GNU/Linux naming controversy

The GNU/Linux naming controversy is a dispute among members of the free and open source software community. It centers around how to refer to the computer operating systems commonly called "Linux", as the term advocated by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and some other proponents of free software for such systems is "GNU/Linux".

Measuring the prevalence of each term is often rife with speculation. For example, in an article disclaiming any actual indication of market share, among the "top ten distributions" listed at DistroWatch, two (Debian GNU/Linux and Knoppix live GNU/Linux system) use the term "GNU/Linux" in their official names, four (Mandriva Linux, Mepis Linux, Slackware Linux, and Gentoo Linux) use "Linux" in their names, one (PCLinuxOS) uses a derivative name, and three (Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora) use neither "Linux" nor "GNU/Linux" in their names [ [http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major Top Ten Distributions] on DistroWatch.com] (however Ubuntu uses "Linux" in its slogan, "Linux for human beings").

History

Plans for the GNU operating system were made in 1983 by Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation. In September of that year, Stallman published a manifesto in "Dr. Dobb's Journal" detailing his new project publicly, and outlining his vision of free software. Software development work began in January 1984. GNU was to be a complete Unix-like operating system composed entirely of free software. By 1991, the GNU mid-level portions of the operating system were almost complete, and the upper level could be supplied by the X Window System, but the lower level (kernel, device drivers, system-level utilities and daemons) was still mostly lacking. The GNU kernel, GNU Hurd, was still in its infancy. The Hurd followed an ambitious design which proved unexpectedly difficult to implement and has only been marginally usable.

In 1991, the first version of the Linux kernel was released by Linus Torvalds. Early Linux kernel developers ported GNU code, including the GNU C Compiler, to run on Linux. Later, when the GNU developers learned of Linux, they adapted other parts of GNU to run on the Linux kernel. This work filled the remaining gaps in running a completely free operating system.

Over the next few years, there were a number of suggestions for how to name operating systems using the Linux kernel and GNU components. In 1992, the Yggdrasil Linux distribution adopted the name "Linux/GNU/X". In Usenet and mailing-list discussions, one can find usages of "GNU/Linux" as early as 1992 [cite newsgroup
url=http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.misc/msg/698d1e2b49c5854e
title=Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Alpha release Linux/GNU/X ...
newsgroup=comp.unix.misc
date=1992-11-26
author=Jamie Mazer
accessdate=2008-02-03] and of "GNU+Linux" as early as 1993. [cite newsgroup
url=http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux/msg/dcf89e95ca953b69
title=Re: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux/msg/dcf89e95ca953b69
newsgroup=comp.os.linux
date=1993-05-18
author=Rodrigo Vanegas
accessdate=2008-02-03] The Debian project switched to calling itself "GNU/Linux" in early 1994; [cite newsgroup
url=http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.misc/msg/4c19177c383c9b21
title=Linux/GNU in EE Times
newsgroup=comp.os.linux.misc
date=1994-05-12
author=Stephen Benson
id=[e-mail]
accessdate=2008-01-31] Debian founder Ian Murdock later noted that this change was made in response to a request by Richard Stallman (who initially proposed "Lignux," but suggested "GNU/Linux" instead after hearing complaints about the awkwardness of the former term). [Sam Williams, "Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software", [http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch10.html chapter 10] (O'Reilly, 2002).] GNU's June 1994 "Bulletin" describes "Linux" as a "free Unix system for 386 machines" (with "many of the utilities and libraries" from GNU), [cite web
url=http://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull17.html
title=GNU's Bulletin, vol. 1 no. 17|] but the January 1995 "Bulletin" switched to the term "GNU/Linux" instead. [cite web
url=http://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull18.html
title=GNU's Bulletin, vol. 1 no. 18|] Stallman's and the FSF's efforts to include "GNU" in the name started around 1994, but were reportedly mostly via private communications (such as the abovementioned request to Debian) until 1996. [Richard Stallman, " [http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/1/12/55 Re: Why is Nvidia given GPL'd code to use in closed source drivers?] ," "linux-kernel mailing list" (12 January 2003).] [cite newsgroup
url=http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.misc/msg/1241a2919efc4bc3
title=Linux is a GNU system and the DWARF support
newsgroup=comp.os.linux.misc
date=1994-09-08
author=Matt Welsh
accessdate=2008-02-03 "RMS's idea (which I have heard first-hand) is that Linux systemsshould be considered GNU systems with Linux as the kernel."] In May 1996, Stallman released Emacs 19.31 with the Autoconf system target "linux" changed to "lignux" (shortly thereafter changed to "linux-gnu" in emacs 19.32), and included an essay "Linux and the GNU system" suggesting that people "use the terms "Linux-based GNU system" (or "GNU/Linux system" or "Lignux" for short) to refer to the combination of the Linux kernel and the GNU system". He later used "GNU/Linux" exclusively, and the essay was superseded by Stallman's 1997 essay, "Linux and the GNU project". [http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html GNU project website] ]

