“But what transpired was a display of how far the open source
code movement has to go if it is to integrate its own objectives
with the mainstream that it hopes to conquer.”
“Stallman reminded the crowd that it was the Gnu Project that
had set out to create an open Unix operating system. When Linus
Torvalds created the Linux kernel, he was “filling the last gap” of
that effort; many Gnu elements surround the kernel, such as the
emacs editor for which Stallman received the Grace Hopper Award
from the Association for Computing Machinery. So, henceforth, we
should refer to Linux as “Gnu Linux,” Stallman said. As it turns
out, he wasn’t joking.”
“As the questions rolled in, Stallman corrected any speaker who
referred to just “Linux.” When a reporter stood and asked a Linux
question, Stallman interrupted to say he must refer to “Gnu Linux.”
“For you to stand in front of me and call it ‘Linux’ to my face is,
like, extreme,” Stallman said.”