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

[Garreau\, Alexandre]

On 2014-12-03 at 02:53, Olaf Buddenhagen wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 02, 2014 at 02:40:41PM -0500, Felipe López wrote:
>> In the GNU Project, people sympathize with one of two opposing views:
>> 
>> 1. If the GNU Project releases its own distribution called "GNU" or
>>    "The GNU System", certain group of people would take it as if the
>>    GNU Project were "claiming exclusiveness or superiority over other
>>    GNU variants".
>> 2. The GNU Project should release its own distribution called "GNU"
>>    or "The GNU System". The GNU Project was launched to develop the
>>    GNU system, so delivering the system is something expected and
>>    beneficial for end-users.
> [...]
>> I have to say that I'm sad to hear that RMS doesn't agree with the
>> second view above, because I think that going that way would make the
>> system and the ideas around the project more visible and accessible to
>> potential users.
>
> This simplified view entirely discounts the compromise proposed by
> Brandon, and supported by several people (including myself), to call the
> Guix distribution the *reference* distribution of GNU -- which is just
> as good for promoting the great work done in the Guix project, as
> calling it *the* GNU system; but considerably reduces the risk of people
> thinking that this and only this is the net result of the GNU project as
> a whole.

This “compromise” is only a view part of the first view. The first view
doesn’t say “lot’s not release any system”, we still release the system,
but in the first view we don’t call it strictly “GNU”. Hence it’s not a
compromise between “not calling it GNU” and “calling it GNU”: they’re
completely contradictory, and the negation of one implies the other. It
*is* “not calling it GNU” (here “GNU”’s a substantive, not some astract
word that could be intended as a sustantive /or/ an adjective, with in
the latter case a hope in the fact we can still say to be in the second
view calling it “GNU”, but using GNU as an adjective and completing it
with the sustantive “reference”).

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