FSF-Approved gNewSense 2.0 Released

An anonymous reader writes "gNewSense DeltaH (2.0), a second major release of a GNU/Linux distribution with focus on freedom, has just been released. It is based on Ubuntu 8.04 which was released less than week ago. gNewSense is one of the few GNU/Linux distributions listed as free by the GNU Project."

And why do we need another Distro?

[Alpha232]

From http://www.gnewsense.org/Main/Features [gnewsense.org]

emacs, bsdgames, nethack and build-essential part of the default install

And now we know...

Re:And why do we need another Distro?

[libervisco]

It's much more than that. You'd be surprised at how careful they are not to ship with a single bit that is not Free Software.

It may seem ludicrous to some at first, but think about the benefit. Even if you wont use it as your main system you can use it to test just how much of your hardware is 100% Free Software compliant, or you can use it to see what hardware you should buy that is 100% compliant.

And Free Software compliant hardware equals best possible experience - since it will all then work out of the box, with bugs fixed and improvements steadily coming, because you don't need to depend on some third party for everything.

gNewSense plays a crucial role.

You can read a bit more about that here http://www.nuxified.org/blog/gnewsense_2_0_a_premier_freedomware_platform_based_on_ubuntu_8_04_lts_released [nuxified.org]

Cheers

Re:

[Hatta]

What non-free software is there in the Ubuntu base system?

Re:

[quanticle]

I believe that Ubuntu has non-free drivers in the base install. Granted, you need to go into the restricted drivers manager and activate them to get the full benefit, but they are there.

Re:

[tepples]

What non-free software is there in the Ubuntu base system?

Mostly firmware for the microcontrollers on 802.11b cards. These cards have RAM instead of flash, expecting the driver to bootstrap the card's CPU with an executable binary blob. If this program is not free software, it might go into Ubuntu but doesn't go into gNewSense.

Re:

[Hatta]

Why doesn't Ubuntu prompt for installation of those non-free drivers the same way they do for non-free nVidia drivers?

Re:

[jrumney]

The distinction is between non-free firmware, which runs entirely on the hardware peripheral (most wireless controllers), and non-free drivers, which run on the main CPU (NVidia).

Re:

[tepples]

The distinction is between non-free firmware, which runs entirely on the hardware peripheral (most wireless controllers), and non-free drivers, which run on the main CPU (NVidia).

Even main CPUs have firmware called microcode. How far will gNewSense go? Will it demand that CPU makers make their microcode free?

Re:

[jtn]

Will it demand that CPU makers make their microcode free?

Why not? It certainly holds with their "non-open software is unethical" mantra. Stallman's admitted goal is to remove ALL "proprietary" software from the world, which presumably would include microcode in any form if the source (useful or not) was not included.

In otherwords

[jellomizer]

So in short it shows how non-freesoftware makes your life that much easier. By seeing how limited a fully free software implement is.

I would much rather see more non-GNU version of free and more diversity of application in a distribution. Open Sourced (Different versions), Closed Source... A distibution that makes my current system run well and help me use to the computer to solve problem and complete my workflow.

FSF is working on the assumption that all people like the GNU and think it offers freedom. But

Re:

[Timothy Brownawell]

Doing stupid things like renaming Firefox to IceWeezel to because of silly trademark issues, is just dumb

I thought they did this because the Mozilla people said they had to if they wanted to include patches that hadn't been approved thru Mozilla? But then I didn't follow this that closely, so maybe I misunderstood something...

Re:

[just_another_sean]

Doing stupid things like renaming Firefox to IceWeezel to because of silly trademark issues, is just dumb

I thought they did this because the Mozilla people said they had to if they wanted to include patches that hadn't been approved thru Mozilla? But then I didn't follow this that closely, so maybe I misunderstood something...

No you followed it just fine, that's exactly why they did it Being able to patch software independent of the original developer is a core component of Free Software and Debian GNU/Linux is a great example of Free Software.

Personally I do enjoy the freedom that FSF and distros like Debian and gNewSense provide. No one is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to use them though.

There will always be Ubuntu, Linspire, Mepis and other distros that provide non-free crutches to those that need them.

The

Re:

[howlingmadhowie]

i'm not sure there will always be an ubuntu, linspire, mepis or other. when you see what progress the purely free distributions have made in the last 5 years, you have to be impressed. the only things stopping me going purely free on all my computers are flash, (which i have installed on one of them) and some software to convert video formats to ogg video (which i suspect contains some non-free parts, or at least patent encumbered) parts).

