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+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<!-- Parent-Version: 1.79 -->
+<title>Why GNU/Linux?
+- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
+<!--#include virtual="/gnu/po/why-gnu-linux.translist" -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+<h2>What's in a Name?</h2>
+
+<p><strong>by <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a></strong></p>
+
+<div class="announcement">
+ <blockquote><p>To learn more about this issue, you can read
+our <a href="/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html">GNU/Linux FAQ</a>, our page on
+<a href="/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">Linux and the GNU Project</a>, which gives a history of the GNU/Linux system as it relates to this issue of naming,
+and our page on <a href="/gnu/gnu-users-never-heard-of-gnu.html">GNU
+Users Who Have Never Heard of GNU</a>.
+
+</p></blockquote>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+Names convey meanings; our choice of names determines the meaning of
+what we say. An inappropriate name gives people the wrong idea. A
+rose by any other name would smell as sweet&mdash;but if you call it a pen,
+people will be rather disappointed when they try to write with it.
+And if you call pens &ldquo;roses&rdquo;, people may not realize what
+they are good for. If you call our operating system
+Linux, that conveys a mistaken idea of the system's
+origin, history, and purpose. If you call
+it <a href="/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">GNU/Linux</a>, that conveys
+(though not in detail) an accurate idea.</p>
+<p>
+Does this really matter for our community? Is it important whether people
+know the system's origin, history, and purpose? Yes&mdash;because people
+who forget history are often condemned to repeat it. The Free World
+that has developed around <a href="/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">GNU/Linux</a>
+is not guaranteed to survive; the problems that
+led us to develop GNU are not completely eradicated, and they threaten
+to come back.</p>
+
+<p>
+When I explain why it's appropriate to call the operating system
+GNU/Linux rather than Linux, people
+sometimes respond this way:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+<em>
+ Granted that the GNU Project deserves credit for this work, is
+ it really worth a fuss when people don't give credit? Isn't the
+ important thing that the job was done, not who did it? You
+ ought to relax, take pride in the job well done, and not worry
+ about the credit.
+</em>
+</p></blockquote>
+<p>
+This would be wise advice, if only the situation were like that&mdash;if
+the job were done and it were time to relax. If only that were true!
+But challenges abound, and this is no time to take the future for
+granted. Our community's strength rests on commitment to freedom and
+cooperation. Using the name <a href="/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">GNU/Linux</a>
+is a way for people to remind
+themselves and inform others of these goals.</p>
+
+<p>
+It is possible to write good free software without thinking of GNU;
+much good work has been done in the name of Linux also. But the term
+&ldquo;Linux&rdquo; has been associated ever since it was first coined
+with a philosophy that does not make a commitment to the freedom to
+cooperate. As the name is increasingly used by business, we will
+have even more trouble making it connect with community spirit.</p>
+
+<p>
+A great challenge to the future of free software comes from the
+tendency of the &ldquo;Linux&rdquo; distribution companies to add
+nonfree software to <a href="/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">GNU/Linux</a>
+in the name of convenience and power. All the major commercial
+distribution developers do this; none limits itself to free software.
+Most of them do not clearly identify the nonfree
+packages in their distributions. Many even develop nonfree software
+and add it to the system. Some outrageously advertise
+&ldquo;Linux&rdquo; systems that are &ldquo;licensed per seat&rdquo;,
+which give the user as much freedom as Microsoft Windows.</p>
+
+<p>
+People try to justify adding nonfree software in the name of the
+&ldquo;popularity of Linux&rdquo;&mdash;in effect, valuing popularity above
+freedom. Sometimes this is openly admitted. For instance, Wired
+Magazine said that Robert McMillan, editor of Linux Magazine, &ldquo;feels
+that the move toward open source software should be fueled by
+technical, rather than political, decisions.&rdquo; And Caldera's
+<abbr title="Chief Executive Officer">CEO</abbr> openly urged
+users
+to <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/stallman-love-is-not-free/">drop
+the goal of freedom and work instead for the &ldquo;popularity of
+Linux&rdquo;</a>.</p>
+
+<p>
+Adding nonfree software to the <a
+href="/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">GNU/Linux</a> system may increase the
+popularity, if by popularity we mean the number of people using some
+of <a href="/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">GNU/Linux</a> in combination with
+nonfree software. But at the same time, it implicitly encourages the
+community to accept nonfree software as a good thing, and forget the
+goal of freedom. It is not good to drive faster if you can't stay on the
+road.</p>
+
+<p>
+When the nonfree &ldquo;add-on&rdquo; is a library or programming
+tool, it can become a trap for free software developers. When they
+write free software that depends on the nonfree package, their
+software cannot be part of a completely free system. Motif and Qt
+trapped large amounts of free software in this way in the past,
+creating problems whose solutions took years. Motif remained somewhat
+of a problem until it became obsolete and was no longer used. Later,
+Sun's nonfree Java implementation had a similar effect:
+the <a href="/philosophy/java-trap.html">Java Trap</a>, fortunately now
+mostly corrected.</p>
+
+<p>
+If our community keeps moving in this direction, it could redirect the
+future of <a href="/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">GNU/Linux</a> into a mosaic of free and nonfree components.
