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Comment Re:FSF fumbled the ball on the GNU / Linux name (Score 5, Insightful) 970

Once upon a time, a bunch of Linux developers went up to the FSF and said: "Hey guys! That GNU stuff you've written is waaaay cool, but we see you're missing a kernel for it. How about using Linux? It's Free, GPL'd and all."


And the GNU folks did turn upon the Linux gurus and said "Linux is monolithic. Uuurgggghhhh. We think we can make a better microkernel. Linux shall NOT be an integral part of the GNU project."


So we have a precedence: Linux uses GNU, but GNU (in its purest sense) does not use Linux. In which case, the name Linux/GNU would be justified, but very definitely NOT GNU/Linux.


Yes, Linux has benefited greatly from GNU, but it's very arrogant of RMS to now say "Oh yes, we didn't want to ruin the good name of GNU by including Linux, but now Linux has turned out to be much bigger and better than we thought, so we want to cash in." He can't have it both ways- if Linux is good enough to be labelled GNU it should be the GNU kernel, otherwise leave it alone.

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