Re:

[just_another_sean]

I know how you feel. I have been too lazy to convert from VMWare to VirtualBox. I still install Sun's Java on my workstations. I used to install Citrix a lot until we went OpenVPN. But now Sun is poised to have Java distributed as a completely Free application and just the fact that there is an alternative to VMWare shows huge progress. And, as you mentioned, dealing with multimedia can be frustrating without some closed software installed.

I know I end up sounding like a zealot sometimes; I don't mean to. I

Re:

[fsmunoz]

Do you even *know* the details on the Firefox/Iceweasel decision? What is your suggestion to the issue then?

The path of "ideology" is what allows people to have something that works and bitch about lack of "pragmatism". If not by those silly people following their "ideology" you would not be complaining about how you would "prefer" to see non-GNU vresions (apparently, just "because", no real reason).

Your comments about licencing don't make much sense either, no you cry about "choice". There is plenty

Re:

[mmkkbb]

And Free Software compliant hardware equals best possible experience - since it will all then work out of the box, with bugs fixed and improvements steadily coming, because you don't need to depend on some third party for everything.

Oh, the Free Software community doesn't count as a third party?

Re:

[Timothy Brownawell]

Also, gNewSense is relevant for providing a promise of no legal hassles for new distributions built on top of it.

No hassles as long as you distribute it by itself, sure. But there are extra rules to follow if you distribute it as part of a system.

Re:

[SanityInAnarchy]

I'm curious -- what's the difference between gNewSense (what marketing genius thought of that) and Gobuntu [ubuntu.com]? Especially if that is the main purpose?

Re:And why do we need another Distro?

[MightyYar]

You are right, but there is one point that I don't think you considered: paying someone to fix a bug or add a feature.

If you have 20 PCs in your office and they all have "free" drivers for their video cards, then you can always pay someone to fix any bugs that come up - and it might even be worth the money depending on how many computers you have with the same card.

Good luck trying to pay nvidia to fix their driver.

Re:

[Blakey Rat]

And it's named "gNuisance?" Are they trying to give The GIMP a run for its 'poorly-named software product' money?

Re:

[djdavetrouble]

Agreed, I immediatly hated the name.
The OSS crowd still has a bit to learn about branding, etc.

Re:

[orasio]

They are not trying to sell something.
They like the name. They know "nuisance" is a negative word, and that negative words are not good for selling stuff. They don't need to be enlightened.

Re:

[el americano]

They are trying to popularize something. Same rule applies: Try not to choose unappealing names.

Re:

[ConceptJunkie]

Yes, clearly it needs and 'i' or an 'e' in the front of the name.

Re:

[Dog-Cow]

They are describing the installation and user experience.

Re:

[everphilski]

At first, I honestly thought it was a joke being played by a couple of people, ripping out all the good bits like nVidia drivers, etc. to make it a "nuisance" on people trying to get a working distro ... but apparently I was wrong they are dead serious.

Being a gNuiSance

[tepples]

At first, I honestly thought it was a joke being played by a couple of people, ripping out all the good bits like nVidia drivers, etc. to make it a "nuisance" on people trying to get a working distro

That or they're trying to be a gNuiSance to the hardware manufacturers in order to goad them into supporting coreboot and other low-level free software projects.

Re:

[Josh Booth]

I think that the HURD still takes the cake. From the project page [gnu.org]:

`Hurd' stands for `Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons'. And, then, `Hird' stands for `Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth'. We have here, to my knowledge, the first software to be named by a pair of mutually recursive acronyms.

Re:

[OrangeTide]

Had to make sure that RMS could use a default install. Without emacs and nethack he's probably unable to do anything at all with a computer.

Re:

[CronoCloud]

I thought it was ESR that was into Nethack and not RMS But maybe I'm getting my facial-haired somewhat controversial 'nix geeks confused.

.

I guess I need to RTFA

[Nursie]

But what's the point?

Debian is properly free, in the sense the gNewSense is. Ubuntu is based on debian, gobuntu is ubuntu's free version, why does gNewsense need to exist?

Or does it address some other need, and freedom is just a side-effect?

Re:

[Hatta]

This [ubuntu.com] explains it pretty well. In short, gNewSense was first, Gobuntu is official, and they haven't had the time or motivation to merge yet.

Re:

[sdnoob]

and the thrashing the gNewSense name is getting here (deservedly so! ugh.. i thought microsoft had the lock on the nuisance operating system and the patents to back it up) will speedup the aforementioned merge as well as the assumption of the gobuntu name for the combined project.

