Whatever else it might be, it is definitely not Unix.
this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
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GNU and libre have the highest level of good thoughts when I see them in relation to technology.
It's going to have terrible UX, a complete pain to build, the contribution process is going to be some git send-email mailing list nonsense, it's going to expect you to have read the manual (probably in info just to be difficult) cover to cover before you even consider using it.
But on the other hand it probably has at least decent documentation, it probably works reasonably well, and there's zero chance of rug pulls, closed source add-ons, etc.
Overall I would say it has negative connotations. If you said "check out this package manager, Fooly", I'd think "ok might be good, might not". If you said "check out this package manager, GNU Fooly", I would say hell no. It'll be awful.
It's the software equivalent of books that have "how to read this book" sections.
All in all, we will only have ourselves to blame.
Are we talking about the license or about the software collection? GNU is a huge part of Linux operating systems and open source history. I don't have a problem with GNU and don't know why anyone would.
Linux is only the kernel for the OS. GNU is most everything else that makes Linux (GNU Linux) an OS.
That's why I said "GNU is a huge part of Linux operating systems". Both parts are important for the history of Linux based operating systems.
Oh, I wasn't arguing. I was clarifying for anyone reading the thread and out of the loop.
I think of it as being made by one of few really trustworthy organizations in tech.
More trustworthy than Microslop? /s
More trustworthy than Google?
I generally think of GNU as being foundational (or, old) and principled.
I really appreciate the contributions they've made to both core utilities and especially philosophy.
But I don't see them as lighting up the world or adding anything new lately. I think of vaporware like Hurd with 1000 year dev cycles. I think of them recommending Linux distributions like Trisquel that let perfect be the enemy of pretty good.
i've used trisquel on my primary machine at some point in the past, it was hassle free and pretty much just ubuntu
Oh, that's good to hear! Always had the impression that the blob-free distros caused compatibility headaches, but glad to be wrong I suppose.
Edit: And I should say I didn't mean to pick on Trisquel in particular, it was just the one GNU recommended distro I remembered by name.
To be fair, Hurd recently made a decent splash. And strictly speaking, it's troubles weren't specifically GNU. Without all the legal quagmire around BSD we would all be on it. Linux would just be some niche hobby project just like Hurd. It was unfortunately a victim of timing. Both in that sense and the direction computing took in the future. Heavy IPC across multiple discrete CPU cores is a bad idea for performance. It works but it's slooooow
Hurd recently made a decent splash
It did? When? Where?
GNU is a trusted quality stamp. Me see GNU, me go GET.
If its gnu software it probably has integration with emacs
Honestly hard to say. Very much have respect for existing ubiquitous tools and for their copyleft and open source advocacy but they come across as very 'elitist' and reluctant to move to more common open source patterns (for better or worse). Like it seems that contributing to a GNU project seems challenging in needing to get involved with mailing lists and emailing patches etc. Although it seems GUIX uses Codeberg so maybe that stance has softened a bit.
I don't know much about it. All I know is GNU software is somehow important to how Linux works on the low-level layers.