Linux the kernel is licensed under the GNU Public license. Linus Torvalds who started the Linux project has said he is happy with the name GNU/Linux since he relied so heavily on gcc (the GNU C Compiler) back then when it started. Additionally, all major Linux distributions rely on gcc (or its progeny, egcs) to compile all the source code for distribution.

To me then, Richard Stallman's request for people to refer to Linux systems as GNU/Linux seems fair to me. I don't care about the arguments about who wrote the most code, as without gcc and thus without the GNU project there wouldn't have been Linux so soon. I can live without networking, the X-Window system and Perl much easier than I can without Emacs, bash, and gcc, but perhaps that's just me.

Tom Christiansen's anti-FSF efforts are wrong and misguided in my opinion.

Created 20 February 1999