Many Other Projects Contributed To The System As It Is Today; It Incl

1.	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.)?
Answer» 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. Of 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). 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. Of 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).

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.)?

Answer»

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. Of 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).

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. Of 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.

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).

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.)?

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