Wikipedia’s concensus: Linux is an operating system
My brother sent me these thoughts, slightly edited:
Recently I looked at the [Wikipedia] Linux page. To my surprise it’s not about the kernel Linux, it’s about the “OS”. I looked at discussion and it appears that by general consensus the term Linux applies to the unix like operating system, and so it is correct for Wikipedia to follow that consensus. So, instead of providing information, they are deliberately misleading folks… Often what the majority does is wrong because the majority of people are not the experts. By definition, the experts are a minority.
You’d expect a higher standard from Wikipedia, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you? Aw, come on, surely you don’t mean to imply that Wikipedia is a place where things become true because most people say so, do you?
Consensus, when used in this way, is nothing other than mind-rot for the masses, group-think at its worst. There is a valid use of the word when it applies to decision-making. But this isn’t about decision-making, it’s about out-voting or out-discussing.
What’s interesting to me is that I heard a radio interview with Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales, and he was extremely careful to say GNU/Linux when discussing the operating system that runs the website.
Saying that Linux is an operating system has not, does not, and never will make it true any more than saying that a steering wheel is a car makes it so.
The use of the word “consensus” was used to describe how most people think that Linux is an operating system. This is different than the way that some things are decided among Wikipedians, by consensus, which can probably be useful at times. I guess that Wikipedians also have come to a decision by consensus that the popular consensus is correct.
Nathaniel
1 Jul 09 at 6:25 pm
Yes, yes, and “hacker” doesn’t refer to someone who breaks into computer systems. Except that everyone in the world except a handful of pedantic geeks uses it that way.
And the “millennium” properly started on January 1, 2001 and not 2000. It’s an arbitrary distinction made within an arbitrary system, and all the parties happened on December 31, 1999.
Language changes. Its purpose is not to cement a certain word-meaning pair for all time: its purpose is for human beings to communicate, and human beings will use language in a way that is efficient and natural, not in a way that is accurate and precise according to someone’s made-up standard. Why should “Linux” just refer to the kernel, when it’s perfectly possible, useful, and important to talk in generalities about the operating system composed of both the kernel and the libraries and the userland? In fact, that’s what we’re usually talking about, so we just say “Linux”. If we’re talking about the kernel, we say “the Linux kernel”.
It’s got absolutely nothing to do with Wikipedia, nor is it a sign of some decline into cultural decrepitude, like those damn kids with their rock-and-roll music. It’s just a language shift you don’t agree with. =)
Chris D
2 Jul 09 at 1:04 am
Google Richard Stallman, buy a beer for a pedantic geek. Live a little. You might be missing a miracle we take for granted every day at work. GNU’s not Unix!
John Wilson
4 Jul 09 at 4:37 am
Yep, and yet RMS’s primary contribution has been the development, articulation and evangelization of free software, not the fact that he demands it be called “GNU/Linux” instead of “Linux”. Pedantic geeks make incredible, important contributions (not least of which being my friends in many cases, though not pedantic about this particular area), but attempts to control the development of language are nonetheless quixotic. :-)
Chris D
4 Jul 09 at 8:34 am
Thank you Chris D! Doesn’t an active language evolve?
Josh Friesen
8 Jul 09 at 2:32 pm
Sometimes there is a reason to call things what they really are, and I’ll continue to use the correct terminology (what I believe is, anyway). For example, I don’t believe that the term “Open Source” is very descriptive – I’ll stick with using “Free Software” where applicable. I could tell you why, but you’ve probably read RMS’s opinion, and I agree with him on this point.
As for the whole GNU/Linux naming, it would be silly to argue the names if there weren’t some compelling reason. But leaving off the GNU is leaving out an important part of the software, and I use it to bring attention to the organization that started this whole movement. I know other people may never care, but I do – I appreciate the benefits from GNU and Free Software.
By the way Chris, you just said that RMS contributes by evangelizing. Don’t you think that being correct and bringing attention to the important points of Free Software falls somewhere in the realm of evangelizing? There will always be people calling people “old fashioned” when they stick up for what they believe to be right.
Nathaniel
9 Jul 09 at 12:26 am
@Nathaniel:
To me, Linux *is* the GNU operating system (the hopes for Hurd having always been…optimistic). There’s a distinction to be made, but in practical terms it’s moot. In my mental map, which I think I share with many geeks, Linus et al. do the kernel, GNU does everything else. And even that’s not the case, because in a typical Linux installation there is a huge amount of non-GNU code (though much of that is GPLd), and then it degenerates into a discussion of what we mean by “operating system”. (Maybe it says something about the extent of RMS’s accomplishment that “GNU” and “GPL” are now sort of falsely synonymous; but I doubt he would accept that graciously.)
RMS has done a lot of amazing, world-changing work, and without him my world would be very different and much less fun to work in–I might not even be a software engineer. That said, he’s…special…and he’s wrong about things sometimes. To me, he’s sort of like Dennis Kucinich, or Ron Paul. I’m genuinely glad he’s part of the discussion, but in no way should his ideas be taken without careful examination, because they’re often not good.
There’s no problem with reasonable people agreeing to disagree. I think “GNU/Linux” is silly, but I definitely don’t care enough to try to convince people who are convinced otherwise. I’ve had people (old people not from California or the Northeast) stare at me in horror for using the word “hell”. I think they’re causing themselves needless suffering through mental intolerance. I think “GNU/Linux” proponents are doing the same. That’s okay.
The thing I *will* stick to my guns about is that this is nothing to do with Wikipedia, which is meant to, and usually does, represent a certain cultural consensus. If anyone disagrees, there’s always the forums and a good old-fashioned edit war. ;-)
Chris D
9 Jul 09 at 1:49 am
I never noticed that wikipedia was that making that mistake all these years … thanks for bringing this to my attention.
arun
10 Jul 09 at 9:18 am
Sometimes it’s easier to “go with the flow” than correct a million people who “have it wrong”. See Kleenex, Xerox, etc.
