Who owns linux ?

[Stryker]

quote:Originally posted by Darth Jimmy James:
if by GNU, you mean all the UNIX crap... >yawn<

the Linux kernel is so better than that. why can't you guys ditch the tired old crap and move on?

what are you talking about?

[slave]

Who owns Linux?

Why SCO, of course!

[Stryker]

quote:Originally posted by Linux User #5225982375:
Who owns Linux?

Why SCO, of course!

they can't prove it though

[JesusRocks]

Linux is a Trademark of Linus Torvalds

which means he could sue SCO for Slander.

[JesusRocks]

Linux isnt really owned by anyone, however the fork that everybody is using is controlled by Linus, however if he was to be paid by Bill Gates to close all the code any person could get his most recent GPLed fork and keep developing it.

So nobody really owns Linux, Linus owns the name with Trademark laws, but nothing in the GPL says you cant change the name.

I suggest you goto www.gnu.org and read these
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html

[flap]

quote:stallman wouldn't have had shit without Linus making an OS kernel

There's a number of alternative kernels that could be, and are, used to create variants of the GNU system, so that isn't true. And actually it's Linus who wouldn't have had shit without GNU existing, partiularly since the code provided by GNU was a lot more than is in Linux.

 

quote:if by GNU, you mean all the UNIX crap... >yawn<

What, "UNIX crap" as in 'the operating system'? Yeah, I don't even know why they bother putting that bit in. It just takes up disk space.

 

quote:the Linux kernel is so better than that.

I doubt even _you_ know what you mean by that.

[insomnia]

quote:Originally posted by flap:
No he didn't. He created a kernel.

Yes he did.

Even before Linux 1.x and before he got in contact with GNU, Torvalds could already run some small Mimix apps on his kernel.
That does make it an OS.

[insomnia]

quote:Originally posted by Stryker:
it is open. But still owned

If Linus didn't own Linux, it coudn't remain Open Source.
Any other person could copyright it, own it, and close its source...  

[flap]

quote:Even before Linux 1.x and before he got in contact with GNU, Torvalds could already run some small Mimix apps on his kernel.
That does make it an OS.

So what? If he put bits on the Minix system together with his kernel, that doesn't mean he wrote them. All he wrote was a kernel.

[insomnia]

quote:Originally posted by flap:
So what? If he put bits on the Minix system together with his kernel, that doesn't mean he wrote them. All he wrote was a kernel.

He did wrote some apps (for testing).
How useless this may be, that does make it an OS(but not GNU/Linux).
GNU made the first usefull apps (But not everything!).

[ October 15, 2003: Message edited by: insomnia ]

[mushrooomprince]

I think that the question wasn't very specific in the first place.  

"Who owns linux? "


does that mean who owns the linux kernel, or who owns the trademark linux ?  Its very confusing, however i feel that it is clear now that no one really owns linux "itself", because you can't steel it and you can make changes to it.  Not only that, you could make copy's and give it to all your friends and that would be perfectly legal.  But the only thing you can't seem to do is making something that isn't linux and call it "linux".