Now FSF has a distribution

Evan Leibovitch evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org
Mon Nov 6 16:43:39 UTC 2006


Robert Brockway wrote:
> The FSF is sponsoring:
> http://www.fsf.org/news/gnewsense
>
> I can't think of any previous occassion in which the FSF has sponsored
> a distro.

Those of us longer of tooth will recall that  Debian's original claim to
fame was its sponsorship by the FSF, which paid Ian Murdock a salary
during the distro's earliest days. I, for one, am not surprised that
more details exist regarding the 1996 split than about the relationship
itself.

Of course there are at least two sides to every story.

Debian's POV (from Bruce Perens):
http://www.educ.umu.se/~bjorn/mhonarc-files/debian-announce/msg00014.html
http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/9603/0480.html

FSF's POV (from Richard Stallman):
http://archive.humbug.org.au/ujgKlojfO1uLC2whuEzAUA==

Frankly, given all the baggage and history I find the release of
Gnewsense almost hilarous, as it's trivial to maintain a 100%
free-software installation of Debian or Ubuntu today without the FSF's
help. OTOH, It finally gives those who are highly bugged by the phrase
"Linux system" a fire hydrant around which to congregate and decry the
linguisic insult of the masses. Maybe this means they'll leave the rest
of us alone on that issue, in which case the release is worthwhile.

- Evan

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