From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs contributions, C and Lisp Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 20:24:24 -0400 Message-ID: References: <83mwhucg1h.fsf@gnu.org> <878ute589i.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <83d2iqc84m.fsf@gnu.org> <87wqgxkcr9.fsf@yandex.ru> <834n41db0d.fsf@gnu.org> <52FE2985.4070703@yandex.ru> <831tz5daes.fsf@gnu.org> <8738jlohd6.fsf@yandex.ru> <83txc1bl83.fsf@gnu.org> <5300189A.9090208@yandex.ru> <83wqgv9fbj.fsf@gnu.org> <20140216180712.236069f6@forcix.jorgenschaefer.de> <83sirj9cyp.fsf@gnu.org> <20140217203145.71a849f7@forcix.jorgenschaefer.de> <837g8t8ouc.fsf@gnu.org> <20140219080524.25689b6b@forcix.jorgenschaefer.de> <87fvnfqyfv.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87siq3ovxh.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87lhvtnsnr.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1396139085 27705 80.91.229.3 (30 Mar 2014 00:24:45 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 00:24:45 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Mar 30 01:24:41 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1WU3YG-00023A-CZ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 30 Mar 2014 01:24:40 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:41901 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WU3YF-00012t-Um for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 29 Mar 2014 20:24:39 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:44329) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WU3Y6-0000nS-Jq for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 29 Mar 2014 20:24:36 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WU3Y1-0004pI-BX for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 29 Mar 2014 20:24:30 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:36111) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WU3Y1-0004pC-7Z for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 29 Mar 2014 20:24:25 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WU3Y0-0004Lp-KS; Sat, 29 Mar 2014 20:24:24 -0400 In-reply-to: <87lhvtnsnr.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> (stephen@xemacs.org) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:171182 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] You wrote Whichever he means, the FAQ itself sanctions my opinion: and then quoted this: If you feel even more strongly about giving credit where it is due, you might feel that some secondary contributors also deserve credit in the system's name. If so, far be it from us to argue against it. If you feel that X11 deserves credit in the system's name, and you want to call the system GNU/X11/Linux, please do. If you feel that Perl simply cries out for mention, and you want to write GNU/Linux/Perl, go ahead.

You quoted part of the entry, out of context, misrepresenting its point. I've included the whole entry below so people can see this is true. This discussion is a response to your fallacious call for people to deny us credit for our work.
Many other projects contributed to the system as it is today; it includes TeX, X11, Apache, Perl, and many more programs. Don't your arguments imply we have to give them credit too? (But that would lead to a name so long it is absurd.) (#many)
What we say is that you ought to give the system's principal developer a share of the credit. The principal developer is the GNU Project, and the system is basically GNU.

If you feel even more strongly about giving credit where it is due, you might feel that some secondary contributors also deserve credit in the system's name. If so, far be it from us to argue against it. If you feel that X11 deserves credit in the system's name, and you want to call the system GNU/X11/Linux, please do. If you feel that Perl simply cries out for mention, and you want to write GNU/Linux/Perl, go ahead.

Since a long name such as GNU/X11/Apache/Linux/TeX/Perl/Python/FreeCiv becomes absurd, at some point you will have to set a threshold and omit the names of the many other secondary contributions. There is no one obvious right place to set the threshold, so wherever you set it, we won't argue against it.

Different threshold levels would lead to different choices of name for the system. But one name that cannot result from concerns of fairness and giving credit, not for any possible threshold level, is “Linux”. It can't be fair to give all the credit to one secondary contribution (Linux) while omitting the principal contribution (GNU).

-- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.