Re: Draining the Swamp: A Technical User's Experience

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

    > GNOME is not supposed to treat all operating systems equally.  A GNU
    > package exists to be part of one particular operating system, GNU.

    Linux is not part of the GNU project.

That is correct.  The development of Linux was entirely independent of
GNU, and none of the code in Linux comes from the GNU Project as far
as I know.

     You may have decided to build upon the
    Linux OS for the GNU project, but that does not make Linux GNU. 

Linux is not GNU, and Linux is not an operating system--it's a kernel.
A kernel needs the rest of the system if it is to run and be useful.
People normally use Linux in combination with the GNU operating
system; this combination is the GNU/Linux operating system.

GNU/Linux is not the same as the GNU system, but it is very
similar--the main difference being that they have different kernels.
See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html for more explanation.

Using the same name "Linux" for the kernel and for the whole system
leads to confusion because readers often cannot tell whether a given
sentence refers to the kernel or the system.  It easy to write a
paragraph about "Linux" in which the kernel fits some statements while
the whole system fits others, but neither one fits the whole
paragraph--but readers who don't know the difference will think
all the statements are about one and the same thing.  This problem
shows up to a certain extent in your message.

The best way to avoid the problem is to distinguish rigorously
between Linux, the kernel, and GNU/Linux, the whole system.