"Based on years of conversations, I am convinced that part of the cause of the problem is the tendency to call the system Linux rather than GNU, and describe it as open source rather than free software."

Summary: Why the best name for the best operating system would be "GNU", not "Linux" (media has twisted the words so as to marginalise GNU and its politics/philosophy)

THE CROWD that says that "LINUX" is simpler to say than "GNU" perhaps doesn't know how to pronounce GNU (not pertinent letters in the acronym). Or maybe it doesn't know the difference between vowels and consonants. GNU is a lot simpler to say than LINUX and in many cases it's also a lot more accurate. In the corporate media not a day goes by without some pundit or self-appointed expert calling some GNU program "Linux command" (even if that programs runs on dozens of different kernels and has no connection to Linux).

Do we need to say "GNU/Linux"? Well, that's actually a compromise. It's Stallman's compromise. As he once said: "When I do this, some people think that it's because I want my ego to be fed, right? Of course, I'm not asking you to call it "Stallmanix"!"

Stallman did not call his work after himself. GNU is Not UNIX. Simple. Factual. It's Linus Torvalds who sought to associate his project with his identity, but that's not the point.

"Stallman did not call his work after himself. GNU is Not UNIX. Simple. Factual."Some people argue that "GNU/Linux" is unjustified as you then need to also name X/Wayland, GNOME/KDE and so on...

But again, remember that GNU predates most of these and it's a very comprehensive set of packages (or pertinent programs). Why not just call it all GNU?

"An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows," Dwight Eisenhower once said. A lot of these experts out there very well know that it started with GNU. Why do they refuse to even use the G word? Or the F word (freedom)?

"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil," Socrates said. Any time someone refuses to give credit to GNU that says more about that someone than it says about GNU, Stallman, or oneself (the one urging to give credit to GNU).

"...remember that GNU predates most of these and it's a very comprehensive set of packages (or pertinent programs). Why not just call it all GNU?""It`s strange that words are so inadequate," T.S. Eliot said, "Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words."

Are people afraid that if they say GNU they would be stigmatised as "Stallman lovers" (or "fans" or whatever)?

What's so wrong about giving credit to the right people?

"When ideas fail," Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, "words come in very handy."

Dave Barry said: "Don`t you wish you had a job like mine? All you have to do is think up a certain number of words! Plus, you can repeat words! And they don`t even have to be true!"

"What's so wrong about giving credit to the right people?"People who refuse to credit GNU or say "Free software" aren't comedians. They mislead with sincerity. They may have even lied to themselves (to justify this).

So nowadays we basically have a bunch of nonsense called "Open Source" -- a term borrowed (copied) from the military and intelligence (spying) industry. Moreover, a system with hundreds of GNU programs is called after only its kernel -- Linux. How come?

Alexis de Tocqueville said: "The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express."

People in the media have kindly taught us that KDE "is Linux", all those things in the command line are "Linux commands", Web servers "run Linux" (not Apache) and so on and so forth...

"People in the media have kindly taught us that KDE "is Linux", all those things in the command line are "Linux commands", Web servers "run Linux" (not Apache) and so on and so forth..."Where's Stallman in all this? Or the many programmers who worked with him on GNU?

"He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words," Elbert Hubbard said. If anyone is humble here (and still deserves credit) it's the GNU camp, not the Linux camp. The "Linux" people have gotten far more credit than they deserve. Some have become far more hungry than humble and now they're being eaten up by Microsoft, unlike GNU. Their love of money became their weakness. The same is true for Git, another Torvalds project. ⬆