In his own words; the boss of Torvalds (JZ) was only introduced to "open source" almost two decade after GNU

THE mainstream media and various companies inspired by this media (sometimes literally owning the media) have successfully rebranded just about everything "LINUX" -- even programs that have nothing to do with the kernel. The Linux Foundation has turned this unwanted mass-branding into lots of money and it destroys history, it's not just an insult to attribution/credit. People aren't being informed about Software Freedom and instead come to think of GNU software as "cheap stuff" or "Open Source" (another rebrand facilitated by media that's hostile towards Software Freedom). In a way that's just morally wrong on many levels.

"Those "Linux commands" have nothing to do with the kernel (Linux)."GNU software runs on many platforms (yes, even Windows in some scenarios), so labeling it "Linux" would moreover underestimate the efforts going into portability or cross-platform (or platform neutrality) capabilities, not to mention elegance traits. GNU software had evolved for nearly 4 decades before it became as stable and as reliable as it is today.

If writers call a certain Free software program "Linux command" (which is very common) may we encourage opening the command line, running man [command]? This usually reveals that such "Linux commands" are in fact just GNU programs, which means credit is misplaced. The writers can be corrected or at least informed (to tackle the misconception). Those "Linux commands" have nothing to do with the kernel (Linux). Here's an example ("cat" command). ⬆