Re: Building Emacs-cvs on Cygwin

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
> Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 11:04:39 +0200
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> >
> >> > A bare-bones Linux kernel
> >> 
> >> Which neither Richard nor I was talking about.
> >
> > Neither was I, sorry for the confusing wording.  I later used a more
> > accurate (but much longer) term "GNU/Linux with all the GNU commands
> > removed".
> 
> But nobody was talking about that except you.  So the problem does not
> appear to be with your wording.

I no longer know what you were talking about.  What you seem to say is
of no practical importance, and here's why:

GNU/Linux is called that way because without GNU programs that system
is unusable, even though more than half of what comes with the system
are not GNU programs.  Richard is asking people to use the bare
"Linux" term only in conjunction with the Linux kernel, and I have no
problem with that; but that doesn't mean that the GNU/Linux system is
simply a combination of GNU programs and the Linux kernel.  It is a
logical fallacy to think so.  In particular, it is clear to everyone
that a kernel alone, without any programs that use that kernel or at
least have the ability to load and run a program on that kernel, is
useless.

So, IMO, in practical terms, it doesn't make sense to talk about the
Linux kernel as opposed to MS-Windows without GNU software.  The
correct comparison is of a GNU/Linux system without any GNU software
vs the MS-Windows system as it comes shrink-wrapped.  And that is the
comparison I made: I think that Richard was right saying that
MS-Windows comes out of the box as a complete and usable system, while
GNU/Linux without any GNU program is unusable.

You also made some incorrect statements about Windows, both about its
usability without ports of GNU software, and wrt our ability to
clearly define what is the equivalent of the Linux kernel on Windows.

The cause of Free Software is not served well by concealing the truth
behind tricky argument techniques and over-simplified statements.  It
is better served by looking the hard facts in the face and stating our
principles even if the reality is not as simple as we'd wish it to be.