Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"

Richard Stallman
2003-01-02T18:30:23Z

Yup. It's high time they realized that Linux exists today solely because a
lazy Finnish student conned a bunch of folks into doing his homework.
]

That's a colorful way of saying that Linux was developed by Linus
Torvalds. If by "Linux" you mean the kernel whose maintenance is
discussed on this list, that is true.

You're surely aware that when the media, companies, and users say
"Linux", they usually do not mean the kernel. They usually have in
mind an entire operating system in which Linux is used. This entire
system wasn't developed by Linus Torvalds--it is basically GNU, which
was started in 1984. The system exists because idealistic programmers
had a vision of a different kind of society and had the determination
to make it happen.

If you want to avoid predictably steering readers into confusion, each
time you say (in one way or another) that Linux was developed by Linus
Torvalds, you need to explain that Linux is one component of the
GNU+Linux system which is what users typically run.

For further discussion, and for responses to all the usual
counterarguments, see http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html.