www/gnu gnu-linux-faq.html

[Richard M. Stallman]

CVSROOT:        /webcvs/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Richard M. Stallman <rms>       10/06/26 21:16:10

Modified files:
        gnu            : gnu-linux-faq.html 

Log message:
        (justlinux): Replace the answer completely.

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.91&r2=1.92

Patches:
Index: gnu-linux-faq.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /webcvs/www/www/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html,v
retrieving revision 1.91
retrieving revision 1.92
diff -u -b -r1.91 -r1.92
--- gnu-linux-faq.html  30 Mar 2010 13:19:16 -0000      1.91
+++ gnu-linux-faq.html  26 Jun 2010 21:16:08 -0000      1.92
@@ -945,7 +945,7 @@
 The first such recursive acronym was TINT, &ldquo;TINT Is Not
 TECO&rdquo;.  The author of TINT wrote another implementation of TECO
 (there were already many of them, for various systems), but instead of
-calling it by a dull name like &ldquo;somethingorother TECO&rdquo;, he
+calling it by a dull name like &ldquo;<em>somethingorother</em> TECO&rdquo;, he
 thought of a clever amusing name.  (That's what hacking
 means: <a href="http://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html";>playful
 cleverness</a>.)</p>
@@ -1015,28 +1015,16 @@
     without GNU?</dt>
 
 <dd>
-It is possible to make a system that uses Linux as the kernel but is
-not based on GNU.  I'm told there are small systems, used for embedded
-development, that include Linux but not the GNU system.  IBM was once
-rumored to be planning to put Linux as the kernel into AIX; whether or
-not they actually tried to do this, it is theoretically possible.
-What conclusions can we draw from this about the naming of various
-systems?
-<p>
-People who think of the kernel as more important than all the rest of
-the system say, &ldquo;They all contain Linux, so let's call them all Linux
-systems.&rdquo;  But any two of these systems are mostly different, and
-calling them by the same name is misleading.  (It leads people to
-think that the kernel is more important than all the rest of the
-system, for instance.)</p>
-<p>
-In the small embedded systems, Linux may be most of the system;
-perhaps &ldquo;Linux systems&rdquo; is the right name for them.  They are very
-different from GNU/Linux systems, which are more GNU than Linux.  The
-hypothetical IBM system would be different from either of those.  The
-right name for it would be AIX/Linux: basically AIX, but with Linux as
-the kernel.  These different names would show users how these systems
-are different.</p>
+There are systems that contain Linux and not GNU; Android is an example.
+<p>
+Android is very different from the GNU/Linux system &mdash; because it
+doesn't contain GNU, only Linux.  In effect, it's a totally different
+system.  If you think of the whole system as &ldquo;Linux&rdquo;, you
+find it necessary to say things like, &ldquo;Android contains Linux,
+but it isn't Linux, because it doesn't have the usual Linux [sic]
+libraries and utilities [meaning the GNU system].&rdquo; Android
+contains just as much of Linux as GNU/Linux does.  What it doesn't
+have is GNU.
 </dd>
 
 <dt id="helplinus">Why not call the system
@@ -1339,7 +1327,7 @@
 
 <p>Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2010/03/30 13:19:16 $
+$Date: 2010/06/26 21:16:08 $
 <!-- timestamp end -->
 </p>
 </div>