+Five years from now, we will surely still have plenty of free
+software; but if we are not careful, it will hardly be usable without
+the nonfree software that users expect to find with it. If this
+happens, our campaign for freedom will have failed.</p>
+
+<p>
+If releasing free alternatives were simply a matter of programming,
+solving future problems might become easier as our community's
+development resources increase. But we face obstacles that threaten
+to make this harder: laws that prohibit free software. As software
+patents mount up, and as laws like the
+<abbr title="Digital Millennium Copyright Act">DMCA</abbr> are
+used to prohibit the development of free software for important jobs
+such as viewing a DVD or listening to a RealAudio stream, we will find
+ourselves with no clear way to fight the patented and secret data
+formats except to <strong>reject the nonfree programs that use
+them</strong>.</p>
+
+<p>
+Meeting these challenges will require many different kinds of effort.
+But what we need above all, to confront any kind of challenge, is to
+remember the goal of freedom to cooperate. We can't expect a mere
+desire for powerful, reliable software to motivate people to make
+great efforts. We need the kind of determination that people have
+when they fight for their freedom and their community&mdash;determination
+to keep on for years and not give up.</p>
+
+<p>
+In our community, this goal and this determination emanate mainly from
+the GNU Project. We're the ones who talk about freedom and community
+as something to stand firm for; the organizations that speak of
+&ldquo;Linux&rdquo; normally don't say this. The magazines about
+&ldquo;Linux&rdquo; are typically full of ads for nonfree software;
+the companies that package &ldquo;Linux&rdquo; add nonfree software
+to the system; other companies &ldquo;support Linux&rdquo; by
+developing nonfree applications to run on GNU/Linux; the user groups
+for &ldquo;Linux&rdquo; typically invite salesman to present those
+applications. The main place people in our community are likely to
+come across the idea of freedom and determination is in the GNU
+Project.</p>
+
+<p>
+But when people come across it, will they feel it relates to them?</p>
+
+<p>
+People who know they are using a system that came out of the GNU
+Project can see a direct relationship between themselves and GNU.
+They won't automatically agree with our philosophy, but at least they
+will see a reason to think seriously about it. In contrast, people
+who consider themselves &ldquo;Linux users&rdquo;, and believe that
+the GNU Project &ldquo;developed tools which proved to be useful in
+Linux&rdquo;, typically perceive only an indirect relationship between
+GNU and themselves. They may just ignore the GNU philosophy when they
+come across it.</p>
+
+<p>
+The GNU Project is idealistic, and anyone encouraging idealism today
+faces a great obstacle: the prevailing ideology encourages people to
+dismiss idealism as &ldquo;impractical&rdquo;. Our idealism has been
+extremely practical: it is the reason we have a
+free <a href="/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">GNU/Linux</a> operating system.
+People who love this system ought to know that it is our idealism made
+real.</p>
+
+<p>
+If &ldquo;the job&rdquo; really were done, if there were nothing at
+stake except credit, perhaps it would be wiser to let the matter drop.
+But we are not in that position. To inspire people to do the work
+that needs to be done, we need to be recognized for what we have
+already done. Please help us, by calling the operating
+system <a href="/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">GNU/Linux</a>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<blockquote id="fsfs"><p class="big">This essay is published in
+<a href="http://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society/">
+<cite>Free Software, Free Society: The Selected Essays of Richard
+M. Stallman</cite></a>.</p></blockquote>
+
+</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+<div id="footer">
+<div class="unprintable">
+
+<p>Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to
+<a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org">&lt;gnu@gnu.org&gt;</a>.
+There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
+the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
+to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org">&lt;webmasters@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+<p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph,
+ replace it with the translation of these two:
+
+ We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality
+ translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection.
+ Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard
+ to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org">
+ &lt;web-translators@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+ <p>For information on coordinating and submitting translations of
+ our web pages, see <a
+ href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+ README</a>. -->
+Please see the <a
+href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations
+of this article.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to
+ files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should
+ be under CC BY-ND 4.0. Please do NOT change or remove this
+ without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first.
+ Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the
+ document. For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the
+ document was modified, or published.
+
+ If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too.
+ Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying
+ years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable
+ year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including
+ being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system).
+
+ There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers
+ Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. -->
+
+<p>Copyright &copy; 2000, 2006, 2007, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020 Richard Stallman</p>
+
+<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
+href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative
+Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
+
+<p class="unprintable">Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2020/07/01 15:25:22 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>