GNU code in Unix-like Linux-based systems

A Unix-like, Linux-based operating system has many components, including the Linux kernel, software developed by the GNU project, and substantial amounts of software such as the X Window System by other authors.Almost all Linux-based desktops and servers do use the GNU components, such as the GNU C Library (glibc), GNU Core Utilities (Coreutils), and bash.In an analysis of the source code for packages comprising Red Hat Linux 7.1, a typical Linux distribution, the total size of the packages from the GNU project was found to be much larger than the Linux kernel. [cite web|author=David A. Wheeler|url=http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc/redhat71-v1/redhat71sloc.html |title=More Than a Gigabuck: Estimating GNU/Linux's Size|date=2002-07-29 |quote=the total of the GNU project's code is much larger than the Linux kernel's size. Thus, by comparing the total contributed effort, it's certainly justifiable to call the entire system "GNU/Linux" and not just "Linux".|] Determining exactly what constitutes the "operating system" "per se" is a matter of continuing debate.

On the other hand, some embedded systems, such as handheld devices and Internet appliances, are engineered with space efficiency in mind and use a Linux kernel with few or no components of GNU.A system running μClinux is likely to substitute uClibc for glibc and BusyBox for Coreutils.Everyone, including the FSF, agrees that "GNU/Linux" is not an appropriate name for these systems.

Opinions supporting "GNU/Linux"

The FSF justifies the name "GNU/Linux" primarily on the grounds that the GNU project was specifically developing a complete system, of which they argue the kernel Linux filled one of the final gaps; the large number of GNU components and GNU source code used in such systems is a secondary argument:

In addition, the FSF also argues that "GNU/Linux recognizes the role that our idealism played in building our community, and helps the public recognize the practical importance of these ideals" [http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html GNU/Linux FAQ] , the Free Software Foundation's responses to common objections to the "GNU/Linux" name.] , in contrast to the focus on "technical advantage" rather than "freedom" of the Linux kernel developers [Richard Stallman, [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/linux-gnu-freedom.html Linux, GNU, and freedom] (2002): "Calling this variant of the GNU system "Linux" plays into the hands of people who choose their software based only on technical advantage, not caring whether it respects their freedom."] [Linus Torvalds, [http://groups.google.com/group/fa.linux.kernel/msg/dc06a9cc074b44d4 "linux-kernel" mailing list] : "Besides, as the whole notion of 'free software' has very little to do with the kernel, please just link to some open source site" (28 April 2002).] . In the case of the Linux kernel, notable and recurring examples of this focus on technical advantage over freedom come from the long-time inclusion in the Linux kernel of many non-free firmware files and other files with non-free license terms.

The ordinary understanding of "operating system" includes both the kernel — the specific subsystem that directly interfaces with the hardware — and the "userland" software that is employed by the user and by application software to control the computer. Moreover, both the name "GNU" and the name "Linux" are intentionally related to the name "Unix", and Unix has always conceptually included the C library and userland tools as well as the kernel. In the 1991 release notes for versions 0.01 to 0.11 of the Linux kernel (which was not released under the GNU General Public License until version 0.12 [Linus Torvalds, " [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/old-versions/RELNOTES-0.12 Release Notes for Linux v0.12] " (January 1992).] ), Torvalds wrote, "Sadly, a kernel by itself gets you nowhere [...] Most of the tools used with linux are GNU software." [Linus Torvalds, " [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/old-versions/RELNOTES-0.01 Notes for linux release 0.01] " (September 1991).] Torvalds also wrote during the 1992 Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate that, "As has been noted (not only by me), the linux kernel is a miniscule part of a complete system". [Linus Torvalds, [http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/msg/ac1b04eb0e09c03e comp.os.minix post] (January 31, 1992).]