Re:

[Nursie]

So with debian, the fact that I have to go to etc, edit apt.sources and add the non-free repositories (something which I would have to consciously and knowingly do), isn't enough for them?

OK, I think the FSF just lost a little bit of respect here.

Re:

[Chris Mattern]

I suspect it's more because even though they aren't made available by default, Debian actually maintains non-free repositories. And let's face it, adding the debian.org non-free depositories is one of the first things anybody with a Debian system does while setting it up.

Re:

[Digi-John]

So what does that say about Free Software's ability to meet people's needs?

Re:

[MightyYar]

Oh, now you gone done it... you're going to get the ire of the RMS disciples. You are either new or trolling. They are using the term "free" as in "freedom to do what you want", not as in "free beer during happy hour".

Ubuntu, AFAIK, contains some proprietary firmware and such to make hardware more likely to work.

Re:

[MBGMorden]

They are using the term "free" as in "freedom to do what you want",

Apparently though that "freedom to do what you want" only extends so far as doing it with software that meets their approval. :S

Re:

[MightyYar]

Apparently though that "freedom to do what you want" only extends so far as doing it with software that meets their approval.

Yes, that is the RMS rub. His definition of "free" is oddly more restrictive than if you simply put your work in the public domain.

Re:

[Timothy Brownawell]

Really, a particular work can be removed from the public domain? Or is it just that people can make proprietary new versions of it?

Re:

[MightyYar]

I don't see how the concept of freedom includes the word "prevents".

I'm not attacking the ideology - I happen to like the GPL... just lampooning the terminology. It's not really so "free". A number of popular competing licenses are more free (BSD, MIT, Apache). Obviously, "no license" is the most free.

Re:

[Timothy Brownawell]

Obviously, "no license" is the most free.

That actually depends... if it's in the public domain, then yes, but if it's copyrighted then "no license" is actually fairly restrictive.

Re:

[Nursie]

"I don't see how the concept of freedom includes the word "prevents"."

I think the argument goes like this - anyone is free to use and distribute the work. But we are then also free to demand the source code from anyone distributing it.

The word prevents sneaks in there almost as a double negative. It prevents people from keeping it to themselves.

You could also look at the effects - We now have more free software by that definition of free than we would have had if the BSD license had been prevalent, and more

Re:

[MightyYar]

I think the argument goes like this - anyone is free to use and distribute the work. But we are then also free to demand the source code from anyone distributing it.

That is an additional right that you are granting the creator, thus taking the decision AWAY from the user. To put it another way, absent any law or contract, a user would be completely free to do whatever they wanted. The GPL restricts what the user can do, and is thus less free.

Meh. the license argument is a bit of a silly one, IMHO, and I like the idea that if people take what I've written and want to use it, they can, so long as they continue in the spirit I started.

Me, too. I just don't think that is "freedom". It's a great philosophy and a wonderful way to work with copyright law... a hack you might say :)

Re:

[2short]

"Public domain software can be made proprietary."

Um, no, actually it can't. Proprietary works can be made based on public domain works, but the public domain works are still public domain. It does not help the FSF argument that they are fond of simplifying concepts like this to the point of falsehood.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

hmm

[Timothy Brownawell]

Of course, "free" here no longer means you can distribute it however you want to, if it's part of a system then it imposes certain rules on that system nowadays...

Re:

[spottedkangaroo]

They're talking about the freedom to use your computer however you like, not the freedom to distribute other people's work however you like.

Re:

[Timothy Brownawell]

There's what they (FSF) call freedom 2 [fsf.org], "The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor". They are now saying that some forms of that are not helpful enough (despite people being willing to pay money for this help), and therefore forbidden.

Now immortalised in song

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

RMS came onto the OpenBSD-misc mailing list in January to inform the subscribers that he had deemed OBSD to be non-free. Much wonderment ensued.

It transpired that the ports collection contained some non-free software. If one pkg_adds such software one sees a warning that the package is considered non-free, but this was not sufficient for RMS. It seems that he'd rather a user be inhibited from installing any non-free software that be allowed to express free will.

His position has now been set to mus

Re:

[KermodeBear]

It is because of this kind of behavior that I refer to him as R. M. Stalin.

Re:

[Braino420]

RMS came onto the OpenBSD-misc mailing list in January to inform the subscribers that he had deemed OBSD to be non-free. Much wonderment ensued.

