Change for Caldera OpenLinux Workstation

Richard Stallman rms at gnu.org
Fri Jun 29 17:24:16 UTC 2001


    it is true that GNU/Linux system is not identical to all software from GNU
    Project plus Linux kernel. Many software in public domain could be also a 
    part of GNU/Linux as an operating system, like TeX.

Our goal, starting in 1984, was to develop a complete operating system,
to which we gave the name GNU.  This called for many components.
In some cases we found free components that could do the job,
but many of the components we had to write.  The components we wrote,
or that we recruited people to develop and contribute specifically
to GNU, are GNU software.  GNU, the system, includes all of them.

GNU/Linux is the combination of GNU (the GNU system) and Linux (the
kernel).  The GNU software packages come into the combination as parts
of GNU.



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