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GNU Terry Pratchett
(www.gnuterrypratchett.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
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can someone explain the joke/reference please?
The Clacks towers are a sort of proto internet in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. In that world, prefixing a message with GNU and sending on the "Overhead" (a message meant to be internal to the network) means it is just passed along and not logged.
The HTTP protocol allows for any headers to be sent in responses. These headers are ignored unless they serve a purpose (User-Agent, Bearer, Host, etc.) this is a way for you to embed a "GNU " message in your website/email headers as a way to silently remember someone (in this case the Author of Discworld).
If you go to debian.org and hit f-12, and look at the response headers, you'll see one called "X-Clacks-Overhead" with the value "Terry Pratchett"
aw that's nice. i wondered what it had to do with the GNU projects but turns out it's just a reference to real world GNU.
It's definitely a reference to the GNU projects. That particular story has a lot of parallels to the history of programming, with a bunch of nerdy hackers helping the hero beat an evil corporation.
It's definitely a nod to Stallman in the books, there's a good overlap between Linux nerds and Discworld nerds lol