From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: taylanbayirli@gmail.com (Taylan Ulrich =?UTF-8?Q?Bay=C4=B1rl=C4=B1/Kammer?=) Subject: bug#25254: [minor] 'About' page says GuixSD is a "GNU/Linux distribution" Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 20:35:33 +0100 Message-ID: <87o9zzdcoq.fsf@gmail.com> References: <87r34ywqat.fsf@gmail.com> <87vau9c96w.fsf@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:48784) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cLEUh-0007TM-BQ for bug-guix@gnu.org; Sun, 25 Dec 2016 14:30:08 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cLEUc-0005YX-VV for bug-guix@gnu.org; Sun, 25 Dec 2016 14:30:07 -0500 Received: from debbugs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.43]:39554) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cLEUc-0005Xd-Ro for bug-guix@gnu.org; Sun, 25 Dec 2016 14:30:02 -0500 Received: from Debian-debbugs by debbugs.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1cLEUc-0004Xp-Di for bug-guix@gnu.org; Sun, 25 Dec 2016 14:30:02 -0500 Sender: "Debbugs-submit" Resent-Message-ID: In-Reply-To: (David Craven's message of "Sun, 25 Dec 2016 00:51:14 +0100") List-Id: Bug reports for GNU Guix List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: bug-guix-bounces+gcggb-bug-guix=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "bug-Guix" To: David Craven Cc: 25254@debbugs.gnu.org David Craven writes: > Please change to the GNU distribution. Or alternatively if you are > going to say a GNU distribution provide a link to or an explanation of > what it means. I wanted to avoid a larger discussion, but OK, I haven't ever written a comprehensive answer to such a question, so here goes. I can link people to it in the future... An operating system is a software system that manages hardware and software resources to offer a platform for end-user applications to operate on. For instance OpenBSD is an operating system, but GNU IceCat is not. (See Wikipedia for details.) If an operating system consists of components developed by the GNU project, then that's the GNU operating system. This should be pretty obvious. :-) GNU operating system components include, among others: - the GNU toolchain: GCC, Autotools (Autoconf, Automake, Libtool), GNU Make, binutils, Bison, GNU m4, GDB - GRUB - Hurd - glibc - the GNU userland: Bash, coreutils, findutils, diffutils, inetutils, GNU grep, GNU awk, GNU tar, etc. The Hurd is not nearly as functional as one would like a production level kernel to be, so the Linux kernel is frequently used in its place. Whether the operating system is then still the GNU operating system just with a part replacement, or whether it becomes a different one, is a matter of semantics. The Linux kernel is quite large, brings with itself a collection of userland tools, and is relied on directly by a lot of end-user applications instead of being encapsulated away entirely by the rest of the operating system, so I think it's fair to call an operating system GNU/Linux when the Linux kernel is used instead of the Hurd. Complicating matters a bit, the Linux-libre project, while merely maintaining a modified Linux kernel, is a GNU project as well, so it could be debated whether the last paragraph does or doesn't apply when the operating system uses the Linux-libre kernel. Regardless of what one thinks about the last three paragraphs, the intent of GuixSD as a project is to provide a distribution of the GNU operating system. This means that replacing tools like GCC or glibc is unthinkable, whereas compatibility with the Hurd could be said to be a relatively high-level concern of the project, and Linux-libre is used for pragmatic purposes. Contrast this with the majority of GNU/Linux distributions whose main developers don't care about Hurd compatibility at all. (Off-shoot projects like ArchHurd exist, and their patches may be accepted upstream, but they are just side projects.) For these reasons, it makes sense to call GuixSD a distribution of the GNU operating system, which for now offers by default an installation using the Linux-libre kernel, as that is more pragmatic. Disclaimer: I cannot speak for the Guix project leaders, but as far as I understand their views are more or less like what I describe in the previous two paragraphs, which is why the project homepage says that GuixSD is a distribution of the GNU operating system. > Calling it a GNU distribution implies that there are more than one, > please provide an example of another GNU distribution. A google > search for GNU distribution doesn't turn up any results. Perhaps ArchHurd or Debian GNU/Hurd may be considered GNU distributions. Even if there are no other distributions of GNU though, that doesn't mean GuixSD can't be one. > Please also remove it from the list of GNU/Linux distributions here: > https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html I was rather thinking of having that page corrected to say that it's a list of GNU and GNU/Linux distributions. :-) Taylan