A quotation circulates on the Internet, attributed to me, but it wasn’t written by me.
Here’s the text that is circulating. Most of it was copied from statements I have made, but the part italicized here is not from me. It makes points that are mistaken or confused.
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux,” and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use.
Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
The main error is that Linux is not strictly speaking part of the GNU system—whose kernel is GNU Hurd. The version with Linux, we call “GNU/Linux.” It is OK to call it “GNU” when you want to be really short, but it is better to call it “GNU/Linux” so as to give Torvalds some credit.
We don’t use the term “corelibs,” and I am not sure what that would mean, but GNU is much more than the specific packages we developed for it. I set out in 1983 to develop an operating system, calling it GNU, and that job required developing whichever important packages we could not find elsewhere.
-Richard Stallman
The older I get the more I think RMS is rather full of himself insisting that this OS must be called “GNU/Linux”, or even just “GNU”.
Here is my own take on the situation:
GNU was a - for its time - very ambitious project in the 1980s to create a UNIX-like free operating system, that never actually succeeded in its goal (ignoring some borderline unusable alpha versions of GNU/HURD that came out long after people stopped caring), but produced some useful general purpose computing tools in its attempt. When the first Linux distributions came out in the early nineties, they took many of those tools plus many other tools from other projects and bundled it together with many tools of their own for installing, booting and managing the whole thing into an actual, complete and working OS. These days, everything single one of those components from the GNU project can be and sometimes is replaced with something else while still keeping the whole thing recognizable as a Linux system.
To say the whole package is now “the GNU system” or “GNU, just with a Linux kernel” is borderline at best. If you squint a lot you can maybe see there’s a point hidden in there somewhere, but presenting this interpretation of things as a straight-forward fact is disingenuous at best. The truth is, RMS tried to make an operating system but failed. (And all jokes and memes aside, Emacs is not actually a full operating system.) Later, other people who also wanted to create an operating system took some of the pieces from the GNU project, plus the Linux kernel, plus various other pieces from elsewhere, plus some stuff they wrote themselves and succeeded. Admittedly, their success was due to, in large part, those GNU components, but that does not mean that the resulting project is the GNU system.
“I use Linux as my operating system,” I state proudly to the unkempt, bearded man. He swivels around in his desk chair with a devilish gleam in his eyes, ready to mansplain with extreme precision. “Actually”, he says with a grin, "Linux is just the kernel. You use GNU+Linux!’ I don’t miss a beat and reply with a smirk, “I use Alpine, a distro that doesn’t include the GNU coreutils, or any other GNU code. It’s Linux, but it’s not GNU+Linux.”
The smile quickly drops from the man’s face. His body begins convulsing and he foams at the mouth and drops to the floor with a sickly thud. As he writhes around he screams “I-IT WAS COMPILED WITH GCC! THAT MEANS IT’S STILL GNU!” Coolly, I reply “If windows was compiled with gcc, would that make it GNU?” I interrupt his response with “-and work is being made on the kernel to make it more compiler-agnostic. Even you were correct, you wont be for long.”
With a sickly wheeze, the last of the man’s life is ejected from his body. He lies on the floor, cold and limp. I’ve womansplained him to death.
And yet, if GNU and Linux didn’t come together to form this Operating System, whatever you want to call it, the parts that form this OS would have never become popular, and thus Alpine wouldn’t exist, and chances are this conversation would not have been happening. (just playing Devil’s advocate)
No, Richard, it’s ‘Linux’, not ‘GNU/Linux’. The most important contributions that the FSF made to Linux were the creation of the GPL and the GCC compiler. Those are fine and inspired products. GCC is a monumental achievement and has earned you, RMS, and the Free Software Foundation countless kudos and much appreciation.
Following are some reasons for you to mull over, including some already answered in your FAQ.
One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS – more on this later). He named it ‘Linux’ with a little help from his friends. Why doesn’t he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff – including the software I wrote using GCC – and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. You don’t want to be known as a nag, do you?
(An operating system) != (a distribution). Linux is an operating system. By my definition, an operating system is that software which provides and limits access to hardware resources on a computer. That definition applies whereever you see Linux in use. However, Linux is usually distributed with a collection of utilities and applications to make it easily configurable as a desktop system, a server, a development box, or a graphics workstation, or whatever the user needs. In such a configuration, we have a Linux (based) distribution. Therein lies your strongest argument for the unwieldy title ‘GNU/Linux’ (when said bundled software is largely from the FSF). Go bug the distribution makers on that one. Take your beef to Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware. At least there you have an argument. Linux alone is an operating system that can be used in various applications without any GNU software whatsoever. Embedded applications come to mind as an obvious example.
