Gnu/Linux

I am taking a course at WIT since Autumn 2006.

I found it interesting to hear one of the lecturers discuss “Gnu/Linux” rather than just “Linux”.

In my experience that latter is the norm. Ok it is less of a mouthful, though on the other hand however this is a free platform, developed primarily by individual voluntary efforts, so I can understand the sentiment that the major groups involved should get credit where it is due.

The “Linux” bit comprises the OS Kernel, and “provides the basic services and device drivers used by all other programs running” (http://www.linux.org) on the system.

The GNU utilities and programs make up most of the basic OS and other tools.

There seems to have been quite a bit of discussion elsewhere about this, see this article on GNU.org and this wikipedia entry. The Debian distribution (http://www.debian.org/ ) is one flavour of the platform that actually use GNU/Linux rather than just Linux in their name. I am not sure if there are many others.

Perhaps interestingly, between the flavours even there may be cause for similar discussion. Ubuntu ( http://www.ubuntu.com/ ) for instance, is heavily based on Debian GNU/Linux (http://www.debian.org/misc/children-distros).  However I can’t recall ever seeing a mention of it while using or installing the system…

Should we rename to Ubuntu Debian GNU/Linux ?

Lets have a vote, who is for and against ?

(”,)