From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tim X Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: "MIT/GNU/Linux" Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 11:28:50 +1100 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <87ejqikz0d.fsf@lion.rapttech.com.au> References: <87odpmlnze.fsf@kobe.laptop> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1167439257 11634 80.91.229.12 (30 Dec 2006 00:40:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 00:40:57 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Dec 30 01:40:56 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1H0SHO-0001sQ-8r for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 30 Dec 2006 01:40:54 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1H0SHN-0000RL-P8 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 29 Dec 2006 19:40:53 -0500 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!news3.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!feeder.news-service.com!138.199.65.86.MISMATCH!sn-xt-ams-06!sn-xt-ams-05!sn-post-ams-02!sn-post-sjc-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.92 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:4Jew+NqrUSS7hi/tnpPjDnsnVfk= Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Original-Lines: 46 Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:144422 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:40024 Archived-At: Giorgos Keramidas writes: > > First of all, there are other examples where "parts" have a different > name from the "whole". Consider for example the fine difference between > "SunOS" and "The Solaris Operating Environment" :) > Can you expand on this point? I'm asking as this seems to contradict what I was told by Sun and other sys admins and recall reading some years ago. My understanding is that sunOS was what Sun called the operating system they had prior to Solaris. When they brought out Solaris, they faced a bit of industry resistance and released SunOS (I can't remember, but think it might have been v4.5 or v5.4 or something like that), which was essentially the same as solaris (v2.3?). If there is a more precise difference, I'd be intrested in knowing it and/or being corrected. With respect to comments re kernel == OS, I don't agree. The kernel and the operating system are two different things, but somewhat dependent on each other. For example, you could run hurd instead of the Linux kernel. Now for some final clarification - at what point does GNU/Linux become something other than GNU/Linux? For example, I would expect a distribution like Debian is certainly of the GNU/Linux variety. However, what about Red Hat and SuSe? Possibly even more unclear, what about the distribution Oracle is planning to release as the supported platform for their Oracle databases, can you also call this GNU/Linux? If there are some distributions which are GNU/Linux and some which are not, what is the generic name used to refer to all of them collectively (i.e. in the sense of Unix or *nix)? In the old DOS days, you referred to DOS when talking about the generic OS, and DR DOS, MS DOS, PC MOS etc when referring to specific flavors. If we want to say that something runs on all "Linux" based systems, what is the correct terminology? I also gather from listening to RMS and from some reading that we should also avoid referring to GNU software as open source, but instead as "Free Software". Tim -- tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au