The use of the word "Linux" to refer to the kernel, the operating system, and entire distributions, often leads to confusion about the distinctions among the three. Many GNU packages are a key part of almost every Linux distribution. Media sources frequently make erroneous statements such as claiming that the entire Linux operating system (rather than simply the kernel) was written from scratch by Torvalds in 1991;Fact|date=June 2007 that Torvalds directs the development of other components such as graphical interfaces or the GNU tools; or that new releases of the kernel involve a similar degree of user-visible change as do new versions of proprietary operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, where many things besides the kernel change simultaneously.

Because of this confusion, legal threats and public relations campaigns apparently directed against the kernel, such as those launched by the SCO Group or the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI), have been misinterpreted by many commentators who assume that the whole operating system is being targeted. These organisations have even been accused of deliberately exploiting this confusion. [cite web
title=SCO-Caldera v IBM
url=http://www.mozillaquest.com/Linux03/ScoSource-10_Story01.html
author=Mike Angelo
date=28 April 2003
quote=Generally, SCO's Caldera v IBM Complaint is vague and confusing as to whether the accusations involve the Linux kernel, the GNU/Linux operating system, Linux distributions, Linux applications, or whatever.] [cite web
quote=SCO has used "Linux" to mean "all free software", or "all free software constituting a UNIX-like operating system." This confusion, which the Free Software Foundation warned against in the past, is here shown to have the misleading consequences the Foundation has often predicted
author=Eben Moglen
date=27 June 2003
url=http://www.fsf.org/licensing/sco/sco-v-ibm.html
title=FSF Statement on SCO v IBM] ] [cite web
quote=In particular, Stallman criticized the [Ken Brown/AdTI] report for capitalizing on common confusion between the Linux kernel, which Stallman says "Linus really wrote", with the full GNU operating system and associated software, which can be and generally is used with the Linux kernel.
author=Lisa Stapleton
publication=LinuxInsider
url=http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/34069.html
title=Stallman: Accusatory Report Deliberately Confuses
date=27 May 2004]

In response to suggestions that Stallman's renaming efforts stem from egotism or personal pique, Stallman has responded that his interest is not in giving credit to himself, but to the GNU Project: "Some people think that it's because I want my ego to be fed. Of course, I'm not asking you to call it "Stallmanix"."Richard Stallman, " [http://www.gnu.org/events/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.html Free Software: Freedom and Cooperation] ", transcript of speech at New York University in New York, New York (29 May 2001).] Stallman has admitted to irritation, although he believes it to be justified in response to seeing "an idealistic project stymied and made ineffective, because people don't usually give it the credit for what it has done," concluding "If you're an idealist like me, that can ruin your whole decade." [Richard Stallman, " [http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/9904.0/0299.html Re: GNU/Linux] ", linux-kernel mailing list (3 April 1999).]

In response to another common argument (see below), the FSF acknowledges that many people have contributed to GNU/Linux and that a short name cannot credit all of them, but argues that this cannot justify calling the system "Linux":

Opinions supporting "Linux"

"Linux" is by far the more widespread name, [ [http://www.google.com/trends?q=GNU%2FLinux%2C+Linux Google Trends: GNU/Linux, Linux ] ] , while references to "GNU/Linux" appear only infrequently in mainstream sources. "Linux" has more historical momentum because it is the name Torvalds has used for the combined system since 1991, while Stallman only began asking people to call the system "GNU/Linux" in the mid 1990s, some time after the "Linux" name had already become popular. "Linux" also is shorter and easier to say than "GNU/Linux".

