend reading https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html and 
https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html in their entirety as it appears that your 
questions have been answered there for years.


> Saying people who don't support Richard Stallman are ungrateful is
> flawed. I don't think I've ever heard a non-supporter say Richard
> Stallman did nothing. You can be grateful but also believe a person is
> flawed enough they should step back from public roles. Hollywood is
> probably the best example of people creating amazing content but the
> person behind has done bad things. Don't misunderstand and assume I'm
> equating Richard Stallman to some of the horrible people in Hollywood.
> I think it is perfectly reasonable to look past the controversies and
> say he is still a good representative for free software. I personally
> disagree but that is fine.

I'd hope that you could understand just how disproportionate Stallman's alleged 
transgressions are in the context of the endless shunning campaign recommended to us 
as some kind of justice for these alleged transgressions. There are very well-known 
people who have never faced such an unfair, unjust, and due process-free shunning yet 
have done bad or suspicious things for which we can point to public record for 
account. They are still allowed to be invited to give talks and be a part of society 
in all the ways in which we were told that we should disallow RMS. It's no accident 
that at least a couple of these other figures (Linus Torvalds & Bill Gates) are firm 
proponents of software non-freedom and RMS is probably the best known proponent of 
software freedom. This entire smear campaign against RMS is easily and reasonably 
seen as a means to change RMS' legacy to achieve other ends which do us no good such 
as getting us to put aside software freedom and justify censoring anything to do with 
RMS.

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