What exactly IS the meaning of GNU, anyway?
GNU's Not Unix. It's a recursive acronym.
Therefore, GNU/Linux might mean "GNU's Neither Unix nor Linux". Some people feel that "Linux is not GNU either" and don't want to say "GNU/Linux".
The GNU project set out to make a complete replacement for Unix, that would be broadly compatible with it. Thinking over the long term, they started by producing the "essential utilities" - i.e. the development tools, such as the C compiler (gcc) and related goodies.
When they got to a critical mass in terms of quantity and quality, they started to work on a kernel, choosing to go with microkernel instead of monolithic - that's GNU Hurd. This project foundered, because it's difficult to "do right" - and they wanted to do it right.
In the meantime, Linus wanted a unix-like system to run on his 386 PC, and didn't want to purchase Minix. He started to write what became Linux, using the GNU tools (actually, that might not be strictly correct, but I believe its close enough).
Linux is "just" the kernel - it talks to the hardware of your machine, but not to any potential users. In order to do something with your Linux kernel, you need application programs, even if they are just the shell. In order to give people an easy way to play with Linux, the "distributions" came into existance, starting with Slackware I think.
This gave you, on a set of floppies (this was before CDs), the Linux kernel and a whole host of interesting programs - mostly from the GNU project, and definately all their development tools.
Over time, people came to talk about "a Linux system" when they meant "a distribution with the Linux kernel, the GNU tools, and a bit of other stuff thrown in".
The GNU project thought that they should be getting more credit for their many years of work, especially considering that Linux was released under their license, the GPL. They started to ask people to refer to a "GNU/Linux system". However, many other people felt that the distributions were now "the Linux kernel, a few GNU tools, and whole hosts of other things", and that GNU was of lesser importance to ordinary users than it used to be.
Then "Open Source" was coined, and this annoyed the GNU people too, because they had basically created the market with their "Free Software". Unfortunately, the English language is exceptionally imprecise with some words, and no-one could describe the difference between "free-as-in-speech" and "free-as-in-beer" easily.
One Linux distribution, Debian, is officially known as "Debian GNU/Linux". In their own words :-
> Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating > system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your > computer run. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an operating > system), but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU project; > hence the name GNU/Linux.
-jim