Eric S. Raymond writes (in the "Linux" entry of the Jargon File):

Linus Torvalds has said in the documentary Revolution OS, when asked if the name GNU/Linux was justified:

An earlier comment by Torvalds on the naming controversy was:

In a similar vein, the debate over the name for the operating system is sometimes characterized as a trivial distraction; e.g. John C. Dvorak wrote "the Linux community spends too much of its energy on things such as nomenclature (like the name GNU/Linux versus Linux)." [John C. Dvorak, " [http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,25130,00.asp Is Linux Your next OS?] ", "PC Magazine" (5 March 2002).]

The "Linux Journal" speculated that Stallman's advocacy of the combined name stems from frustration that "Linus got the glory for what [Stallman] wanted to do." [cite web
url=http://linux4u.jinr.ru/usoft/WWW/LJ/issue30/issue30.html#ftp30
title=From the Publisher: On the Politics of Freedom
publisher=Linux Journal #30 (October 1996)
quote=Perhaps RMS is frustrated because Linus got the glory for what RMS wanted to do|]

Others have suggested that, regardless of the merits, Stallman's persistence in what sometimes seems a lost cause makes him and GNU look bad. For example, Larry McVoy (author of the proprietary software BitKeeper, once used to manage Linux kernel development, until the gratis license was revoked in the reverse-engineering controversy) opined that "claiming credit only makes one look foolish and greedy". [Larry McVoy, " [http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/9904.0/0301.html Re: GNU/Linux] ", linux-kernel mailing list (3 April 1999).]

Many users and vendors who prefer the name "Linux" point to the inclusion of non-GNU, non-kernel tools such as the Apache HTTP Server, the X Window System or the K Desktop Environment in end-user operating systems based on the Linux kernel. As stated by Jim Gettys, originator of X:

Pronunciation

Although "GNU/Linux" (pronounced IPA|/gəˈnuː ˈslæʃ ˈlɪnəks/), is often pronounced without the slash, Stallman recommends explicit pronunciation in order to avoid the mistaken suggestion that the Linux kernel itself is a GNU project. [Jeremy Andrews, [http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484 Interview: Richard Stallman] , "KernelTrap.org" (January 2. 2005).]

See also

* Alternative terms for free software
* GNU variants
* List of GNU packages
* Metonymy and synecdoche (the general concept of using the name of a part as the name for the whole)
* History of free software

References

Further reading

* [http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html "Why GNU/Linux?", by Richard Stallman]
* [http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-users-never-heard-of-gnu.html GNU Users Who Have Never Heard of GNU, also by Richard Stallman]
* [http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=BURLEY.96May30131208%40tweedledumb.cygnus.com Re: Proposal: Linrmsux] [http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=4oj28j%249dc%40lynx.dac.neu.edu (complete thread)] (Craig Burley, Usenet "gnu.misc.discuss", 30 May 1996)
* [http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/04/09/1516203 "GNU/Linux" vs. "Linux"] ("Slashdot", 9 April 1999). [http://slashdot.org/articles/02/09/25/1456246.shtml "FSF Issues GNU/Linux Name FAQ"] ("Slashdot", 25 September 2002).
* [http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2006-August/msg00101.html A mail from Richard Stallman, refuting many points from Alan Cox]
* [http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_refs.html#linux-vs-gnu-linux David A. Wheeler on why he mostly says "GNU/Linux"]
* [http://ciaran.compsoc.com/texts/richard-stallman-tagus-park.html A transcript of an explanation of Linux and "GNU/", excerpted from a speech by Richard Stallman]
* [http://fsfeurope.org/documents/rms-fs-2006-03-09.en.html#gnu-and-linux Stallman explaining the relationship of GNU and Linux] , Zagreb, 2006
* [http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2639719,00.html What's in a name?] (Richard Stallman, "ZDNet", 12 October 2000)
* [http://www.pclinuxonline.com/article.php?sid=3671 The Power of GNU] ("PCLinuxOnline", 26 October 2002)
* [http://www.ofb.biz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=261 Why I Don't Use "Linux"] (Timothy R. Butler, "Open for Business", 25 August 2003)
* [http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/0,2000061733,39152623,00.htm Who wrote Linux?] (Josh Mehlman, "ZDNet Australia", 7 July 2004)