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From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
To: jalvo@mbay.net
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
In-reply-to: <nbdq1vo9enjh9c6gnh68mpg0ebt7n22fhi@4ax.com> (message from John
	Alvord on Thu, 09 Jan 2003 00:57:49 -0800)
Subject: Re: Nvidia and its choice to read the GPL "differently"
Reply-to: rms@gnu.org
References: <E18WB8R-0004k9-00@fencepost.gnu.org> <010101c2b786$794d87a0$0200a8c0@wsl3> <nbdq1vo9enjh9c6gnh68mpg0ebt7n22fhi@4ax.com>
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Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 04:52:50 -0500
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     If there was an ATT/Linux and an Intel/Linux,
    having a GNU/Linux would make some sense... but that is not the way it
    is. GNU/Linux is singular, so Linux makes a reasonable contraction.

It would be reasonable, if not for the fact that it gives the wrong
idea of who developed the system and--above all--why.

    Another puzzling aspect to me is that GNU really goes beyond what I
    think of as an operating system. I have a suite of GNU tools installed
    on a Windows NT machine and I use make, ls, cp, mv all day. So I am
    using GNU on a foreign operating system... or does my usage needs to
    be labeled as GNU/Windows NT?

The tools are just a part of the GNU software packages, which is only
part of the GNU system.  And underneath those tools would be another
entire operating system, entirely different from GNU.  All in all,
that's a very different situation from GNU/Linux.  We wouldn't call it
"GNU/Windows".

(I'm going to add this to http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html;
thanks.)
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