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

Richard Stallman
2003-01-12T11:46:23Z

I also note that you didn't start your campaign to rename it lignux or
GNU/Linux until it was well established and very commonly known as Linux.

I think we started in 1994 (although mostly privately until 1996).

To a lot of people, myself included, this feels like an attempt to steal
credit and draw attention to yourself and the FSF by trying to hijack the
name of a project that you didn't contribute to, but instead used tools you
provided such as gcc and glibc.

If you believe this is a "project that we didn't contribute to", it's
natural you would believe the rest. That's why calling the system
"Linux" is so unfair. We started developing this system, and we
developed more of it than anyone else; but thinking of it as "Linux"
leads people to focus on the part that we didn't do, and devalue our
part. (See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#tools.)

That's why we can never go along with calling the system "Linux". No matter
how many people do that, we will keep on pointing out why that is wrong.

It may be publicity (and there may be no such thing as bad press), but
it's not favorable publicity, and it rubs a lot of people who have been
involved with Linux a long time the wrong way.

There are people who get angry at us for correcting the mistaken
picture, but in the long run it would be self-defeating (as well as
dishonorable) to bow to such pressure. See