[gNewSense-users] Why gNS chose UBUNTU as base ?

[arnuld]

I am not strying to start a flame-war. I am just digging into gNS history
for some reasons. I willr eally appreciate any information you will
provide. my question is:

  Why FSF did not choose Debian as base for gNS ?

Did FSF not want to produce a better distro (technically) ? I found 3
places of information that I think describe the decades of experience of
GNU/Linux in as few words as possible:

   http://crux.nu/Main/About
   http://www.slackbook.org/html/introduction-slackware.html
   http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way

When RMS started on GNU Project he did not go with a monolithic kernel. He
also did not go with BSD kernel. IIRC, At that time someone proposed that
idea but RMS wanted something better than UNIX kernel. He is one of the
most amazing Hackers I have ever seen (including DMR, Ken Thompson & Uncle
John McCarthy), he went over to a microkernel based design and started
Hurd. The 1st 2 points of Hurd were "Freedom" and a "Better Kernel". This
paper speaks LOUDLY about the things I am talking about:

  http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd-paper.html

I mean:

PATH-1:  "FSF spent time on UBUNTU -> gNS"

when it could be

PATH-2: "OpenBSD-> Debian -> Slackware -> FreeBSD -> Gentoo ->
         Arch -> CRUX ----> gNS"

well, a large amount of time has already been spent into creating gNS
from, PATH-1, when at the same time it could be spent into PATH-2 which
carries collections of good advice and sane technical-points. What stopped
RMS or other people of FSF from reading about the UNIX lessons or
technical lessons from GNU & Linux development over the 2 decades (except
Free Software Philosophy) and There must be some reason FSF did not chose
PATH-2 or some other path like PATH-3 better than these 2 PATHs I have
mentioned. I want to know that reason, thats all I am asking for.

When I tried to discuss with BLAG folks, they removed me from BLAG mailing
lists :(. I felt sad at this.

My reason is that gNS was not properly organized. I mean the creation of
gNS was as disorganized as the creation of Hurd. after 20 years, Hurd is
still in development, I read the history and all the technical papers and
searched all the Hurd mailing lists archives and found out that problems,
that lead to the failure to release the Hurd at proper time, were
non-technical. if design of Hurd could be well organized we could have
been using a Hurd OS now without all of the that Proprietary shit like
Skype, ttf-ms-fonts kept up to date in repos by distros like Arch and
CRUX). but my point is not Hurd, my point is gNS. All I am saying is that
I see a Design-Pattern emerging 2nd time.

Remeber I am not bashing FSF. I am first to admit that RM Shas doen lots
of great work for people like me. He is very responsible, intelligent and
hard-working  Ethical and Good Society-Builder (thats what I call him :)..
My points are only technical. As usual I always think both in terms of 2
points:  Technical and Philosophical. IMNHO, With in the GNU, Linux,
OpenSource, Debian and other communities and their products, gNS gives us
the 100% Free Software OS it intended along time ago but it falls short on
producing a technically better distro. remember my comparison lies only
with other Linux distros. We don't run GNU. Gentoo, Arch or CRUX all are
Linux distros because they give you all iron chains/cages  (Skype, Adobe
Flash plugin, ttf-ms-fonts, Sun JRE etc)  so that you can close yourself
into those cages, for free  :(

I really do not want that Design-Pattern to emerge for 3rd time. That
scares me to death.



-- arnuld
http://lispmachine.wordpress.com


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