[Fsf-friends] Request to RedHat

[Arko Provo Mukherjee]

On Sat, 2003-03-01 at 06:09, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay wrote:
> Do you think any request to Red Hat to change the name of their distro
> to Red Hat GNU/Linux will work?
> 
> We can try that as it is the most popular distro and the name can reach
> many people.
> 
> Arko
> 
> hi,
> some very critical issues being poked at in the mail above. one stating that
> RH is the most popular distribution, based on controversial empirical
> research data, i presume that it cannot be written as such. and two,the
> issue of branding. loathsome as it might seem to GNU/Linux community,
> branding and brand differentiation plays an important role in creating a
> market. Every company invests substantially in brand building and ensuring
> the brand recall. RH being a major commercial player in the game is no
> exception. The logo of the blazing redhat is one of the unique signatures in
> the market. That being the case, companies are usually not quite keen on
> changing and/or modifying the nature and statement of their product. This is
> not to say that people and companies do not change names. They do. Witness
> Accenture's new avataar and a host of others. But these are cash rich
> entities, question remains when it is imperative to keep the FLOSS momentum
> going, is it really necessary to nitpick ? Or in other words, on a scale of
> one to ten, how important do you think this advocacy is ? And how much of a
> 'brand dilution' will RH be keen on swallowing ? FLOSS is philosophy as much
> as economics. And market economics dictate that such renaming when the brand
> awareness curve is on the upswing is not really called for.
> while i agree with your viewpoint the perhaps FLOSS interests would be
> better served if your suggestion was incorporated, and this is also
> logically connected with your earlier posts - i am a bit surprised as to why
> you seem keen to take a stand on the list ! did you write to RH on a
> personal level, stating your reasons and they neither replied nor responded
> ?
> awaiting further knowledge
> regards
> sankarshan
> 
>

Hello Sankar-dada,

Ok, let me try to explain myself.

Firstly, lots of people now talk of open source movement, etc.
But, very few know about FSF and GNU.
People who know very well about Linux don't know the term GNU.
This, I think is not a very nice situation.
As a member of a few user groups, I think that the main objective of
user groups should be to spread the philosophy and give support to the
users.
Asking people to call Linux as GNU/Linux is a very important step
towards that as it helps to spread the philosophy of FSF.(which I
believe and I hope you do too.)
But there are other reasons too.
Imagine a 'Linux' system having no GCC,GDB,GLIBC etc.
Will it work correctly and properly?
They are essential parts of the OS.
There might be hoards of other products in a standard distro, but that
doesn't change the OS, does it?
If you install 1 million software packages on windows, the os remains as
windows. I think it is the same with GNU/Linux.
One should give respect and credit to the FSF for what they have done.
That's why I think it is important to call Linux as GNU/Linux.
A little more effort from us to call a little longer name can really
help to spread the philosophy of free software.
As you see, in these days Linux is replacing Windows in several places
on account of Money shortage, Quality including stability and security,
but nowhere on grounds of the philosophical differences that the FSF is
talking about.
We say Open Source Software but never say Free Software.
So spreading their message is important, which we can by calling the
system GNU/Linux.
I personally know more than 5 people who knew about Linux but never
heard of GNU or RMS before I told them.
This is disheartening.
I hope I have been able to clarify my points.
Regards,
Arko
 
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