Some general principles of naming

[Rodent of Unusual Size]

Richard Stallman wrote:
> 
> The GNU Project is the system's principal developer, so GNU ought to
> be first in the list.

You've said this before, and you've yet to convince me.
I do not believe you can fairly make the 'principal developer'
claim unless the project was working to the same goals as
the Linux project.  Which, to the best of my knowledge,
it wasn't.  GNU was working toward *a* free Unix-like
system.  They have, AFAIK, been unsuccessful in achieving
that goal to date.  However, much of the work they put into
that effort was adopted by *a* system project which *did*
complete a similar goal.

Assume I wrote 100K lines of code, and didn't achieve the overall
goal I had in mind when writing it.  Nevertheless, the code
worked inasfar as it had progressed.  Now someone else takes that,
adds 10K lines of their own, and achieves a goal almost identical
to my original one.  It sounds as though, by your lights, I
would be the 'principal developer' of the result.  By my lights,
however, I would be, perhaps, the 'principal contributor,' and
I would make it clear that I had *not* been working on the
latter project, or contributing effort to make it succeed.

I continue to regard your position as an attempt at dog-in-the-
mangerism, capitalising on someone else's success to promote
something which can already stand more than well enough on its
own merits.  The Gnu Project can't claim to have achieved the
goal of a complete free Unix-like system because it *didn't*.
Someone else did, but, as Daniel Posin said, they stood on the
shoulders of giants.  For the giants to claim they saw the
same thing as those on their shoulders is inappropriate.
-- 
#ken    P-)}

Ken Coar                    <http://Web.Golux.Com/coar/>
Apache Software Foundation  <http://www.apache.org/>
"Apache Server for Dummies" <http://ASFD.MeepZor.Com/>