Re: Changing "Linux" with "GNU/Linux" or "GNU"

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

    I am not saying you don't have my support.  What I'm saying is
    that I'm not the silver bullet that you think I am.  Maintainers
    will WONTFIX a "use GNU/Linux" bug just as fast with my name on
    it as without.

You surely know the situation, but you may as well do what you can
easily do, even if it isn't 100% influential.

Meanwhile, if the maintainers who deal with substantial issues in the
code don't want to fix these problems, that obstacle is not very hard
to work around.

I am sure we can find a volunteer to do it.  We could give him write
access to the sources, solely for the purpose of making these changes
in comments and documentation.  It would not be necessary for this
volunteer to know enough for real work on GNOME development.
Maintainers watching the commit logs would verify that this volunteer
doesn't ever change the code.

      Something like "GNU and other Unix-like operating
    > systems" would be acceptable, I think.  This is the term that is used
    > in most of the GNU documentation, AFAICT.

    That's a 41-character phrase, including spaces.

To distinguish GNU and Unix from other systems, I suggest "GNU and
Unix".  Only 12 characters.

    Although given your comments, it seems that neither "Linux" nor
    "GNU/Linux" are the correct thing to say here.  Presumably the
    same features work on FreeBSD.

Where the code does the same thing on all systems, there is no need
for the comments to mention any system by name.  They can just say
what the code does.  That is simplest.

    Differing opinions on the best means to an end does not equate
    to a difference in ideals.  Just because a person thinks that
    "GNU/Linux" is a mouthful (and it is a mouthful) does not mean
    that she doesn't love free software.

There are people who prefer to say just "Linux" because they want
the ideals of GNU and free software to be forgotten; but there are
also many other attitudes people can have.

Rather than trying to guess the motives of anyone in particular, let's
simply do the right thing.