Mail Archives: cygwin/2002/05/17/12:53:23
Michael Smith wrote:
> I'm not trolling (and maybe for all I know, this has already been
> talked out) but I wanted to suggest that it might be appropriate for
> Cygwin to describe and advertise itself as the "GNU/Cygwin system",
> giving credit where credit it very much due -- just as Debian does by
> describing itself as a "GNU/Linux" system.
>
> IMO, the fact the GNU system (not the Linux kernel) is really the
> essential ingredient is pointed to by the fact that many of the same
> concerns that affect maintainers of the various Linux distros (and
> especially, maintainers of packages on those distros) also very much
> affect Cygwin maintainers and packagers.
>
> For example, it seems like representatives from Cygwin should be
> involved with the Linux Standard Base effort:
>
> http://www.linuxbase.org/
>
> And the effort should be called "GNU Standard Base" instead (though I
> realize that's not s ever actually going to happen).
Yes. It's already been discussed and dismissed. A non-troll would have
the decency to search the mailing list archives first and verify that
YES, this issue has been discussed already, and acknowledge the points
raised in the previous discussion -- BEFORE bringing it up again.
IMNSHO, the GNU Glory Brigade can go to hell. I appreciate what
GNU/FSF/RMS has done for truly free software -- but turning around and
attempting to claim ownership and naming rights on every piece of free
software on earth is NOT acceptable.
Cygwin (the platform) has software from apache (not GNU), XFree86 (not
GNU), openssh/openssl (not GNU), pine (not GNU), unzip/zip (not
GNU)...and many others that are NOT GNU. Cygwin is not GNU/Cygwin. For
the same reasons, Linux is not GNU/Linux. Anyone who thinks differently
is buying in to the cult of personality (sic) of RMS. Just because
Debian has followed the pied piper doesn't mean we have to line up with
the other children.
And on a cygwin-specific note, I'm sure RMS doesn't want anything to do
with us. I think he's probably a bit PO'ed that ANY GNU software is
running on a proprietary platform like windows. He views that as
enabling behavior...enabling people to stay locked in the proprietary
prison. For RMS, like all ideologues, it is all or nothing -- there is
no half loaf. I sure he doesn't WANT the name GNU associated with
Cygwin/Windows. (To be clear: I'm glad RMS/FSF/GNU is out there. The
world NEEDS such ideologues -- to keep the rest of us honest. But that
doesn't mean we must always agree with them or obey them.)
Further, for the same reasons, no GNU-purist would EVER have put the
hundreds of hours into porting and packaging that the volunteer
maintainers here have done -- for a "platform" that exists on top of a
(gasp, horror) proprietary OS. As Robert has pointed out, the
contributions of those maintainers are equally if not more important to
cygwin than those of GNU. Without the VM's, there would be no GNU
software -- or non-GNU software -- on the cygwin platform. Without GNU,
we would be missing many packages -- some very important, like gcc. So,
if we rename stuff, it would be just as valid to say, as Robert does,
that it should be cgf/djd/cv/ed/rc/lh/eb/jt/Cygwin. But English is not
Entish -- we don't tell the entire lifestory of a project within the
project's name.
As far as the LSB goes, currently it applies only to linux-based
systems; GNU/Hurd isn't "out" yet. But, there's no reason why the LSB
wouldn't apply equally well to BSD systems, which don't necessarily have
any GNU software on them. So GNU-SB is also incorrect. (The GNU Glory
Brigade reminds me of US Senator Byrd of West Virginia -- there's not a
bridge or a hospital or park bench built in that state that isn't named
after "Robert C. Byrd". They don't call Byrd the king of pork for nothing.)
To tell you the truth, I don't see there being much hope -- or reason
for -- the LSB to take cygwin into account. Thanks to various
microsoftisms, we're too weird. Non-ELF shared libraries split into
"runtime" and "linktime" pieces. Runtime loader works completely
differently than ld.so, so library versioning is handled completely
differently. Then, we have two different windowing systems..."native"
and "X" which must coexist. The best I can see is for cygwin to take
what LSB does, and try to follow it as best we can while making
allowances for the uniqueness of the platform. We are the best ones to
judge where those allowances must be made -- not them. While the linux
distributors can (eventually) reach a compromise position that all linux
distributions can follow, there is no "compromise" here -- they'd have
to put "special case exceptions" in their document specifically for
cygwin. But there's no need to uglify the LSB with all that:
What is the main purpose of the LSB? Binary interoperability, so that
third party software vendors can ship ONE package that is guaranteed to
work on every LSB-compliant Linux platform. Doesn't really apply to
cygwin...and oh, yeah, how does RMS feel about making life easier for
proprietary (possibly closed source) vendors? Would he want the name
GNU associated with THAT?
--Chuck
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