Re: Are the FSF helpful?

[Frank Van Damme <frank.vandamme@student.kuleuven.ac.be>]

On Thursday 02 January 2003 04:25, Artur Grabowski wrote:
> 26.html - talks about OpenSSH ported to Linux.
>
> So. This far only 26.html is even close to "violating" the sacred rule
> of twisting words the way RMS wants to twist them. Now, let's evaluate
> the virality of GNU (GPL) wrt. to porting OpenSSH to Linux. For
> OpenSSH to run on Linux you need a kernel and a set of libraries. The
> kernel is not GNU, so it doesn't require us to say GNU, so only the
> libraries could. AFAIK the only libraries needed (at least at that time)
> would be openssl and libc. openssl is not GNU, but with libc we have
> trouble. It's GNU/libc. But! The virality of GNU libraries only works if
> the software uses features that no other library has. Since there is
> a non-GNU libc for Linux (and I'm pretty sure that OpenSSH worked with it),
> OpenSSH works on Linux without any GNU viruses, so we are not "required"
> to call it GNU/Linux. QED.

Lol... and since it needs a kernel that could be as well any bsd as linux, you 
might as well remove the section that says it's been ported to linux.

> Now, did you have some real issue that you want to bring up or did you
> just react with Pavlovian reflexes?
>
> Oh, and the custom here is that generally whiners are mocked or ignored.
> If you want to be heard, please provide diffs. If you just want to
> help someones political agenda, you are not welcome.

Free software has something to do with politics however. If it only had to do 
with sitting behind $editor and typing  C code, you could as well write 
closed source stuff.

The general custom here is that people who politely bring up a 
well-thought-about idea, everybody starts pissing them off. Especially if 
they got anything to do with Gnu or Linux. You're running openbsd because it 
is a good free operating system, or because you can piss on those pathetic 
little guys running a mainstream linux (oops! ;) ) distribution?

Frank