It’s systemd+gnu+linux these days
I made the joke that we’ll have SystemD/Linux replacing GNU/Linux and the number of “well asckuallys…” that popped up was simultaneously humorous and saddening.
systemd
and a giant “fuck you” to Lennart Poettering for that. Not for creating an init system option - but for lobbying it into major distributions, instead of letting the users decide what they prefer. May he forever stub his toes on furniture.
A typical ActivityPub+Lemmy post.
Hnng yeah thats right womansplain to me, whip out those big beautiful FACTS and correct me till I BLEED
What’s the deal with Alpine not using GNU? Is it a technical or ideological thing? Or is it another “because we can” type distro?
It’s because we can to an extreme. Extremely lightweight distro. Very nice in containers and vms. One of the most loved ones out there.
It would seem that GNU/Linux or Linux (whatever the user-accessing operating system is called) is the only OS that must mention its kernel. No one calls Windows the NT operating system, nor does anyone call Mac OS the Darwin operating system. So why should Linux be the exception?
When I think of GNU, I think of a project that had a very particular goal in mind: build an operating system that replaces Unix with entirely free software. The project got nearly all the way there, but before they got a usable kernel working, Torvalds licensed his kernel with the GPL. With the Linux kernel combined with GNU, we have an OS the GNU project set out to create. So why should Torvalds get all the credit? Without calling the OS GNU, most people don’t even know how or why it came to be.
I could see a valid argument to just simply call the OS GNU. It was the name the original team gave the project to have a fully functional OS made with entirely free software. True, Torvalds didn’t write Linux for GNU, but neither did the X Window System. A Kernel is essential for operation though, so I can see why the name GNU/Linux was proposed.
Maybe it just boils down to “Linux” simply sounding better when pronounced
Just like e.g. most people just say “velcro” and not “hook-and-loop” as the company Velcro itself wants people to call it.
And that’s a tragedy because that convenience of pronunciation comes with the cost of losing credit for the group that started the whole thing. Because only “Linux” is used, many people think Linus Torvalds developed/invented the entire operating system.
Hook and loop being called Velcro doesn’t hurt Velcro the same way because they still have all the credit for making it. The only problem they face is losing a trademark.
Because the thing people refer to when they say “linux” is not actually an operating system. It is a family of operating systems built by different groups that are built mostly the same way from mostly the same components (which, themselves are built by separate groups).
