Re: Why is Nvidia given GPL'd code to use in closed source drivers?

Richard Stallman
2003-01-07T13:31:54Z

> See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html for the history of GNU.

I hate to say it to you, but that URL reads like the typical BSD arguments
that I get, where embittered engineers whine about how a kernel is key to
and entire software development process. Both HURD and the BSDs are simply
irrelevant to the entire GNU/GPL phenomenon as we know it

It is true that the Hurd is mostly irrelevant to the success of
GNU/Linux and the free software community today. Nearly everyone who
uses GNU uses it with Linux, very few with the Hurd. I use it with
Linux.

But the fact that you focus on the Hurd, when the Hurd is not the
issue, suggests a possible misunderstanding. Are you identifying the
success of GNU with the success of the Hurd? The Hurd is just one part
of GNU, just one of many programs we developed for GNU. The success
of GNU doesn't require the Hurd.

Some GNU packages have failed completely, and been abandoned. You
have probably never heard of them. But the GNU system overall is a
great success despite that.

I mean, FreeBSD is a free system, yet why didn't it create an entire movement
of free software like Linux did ?

Linux alone didn't do this. It was the combination of GNU and Linux
that did this.

I don't know why the BSD systems did not become as popular; perhaps
it's because they became available some years later.