Linkage [kerneltrap.org]. In the same thread he also says he won't recommend Gobuntu (the all Free version of Ubuntu) because it sounds like Ubuntu... I strongly recommend going into the archive and reading the whole thread; it's very entertaining.

Re:

[garett_spencley]

And here I always thought that Free Software was about enabling choice, not restricting it.

My mistake.

Re:

[slux]

Try reading a little harder. He did not deem it non-free. He said he will not and does not personally recommend OpenBSD to people. Big difference and I can understand his position.

Re:

[ciggieposeur]

Wow, did you read the same thread I did?

RMS popped in to say in essence that he will not recommend users use OpenBSD (based on the presence of non-free software in their ports collection). Then he got flamed by a bunch of people claiming all sorts of things he didn't say, to which he responded one by one and was quite polite during most of the 30-odd messages I saw.

He said explicitly (multiple times) that he respects the *choice* of end users to use whatever they want to on their own systems. He tried (a

naming

[Speare]

The first thing that came to my mind, and another AC at -1 noted it, is that "gNewSense" must be pronounced "gee, nuisance" or just "nuisance." I can't decide if GIMP or Nuisance wins the prize for most useless name. I'm not saying go through a formal focus group process, but if it's a project worth spending a little time on, isn't it worth a name that doesn't have unsavory connotations? Just ask four friends (vocally) whether a name just sounds vaguely nonsensical or might be misunderstood as something else.

Re:

[aj50]

I assume it's meant to be pronounced guh-nu-sense.

No improvement

[tepples]

I assume it's meant to be pronounced guh-nu-sense.

In my lect, that's still way too close to guh-nuisance, therefore no improvement.

Re:

[JustinOpinion]

Thanks alot. I personally didn't think of the connection to "nuisance" ... but now that you've pointed it out, I won't be able to stop thinking that everytime I hear it.

Just like when someone pointed out to me what "new direction" sounds like if you say it fast enough.

I hate it. Now everytime I'm in a strategic meeting, and someone says "what the project needs is a new direction", I'm momentarily shocked that they are suggesting nude erections. (Perhaps I've now infected you with this terrible meme-virus.)

Re:

[J0nne]

Perhaps I've now infected you with this terrible meme-virus.

you bastard!

Re:

[gwniobombux]

Initially it was indeed call Gnuisance. From their faq:

4. Why the name gNewSense? The name originated as Gnusiance as a reference to RMS's GPG key, but was later changed to gNewSense by bbrazil and ompaul to also capture the New Sense of the distribution and as a pun on GNU.

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Maybe someone can make a parody build and name it "gNonSense".

Re:

[Otter]

Just ask four friends (vocally) whether a name just sounds vaguely nonsensical or might be misunderstood as something else.

This bit of, errr, "wit" is deliberate, not a misunderstanding.

Anyway, it takes a back seat on my list of grievances to all those open-source CMS packages one-upping each other for the most horrible names. At least this is just Excruciating Nerd Humor.

Why based on Ubuntu instead of Debian

[noldrin]

It seems like it would be easier to start with Debian rather than Ubuntu. Plus then you are closer to the distro that is actually doing all the work,

the house that stallman built

[howlingmadhowie]

you have to marvel at the man. he has really achieved his goal of enabling people to use their computers in freedom. of course there is an overlap between gobuntu and gnewsense (and debian as well) but who cares? they are all free software projects that means that work done on one project flows into the others.

well done mr stallman and all free software developers for sticking by your vision and making the world a better place.

The real meaning of "free" software

[pdxdada]

I personally find Linus' pragmatism argument more compeling than all of Stallman's moral arguements. So what's the real meaning of "free" I promiced you? The devolpers are free to criple and rename a distro as their morals dictate and as a pragmatist I am free to ignor it and carry on with a distro that actually fulfils my needs.

ubuntu not debian?

[radarsat1]

I find it interesting that they chose to base this off of Ubuntu rather than Debian, the latter being known for being quite strict about license, while the former tends to be more liberal about allowing proprietary or 3rd-party software to coexist more easily.

Does it say something about Debian that they are more willing to strip down Ubuntu?

Another Fedora Project?

[Spoke]

The Fedora Project's Core Principles [fedoraproject.org] are:

# Fedora is about the rapid progress of Free and Open Source software and content.
# Fedora believes in the statement "once free, always free".

Why not consolidate efforts with Fedora which has the same goals?

