Richard Stallman likes to point out that while Linux is a mighty big buzzword in the computer world these days, and for good reason, it's just an Operating System kernel. That is, is the core of a computer software platform that concerns itself with interfacing the software applications of a system with it's hardware. Surrounding the Linux kernel in most any GNU/Linux distribution you'll find is a vast array of software applications that make the system usable, and a great many of those were written as part of the GNU Project, which began it's work nearly a decade before Linux even existed.

The goal of the GNU project was, and is, to provide users with a complete software platform, of which the kernel is a vital part. To emphasize the great work that the free software community has done outside of Linux, and to prevent a certain amount of stolen thunder associated with the popularity of the term "Linux", Stallman advocates the use of the term "GNU/Linux".

I tend to agree.

One of the advantages of free software is it's tendency toward modularity. monolithic proprietary software projects tend to want to hide their APIs, so that they can be locked in to the vendor's products and not easily interoperate with software they can't sell licenses for. The interoperability of GNU's software with other kernels than Linux is an example of this flexibility.

A proposal for an alternative name: Lignux. The GNU is in it, although it's possibly more accurate to say that Linux should be in the GNU. You can pronounce vocally the same way. In text (the most common place to say it), however, it's distinct. Capitalization of the GNU part is optional.

Not an original idea, apparently.

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