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

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Mon, 2006-07-31 at 16:43 +0300, Yavor Doganov wrote:
> Jason D. Clinton wrote:
> > 
> > There are /very/ few mentions of Linux in our documentation. This is not
> > worth fighting over. 
> 
> As I wrote above, I see the problem mainly in the user interface.  And
> it's not a fight because we love to fight, really.  
> 
> > File a bug in each module, if you want, and then let the module
> > maintainer decide what to do.
> 
> But some developers are more concerned about the practical advantages
> of Free Software and don't care about freedom issues much.  Such
> developers will mark the bug WONTFIX or will close it, without a
> policy, adopted by GDP.

I think you severely over-estimate my power.  I can't force
people to do anything.  When the GDP makes terminology or
other language recommendations, we are attempting to capture
community or industry consensus.  We typically try to find
the words that are most familiar to people, because that's
what helps our users most.  The great thing about picking
the most familiar words is that they're probably the least
controversial ones.

Occasionally, we have to make somewhat arbitrary choices
between words that have equal popular usage.  When this
happens, people will generally follow our lead because
they value consistency more than they like their choice
of words.  Basically, we can enforce our recommendations
only because people don't care enough to go against them.

The choice of "GNU" vs. "GNU/Linux" is not one of these
cases.  The people who say GNU/Linux are going to continue
to say GNU/Linux, and the people who say Linux are likely
going to continue to say Linux.  A recommendation from the
GDP won't change anything.

My larger concern is where we're even using these words.
Gnome runs on a lot of operating systems, many of which
are not GNU systems.  Our interfaces and documentation
should avoid talking about the operating system whenever
possible.  Let's look at your examples:

> The Linux version does not have this restriction. (GCompris)

This looks valid.  I don't know the surrounding context,
but I assume it's warning of some restriction that only
appears on some operating systems.  I know, for example,
that large parts of HAL currently only work on Linux.
Yes, Linux.  It's a matter of the kernel providing the
hooks, and HAL knowing which hooks to look at. 

> GPM adds mouse support to text-based Linux applications such the
> Midnight Commander. (system-tools-backends)
> The most common archive format on UNIX and Linux systems is the tar
> archive. (File Roller)
> Linux mailers cannot do this task... (Evolution)
> Video-Conferencing application for Linux and other Unices (Ekiga)

The rest of these are just using Linux (and UNIX) to refer
to the general mish-mash of similar operating systems we're
all using.  (GPM might actually be GNU- or Linux-specific,
but I don't know.)

I think what would be a worthwhile terminology recommendation
is how to refer to the general class of systems.  On the web,
among geekdom, we've used stuff like *nix, and the in-crowd
knows what the in-crowd is saying.  But of course, our users
aren't necessarily in the in-crowd.

--
Shaun