Next, even if we limit the GNU/Linux title to the GNU-based Linux distributions, we run into another obvious problem. XFree86 may well be more important to a particular Linux installation than the sum of all the GNU contributions. More properly, shouldn’t the distribution be called XFree86/Linux? Or, at a minimum, XFree86/GNU/Linux? Of course, it would be rather arbitrary to draw the line there when many other fine contributions go unlisted. Yes, I know you’ve heard this one before. Get used to it. You’ll keep hearing it until you can cleanly counter it.
You seem to like the lines-of-code metric. There are many lines of GNU code in a typical Linux distribution. You seem to suggest that (more LOC) == (more important). However, I submit to you that raw LOC numbers do not directly correlate with importance. I would suggest that clock cycles spent on code is a better metric. For example, if my system spends 90% of its time executing XFree86 code, XFree86 is probably the single most important collection of code on my system. Even if I loaded ten times as many lines of useless bloatware on my system and I never excuted that bloatware, it certainly isn’t more important code than XFree86. Obviously, this metric isn’t perfect either, but LOC really, really sucks. Please refrain from using it ever again in supporting any argument.
Last, I’d like to point out that we Linux and GNU users shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves over naming other people’s software. But what the heck, I’m in a bad mood now. I think I’m feeling sufficiently obnoxious to make the point that GCC is so very famous and, yes, so very useful only because Linux was developed. In a show of proper respect and gratitude, shouldn’t you and everyone refer to GCC as ‘the Linux compiler’? Or at least, ‘Linux GCC’? Seriously, where would your masterpiece be without Linux? Languishing with the HURD?
If there is a moral buried in this rant, maybe it is this:
Be grateful for your abilities and your incredible success and your considerable fame. Continue to use that success and fame for good, not evil. Also, be especially grateful for Linux’ huge contribution to that success. You, RMS, the Free Software Foundation, and GNU software have reached their current high profiles largely on the back of Linux. You have changed the world. Now, go forth and don’t be a nag.
Thanks for listening.
But it’s better to call it GNU/Linux so as to give Torvalds some credit
Stallman is so full of himself, it’s crazy. If it wasn’t for Linus Torvalds’ kernel, his OS utilities would have never taken off. The popularity of Linux is mostly around the server space. Do you really think that GNU with the Hurd kernel would have been sold by corporations, in the way RedHat did, allowing for the domination of the server space that this Operating System now has? Linux got popular, and people bundled FSF tools and their own tools with it, to make complete systems. That’s all that happened. The fact that some of Stallman’s tools got bundled doesn’t mean he has any claim over the name of the entire Operating System. These distributioms would have never existed without Linux, so people call it Linux for short. You are the one that should be asking the Linux community to give you, the FSF and you tools some attribution. But if we do give attribution to other parts of a complete Operating System, then Ubuntu should be called Ubuntu GNU/X11/Wayland/Systemd/APT/Snapd/GNOME/Linux, don’t you think? And if we add all of these tools in, then doesn’t that mean we should also give attribution to all the other tools and utilities bundled on a Ubuntu iso, such as Firefox, LibreOffice, etc. Where can you really draw the line? I draw it at Linux. The Debian team decided to give you attribution. Most distros didn’t because they decided that your utilities are not important enough to add to the naming, or because rhe rest of the world has decided to just call it Linux, because according to them, that’s the part that deserves attribution.
Please forgive any spelling mistakes, I was on a phone. You see how I asked people to forgive my spelling mistakes? That’s the way you, RMS, should ask people to give some attribution to your software.
He’s not wrong. It is GNU Linux but we all just say Linux for short. I think he’s point is that all the work he and his team did was not minor and it’s still used today. Your can understand why he would want some recognition. Wouldn’t you want that if years of your work made such a meaningful contribution? And it’s not like he’s making money off if it either. So let’s allow him to have some credit. It’s not harming anyone.
Btw he is very correct on the principle of Freedom of Computing. It’s more than just open source. The code must respect the user and his freedom. And today with the complete errosion of privacy this principle is more important than ever.
That’s why I use Linux. But because I fl want to pay for software, but because it respects my freedom. If Linux ever stops doing that I’d have to find another OS.
Everyone forgets this core principle: all these Apple and Windows users just think it’s about what the computer/phone can do for me, with zero thought to the fact that these devices don’t respect their freedom and in most cases are actually spying on them and milking them.
What I like about Android is that it’s open source which means there are lots of eyes on the code, although it doesn’t fully respect my freedom. But it’s better than iOS or Windows mobile etc. And if you really want to, you can install something like Lineage and essentially use AOSP which is the purely open source part.
It’s a pity that Ubuntu Touch never succeeded because that would have been a user freedom respecting OS.
