On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 11:52:28 -0700
Gene Holmerud
OK, time for a straight answer, and to clear this up. "GNU" is an acronym for GNU's Not Unix.
Note the recursive (circular) definition. I'm sure it was picked to be a reflection of a powerful programing technique.
Actually the effort we refer to as GNU was going well before Linus posted his beta version. It was an open writing of all of the commands and utilities that makes Unix tick, and therefore, not owned by AT&T, et. al. Linux was the central part of the OS (kernel) that made a complete break from Unix ownership, licensing, etc.
Linux vs. GNU/Linux is an argument in how history should look at it, and maybe a lawyer or two (come to think of it, they should be history, too).
RMS had been fighting to get GNU recognized in the Linux community
almost from the first time Linux was announced. Even before the Boston
Linux and Unix group became independent of the Boston Computer Society
in 1994, he came to one of our meetings and totally disrupted it. We
subsequently met and re-evaluated our SIG name, and decided not to
change it. I believe that Debian was the first distro to formally adopt
GNU/Linux with the Red Hat and SuSE joining only very recently. By
recognizing the GNU project, we formally recognize the open source
movement and their contribution to this movement that effectively made
Linux and FreeBSD possible. But, The FSF (eg. the parent of GNU) was not
the only player in the game. Many of the commands and utilities come
from the University of California, Berkeley and are released under that
license.
--
Jerry Feldman