What's in a name?

The whole thing has depended on gcc from day one, so I see no valid objection to prominently give GNU credit for providing a decent compiler and thus saving Linus the work of inventing that before he started on his kernel.

But most users simply don't care what it is called, they only care whether it works.

I would guess that the name that gets used the most informally is "Linux", simply because that is shorter to type in email or Usenet messages than any of the alternatives presented in this discussion. "Linux" is thus the de facto standard name of the system, regardless of who invented what parts of it and who distributes it.

(It's kind of like a beer label. It could be any brand in the world, but it's still just "beer" if you're in a hurry.)

Regards,

Clayton Weaver
<mailto: [email protected]>

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Actually, Linux depended on Linus Torvalds from day one, making Linux a *very* apt name, if the argument is that credit should be attributed to the primary contributory to Linux's success...

The GCC license says that it can be used to compile pretty much anything anybody wants to. Richard Stallman gave up the right to claim credit for projects that happen to use GCC, the instance he wrote the GPL, and the LGPL.

mark

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