Is there really enough of an audience to justify a rebundled Ubuntu without the non-free bits? Or will this project slowly die as it fails to attract a community?

Re:

[hansraj]

The did it already. Not surprisingly they gave up on writing a totally new kernel and used emacs instead.

http://humorix.org/articles/2006/06/hurd/ [humorix.org]

Re:

[Chrisq]

Simple answer: NO.

The Hurd team are the ultimate tinkerers. Whenever it looks like its getting anywhere near complete (as in pre-alpha) they decide to switch the microkernal system, reinvent the shared memory architecture or something.

Re:

[xSauronx]

theres actually a team? i thought it was a myth.

Re:

[MichaelSmith]

theres actually a team? i thought it was a myth.

Not a team. A hurd.

Re:

[harry666t]

A hurd of teams or a team of hurds?

Re:

[cp.tar]

theres actually a team? i thought it was a myth.

Not a team. A hurd.

Actually, a herd.

Though obviously a small one.

Re:

[crawling_chaos]

There was a team, but they were all hired to bring Duke Nukem Forever in on time.

Re:

[ta bu shi da yu]

I'm wondering if they named it gNewSense because it's a gNuisance to not have non-free software?

Re:

[AdamWeeden]

I vote we rename it gNonsense.

Re:Unless you pay for the media, you're not suppor

[xSauronx]

it's a combination of linux and Free software zealotry as i understand, they remove binary blob drivers from the kernel, as well as only support free software for the distro. probably hardcore programmers for a living, its hard to imagine anyone else not wanting(or needing) to have some non-free software for at least a *few* things or maybe theyre hypocrites, and install binary stuff on the side while hiding their shame.

Re:

[Kjella]

its hard to imagine anyone else not wanting(or needing) to have some non-free software for at least a *few* things or maybe theyre hypocrites, and install binary stuff on the side while hiding their shame.

If they didn't want it, they'd use Ubuntu. I guess if you have the right hardware I guess it'll boot to a fairly usable office maxhine as long as you don't want multimedia or any of the other things covered in patents and non-free packages.

Re:

[Timothy Brownawell]

Debian is not strictly free as in freedom, at least not to the point to be recommended by the fsf. The main reason is, it's still too easy to install non-free stuff through debian repos.

Debian isn't free because it leaves you free to go non-free?

Re:

[Kjella]

Debian isn't free because it leaves you free to go non-free?

Well he's not too happy about the BSD license either, which leaves you free to go non-free. In many ways he wants to protect the end-users from themselves by making them only use software that's free and will remain free (aka copyleft). Installing proprietary software, even freeware or device blobs means you've given up the four freedoms, which in his world view you should never do. If he considers it no alternative at all, then he'll only recommend a distro that gives you no alternative at all.

To make a s

Re:

[Timothy Brownawell]

Well he's not too happy about the BSD license either, which leaves you free to go non-free. In many ways he wants to protect the end-users from themselves by making them only use software that's free and will remain free (aka copyleft)

If a piece of software is free, it will always be free. If it's under BSD, new versions might not be free, but that doesn't affect the copy you have.

Installing proprietary software, even freeware or device blobs means you've given up the four freedoms, which in his world view you should never do.

So what is it that I can no longer do? There are things that I can't do with that software, but then I never could do those things with that software in the first place.

Re:

[MichaelSmith]

With gNewSense there are no such non-free repos.

I wonder what happens if you sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list

Re:

[exosyst]

It starts emacs and removes you from the admin group?

Re:

[MichaelSmith]

I can't imagine it would remove my ability to su root. [bsdnexus.com]

Emacs in viper-mode

[tepples]

It starts emacs

With today's workstation and server class machines, an eight-megabyte resident set size in a text editing environment no longer results in constant swapping. So you get the benefits of GNU Emacs major modes with vi-style key bindings.

and removes you from the admin group?

Why would viper-mode or even Vim (also free) drop a user from sudoers?

Re:

[jtn]

Why would viper-mode or even Vim (also free) drop a user from sudoers?

Zoom, right over your head. Sarcasm! Learn it, live it, love it.

Re:

[swillden]

Debian is not strictly free as in freedom, at least not to the point to be recommended by the fsf. The main reason is, it's still too easy to install non-free stuff through debian repos.

