Messages in this thread |  | | From | Richard Stallman <> | Subject | Re: Why is Nvidia given GPL'd code to use in closed source drivers? | Date | Sun, 12 Jan 2003 06:54:59 -0500 |
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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 http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#alienate.
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