The reason that the public will never accept “Linux is just a kernel” is that the public has no clue what a kernel is. The concept doesn’t exist in their minds. All the other OSes have integrated kernels that are intertwined with their OS. If the “Linux kernel” always comes with the “Linux OS”, then who cares what people call the bundle?
I’m not totally against calling it GNU/Linux but I have a hard time calling it that personally. There’s a lot more than GNU stuff in there. Plus I’m an embedded guy, so I use a lot of Linux systems that don’t include much GNU. What should I call it? BusyBox/Linux?
Anonymouse
15 Jul 09 at 12:07 pm
In reference to being pedantic;
There are an infinite number of meanings but a finite number of terms, wouldn’t it be nice if human language worked like a code editor? With a different color to specify the specific meaning of a particular speaker in a particular context?
The “non-pedantic” people could use Microsoft word and still see the world in black and white.
Language does drift and it is both a good, and a bad thing. ;)
jake4d
24 Jul 09 at 4:08 am
“Saying that Linux is an operating system has not, does not, and never will make it true any more than saying that a steering wheel is a car makes it so.”
Take some operating system lessons. You’ll learn about booting, scheduling, I/O… tons of stuff done inside a kernel. You’ll hear very little about user space.
You can say that the Linux kernel is an operating system. It’s technically correct. By some other definitions, you can also include some user space on it (and when you do that, the boundaries are not very clear).
I’d like to ask you something… when you boot Linux and, instead of the whole user land, you use, for example, busybox. What operating system are you using? Busybox/Linux?
I’m not entirely against the GNU/Linux naming, I see some arguments for it quite convincing, but I’m tired of fanatics talking about it as if GNU/Linux is THE correct name, and the others are wrong. I’d like to see people puting his dogmas aside, check the facts, rethink, and then start to debate.
Owo
19 Aug 09 at 5:29 pm
I have a degree in computer science. I’ve taken classes in operating systems. Admittedly I haven’t built any since then.
So, who boots Linux without anything else? Hands in the air, people!
Yes, if you boot into busybox, it should be called Busybox + Linux. If you boot into the GNU operating system, as most people do, it should be called GNU + Linux. The differences between a kernel and the rest of the OS are blurry when you start looking hard, but just as “beach” is “sand + ocean”, “operating system” is “GNU + Linux” in most cases involving Linux. In cases where it isn’t, it should be so differentiated by name.
Xaprb
19 Aug 09 at 5:47 pm
“If you boot into the GNU operating system, as most people do”
There’s the rub. I’ll wager that more people boot Linux (the kernel) without GNU than with it. Phones, Routers, Sony TVs, POS terminals, etc.
Until the general public is educated about Kernels vs OSes (unlikely at best), then Linux will continue to mean both.
We can’t control all meanings of a word. Sometimes you just have to accept multiple meanings forced on you by the general public. (c.f. “Hacker”)
Anonymouse
19 Aug 09 at 11:11 pm
“So, who boots Linux without anything else? Hands in the air, people!”
As latest Anonymous said, there’s a good number of applications where Linux runs without GNU. Besides embedded systems and rescue applications (which are a massive number of devices), there’re a few examples of non-GNU distros (Perlix, Perl/Linux, Glendix) and quite a lot that are “very-little-GNU” (Damn Small Linux, Tiny Core Linux, etc).
Usually, when we reach this point of the conversation, some people argue that “if you compile Linux with GCC, you’re running GNU/Linux, which is completely non-sense.
There’s a big problem in some Wikipedias about this (Spanish being a notable example), where a few individuals decided that GNU/Linux was the correct name. What happened then? There’re hundreds of places where the term GNU/Linux is used for referring to Linux operating system (with userland different than GNU’s), and the Linux kernel. In this crazy crusade, they even changed (accidentally, I guess) names of corporations and foundation (like Linux International to GNU/Linux International, which doesn’t exists) or changed names of publcations.
I think that’s a quite worse scenario than using Linux as a generic term after some kind of consensus. When people want to force their idea no-matter-what, then truth is no relevant anymore. And, sadly, that’s quite common in the GNU/Linux naming debate.
Owo
20 Aug 09 at 6:07 am
You won’t hear me claim that compiling with GCC merits calling an OS GNU/Linux. But the point is these phones and fuel injector controllers and whatnot usually have Linux + something else. And I would also not be one of the people to take it to the extremes you’ve mentioned, though I appreciate that I’m already an extremist in some ways.
Xaprb
21 Aug 09 at 10:17 am
“But the point is these [embedded devices] usually have Linux + something else.”
Ah, that’s a one way to think of it. I prefer to think of it as “Linux + Something”, where there are many combinations of “Something” and many 10s of thousands of “Somethings”.
“In cases where it isn’t [GNU], it should be so differentiated by name.” (in a previous post)
OK. I remember the days when we had to say BSD/UNIX (or BSD/UN*X) because there were lots of other flavors.
So what is the /Linux convention? There must be some rules when something must be named in and when it should not. Is it percent of code? Is it who owns copyright on the library and some userspace tools? What are the other values of ?
I don’t think that’s fair because there aren’t any other entities owning vast swaths of UNIX utilities. That makes any alternate namings very, very akward. If there aren’t any other , then it smacks of a blatant GNU self-promoting marketing campaign. That’s not a bad thing, but I’m not enough of a GNU zealot to partake.
Anonymouse
21 Aug 09 at 2:13 pm