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CaptainChaos74 t1_jaxkipn wrote

Reply to comment by lavahot in Terry Pratchett: Facing Extinction (2013) - Author Terry Pratchett, having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, returns to Borneo, where 18 years earlier, he encountered wild orangutans for the first time [01:01:50] by BigJimNorton

No, that's just a coincidence. GNU stands for GNU's Not UNIX (yes, it's a recursive acronym).

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lavahot t1_jaxkwj7 wrote

That just sounds like the creator of GNU was a fan of Terry Pratchett's humor.

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CaptainChaos74 t1_jaxnp2c wrote

Possibly, but recursive acronyms were already a popular joke in the hacker space when GNU came out in 1984, while Going Postal wasn't published until 2004.

I think it might actually be the reverse: Terry Pratchett might have been paying homage to Richard Stallman. Pratchett was a computer geek, and the book is about automated communication, like a computer network, so it's not beyond the realm of possibilities.

The GNU in the book are disruptors who fight against the big corporation that runs the semaphore, just like the real-life GNU was a disruptor that went up against the big corporations that sold UNIX. And in the end they won. If you have an Android phone, it runs GNU/Linux. 😀

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lavahot t1_jaxopj8 wrote

Wow, TIL! Thanks for the analysis. I knew it was too good a coincidence to not be related. I'm not that familiar with Terry Pratchett's work, and I always think his work is older than it actually is.

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mostlikelynotarobot t1_jaztnmf wrote

i’m not sure gnu people would still consider the proliferation of android to be a win

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