-rms
Apparently just insisting that it be called "GNU/Linux" wasn't too successful.
"In 1991, all that was left was the kernel, the brain within the brain of the computer, and thus the most essential component of any operating system, and the hardest part to create. Before Stallman could finish building his, an ingenious young Finnish computer scientist named Linus Torvalds—who was initially inspired by a Stallman speech at the Polytechnic University in Helsinki the year before—played off a Unix-like operating system called Minix to develop a free software system of his own. Incomplete in other respects, it had the kernel that Stallman's lacked—one that meshed so beautifully with the GNU system that it seemed destined for it. Strictly speaking, the complete operating system should have been called GNU/Linux, representing the combined contributions of Stallman and Torvalds. Stallman always insists on the term, pronouncing it "GNU slash Linux." But in the popular mind, it came to be known as only Linux. Stallman has never gotten over that."
The more I read about Stallman the more I find that his extreme stance is just who he is:
"He's entirely consistent and uncompromising and I think the world needs someone like that," Perens said.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/open_source/sho...
Without him, we may still be in the world of non-disclosure agreements and closed Unices.
I believe this is not entirely accurate - I seem to remember someone else being involved in creating linux...
Consider "X invented the television": One canonical value of X is "Vladimir Zworykin", but maverick outsiders have a hero in Philo Farnsworth, and every Scot knows that the correct answer is "John Logie Baird". And all of them are right, in one way or another.
Or the sentence "X invented the first antibiotic": is the correct value of X "Sir Alexander Fleming", "John Tyndall", or "molds in the Penicillium family"? (And why didn't the Penicillium get knighted as well? It did all the grunt work!)
For the really strong form of this argument, google "James Burke connections".
We're talking about a version of GNU, the operating system, distinguished by having Linux as the kernel. A slash fits the situation because it means “combination.” (Think of “Input/Output”.) This system is the combination of GNU and Linux; hence, “GNU/Linux”.
There are other ways to express “combination”. If you think that a plus-sign is clearer, please use that. In French, a hyphen is clear: “GNU-Linux”. In Spanish, we sometimes say “GNU con Linux”.
And yes, GNU/Linux reads like a path: here is the GNU world and here's Linux subworld.
Technically there may be one. While the history of Hurd shows that the opposite is not quite true. So all things considered it should really be Linux/GNU :-)
He travels the world as a free software evangelist
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Does he detest wealth because he is a free software evangelist?
Or is he a free software evangelist because he never figured out how to become wealthy himself?
Stallman's PC response, laying all on the "right wing Christian movement": http://philip.greenspun.com/zoo/stallman-reaction.text
