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<title>Incorrect Quotation
- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
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<h2>Incorrect Quotation</h2>
<address class="byline">by Richard Stallman</address>
<p>A quotation circulates on the Internet, attributed to me, but it
wasn't written by me.</p>
<p>Here's the text that is circulating. Most of it was copied from
statements I have made, but the part italicized here is not from me.
It makes points that are mistaken or confused.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to
as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling
it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system <em>unto
itself</em>, but rather <em>another free component of a fully
functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell
utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined
by POSIX.</em> Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU
system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of
events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called
“Linux,” and many of its users are not aware that it is
basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really
is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of
the system they use.</p>
<p>Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the
machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is
an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it
can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux
is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the
whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the
so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of
GNU/Linux.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The main error is that Linux is <em>not</em> strictly speaking part of
the GNU system—whose kernel is GNU Hurd. The version with Linux,
we call “GNU/Linux.” It is OK to call it “GNU”
when you want to be really short, but it is better to call it
“GNU/Linux” so as to give Torvalds some credit.</p>
<p>We don't use the term “corelibs,” and I am not sure
what that would mean, but GNU is much more than the specific packages
we developed for it. I set out in 1983 to develop an operating
system, calling it GNU, and that job required developing whichever
important packages we could not find elsewhere.</p>
<p>See <a href="/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">Linux and GNU</a> and
<a href="/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html">GNU/Linux FAQ</a>, plus the history
in <a href="/gnu/thegnuproject.html">The GNU Project</a>.</p>
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