No, it's because non-free stuff exists in the main Debian distribution. Notably, the kernel. From the original announcement of gNewSense:

At this time, Debian still does contain some proprietary software, in both the current Sarge distribution and in the upcoming Etch distribution. The Debian developers felt that they had no choice but to do this, because there is no open-source replacement for some proprietary device firmware contained within the Debian kernel packages. Without these binary "blobs," many WiFi and graphic drivers will not work at all, or at a minimal level, on Linux.

Nevertheless, the Debian developer community remains determined to root out proprietary firmware. In its decision to release Etch with proprietary firmware, the Debian Project declared that while "We give priority to the timely release of Etch over sorting every bit out" they would still "treat removal of sourceless firmware as a best-effort process."

The mere existence of the non-free repository wouldn't prevent the FSF from considering Debian a Free operating system.

Re:

[TheRaven64]

The mere existence of the non-free repository wouldn't prevent the FSF from considering Debian a Free operating system.

They class OpenBSD as non-free even though the base system is 100% Free Software, because the ports system contains build infrastructure required to create packages from non-Free software (e.g. Opera).

Re:

[ajs]

They class OpenBSD as non-free even though the base system is 100% Free Software, because the ports system contains build infrastructure required to create packages from non-Free software (e.g. Opera).

I think they also believe that OpenBSD was initially developed by the anti-Stallman, and will eventually loose a plague on the world.

Seriously, does anyone else hear the shrill voice of religion in this? What value is there in having an OS that pushes back against the user when they want to use non-free software? I can see the value in distributing an OS that has no non-free components (e.g. if you want to base your software on it, and want to be sure that the licensing is compatible with yours). I can see

Re:

[Timothy Brownawell]

Most likely from a flamewar over RMS saying that, which got covered on a number of nerd-news sites.

Re:

[Culture20]

But this uses emacs!

Re:

[Culture20]

emacs is RMS' baby. "better" is an argument for vi vs emacs debates.

Re:

[Nimey]

Yeah! Gobuntu was created solely to please the Free Software people who created gNewSense.

Not surprisingly, it's hard to please a zealot.

Re:

[Keyper7]

Mark Shuttleworth recently declared [ubuntu.com] that Gobuntu was not going so well as he expected because of the lack of community support and conjectured that perhaps it was better if the development team helped the gNewSense team instead. It seems they are doing exactly that now, since the 8.04 folder of the gobuntu download page [ubuntu.com] it's empty.

Re:

[kripkenstein]

Mark Shuttleworth recently declared [ubuntu.com] that Gobuntu was not going so well as he expected because of the lack of community support and conjectured that perhaps it was better if the development team helped the gNewSense team instead. It seems they are doing exactly that now, since the 8.04 folder of the gobuntu download page [ubuntu.com] it's empty.

Thanks for the info, that's very interesting.

Also, nice to see someone not afraid to admit he might have been wrong about something, and to be open to switching strategy accordingly, in this case, to support gNewSense and abandon Gobuntu.

Re:

[0racle]

Feel free to get some work done whenever you want to.

Re:

[ettlz]

/They're not "wipes" they're kleenexes.
//We don't make photocopies, we zerox stuff.

In the UK, we do make photocopies; and we wank into tissues, not "wipes".

Re:

[just_another_sean]

Seriously, yeah at one point it made sense to call it GNU/Linux or "GNU on top of Linux" or whatever, but at this point it's just friggin vanity. Get over it, people. It's Linux to 98% of the world, and the other 2% are self-absorbed twits who want everyone to know how clever they are for coming up with a "recursive" algorithm. I propose that we change the definition of GNU to mean "GNU's Nearly Useless" which is just as recursive and infinitely more descriptive.

Or better yet, just call it "Linux."

That way my Mom won't have to ask me "are you running regular Linux on your computer in the basement or that Agnew Linux?" every time she hears a Linux story on public radio. /They're not "wipes" they're kleenexes. //We don't make photocopies, we zerox stuff. ///Unless we're British and applying a plaster, we get out a bandaid not an "adhesive bandage" when we cut ourselves.

Well the Distro I use, and the one that Ubuntu, gNewSense and several others are based on, is to this day called Debian GNU/Linux. So that's what I call it.

And last I checked the toolchain I use to compile software is still maintained by GNU so I have to disagree with your "useless" claim. Sure, other tools exist but they are not the default in my distro.

Sorry if it bothers you so much.

Re:

[LizardKing]

If the criteria for what's included in gNewSense is what RMS uses, then don't expect it to come with a web browser as he recently admitted he doesn't use one. Check out the long flamefest on the OpenBSD mailing lists for the admission from RMS.