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

Richard Stallman
2003-01-09T23:05:02Z

Calling the system "Linux" denies the GNU Project credit for the GNU
operating system. Most of the people who do that still give us credit
for the specific programs we developed. These words

GNU is not so important in new system. I take gcc and glibc as to be
outside the GNU project.

take a further step: they deny the GNU Project the credit even for GNU
programs (he said, earlier, this is on the grounds that companies have
contributed to them). That's like denying Linus Torvalds the credit
for writing the kernel, Linux, because companies have helped that too.

When people become sufficiently attached to a false conclusion, they
sometimes fabricate ever more extreme falsehoods in order to deny it.

If you insist with such arguments, you risk that someone will rewrite
the basic GNU tools outside the GNU project

Some GNU packages are tools; some are not tools.

People can, of course, write other programs to do the same jobs as GNU
packages. They might do this for many reasons. That message seems to
suggest that people might do this simply to deny the GNU Project the
appreciation that we now get for the work we have done.

Has anyone been so completely warped by hatred of GNU? I don't know,
but it does not really matter. The role of GCC in the development and
popularity of GNU/Linux is a fact of history, and subsequent
developments cannot change it.