No, Richard, it’s ‘Linux’, not ‘GNU/Linux’. The most important contributions that the FSF made to Linux were the creation of the GPL and the GCC compiler. Those are fine and inspired products. GCC is a monumental achievement and has earned you, RMS, and the Free Software Foundation countless kudos and much appreciation.

Following are some reasons for you to mull over, including some already answered in your FAQ.

One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS – more on this later). He named it ‘Linux’ with a little help from his friends. Why doesn’t he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff – including the software I wrote using GCC – and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. You don’t want to be known as a nag, do you?

(An operating system) != (a distribution). Linux is an operating system. By my definition, an operating system is that software which provides and limits access to hardware resources on a computer. That definition applies whereever you see Linux in use. However, Linux is usually distributed with a collection of utilities and applications to make it easily configurable as a desktop system, a server, a development box, or a graphics workstation, or whatever the user needs. In such a configuration, we have a Linux (based) distribution. Therein lies your strongest argument for the unwieldy title ‘GNU/Linux’ (when said bundled software is largely from the FSF). Go bug the distribution makers on that one. Take your beef to Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware. At least there you have an argument. Linux alone is an operating system that can be used in various applications without any GNU software whatsoever. Embedded applications come to mind as an obvious example.

Next, even if we limit the GNU/Linux title to the GNU-based Linux distributions, we run into another obvious problem. XFree86 may well be more important to a particular Linux installation than the sum of all the GNU contributions. More properly, shouldn’t the distribution be called XFree86/Linux? Or, at a minimum, XFree86/GNU/Linux? Of course, it would be rather arbitrary to draw the line there when many other fine contributions go unlisted. Yes, I know you’ve heard this one before. Get used to it. You’ll keep hearing it until you can cleanly counter it.

You seem to like the lines-of-code metric. There are many lines of GNU code in a typical Linux distribution. You seem to suggest that (more LOC) == (more important). However, I submit to you that raw LOC numbers do not directly correlate with importance. I would suggest that clock cycles spent on code is a better metric. For example, if my system spends 90% of its time executing XFree86 code, XFree86 is probably the single most important collection of code on my system. Even if I loaded ten times as many lines of useless bloatware on my system and I never excuted that bloatware, it certainly isn’t more important code than XFree86. Obviously, this metric isn’t perfect either, but LOC really, really sucks. Please refrain from using it ever again in supporting any argument.

Last, I’d like to point out that we Linux and GNU users shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves over naming other people’s software. But what the heck, I’m in a bad mood now. I think I’m feeling sufficiently obnoxious to make the point that GCC is so very famous and, yes, so very useful only because Linux was developed. In a show of proper respect and gratitude, shouldn’t you and everyone refer to GCC as ‘the Linux compiler’? Or at least, ‘Linux GCC’? Seriously, where would your masterpiece be without Linux? Languishing with the HURD?

If there is a moral buried in this rant, maybe it is this:
Be grateful for your abilities and your incredible success and your considerable fame. Continue to use that success and fame for good, not evil. Also, be especially grateful for Linux’ huge contribution to that success. You, RMS, the Free Software Foundation, and GNU software have reached their current high profiles largely on the back of Linux. You have changed the world. Now, go forth and don’t be a nag.

Thanks for listening.

I’ve been using it for more than 20 years, but I still love when someone pulls the GNU/Linux card.

To me it feels like reading an old plaque in Latin. It reminds me of an important past that shouldn’t be forgotten.

You can have a Linux distro without GNU -Alpine Linux is a popular example

That’s LiGNUx for short.

pronunciation? uhhh…

That’s a pretty relevant take in this context. Thank you!

Haven’t seen this copy pasta in a few months. Great stuff…

So, GNU is GNU is Not Unix, but now it’s not Linux either?

GNUOL ?

Fuck you. You useless piece of shit. You absolute waste of space and air. You uneducated, ignorant, idiotic dull pig, you are an absolute embarrassment to humanity and all life. The magnitude of your failure just now is so indescribably huge that a hundred years in the future your name will be used as a moniker of evil for heretics. Even if all of humanity were to combine their collective intelligence, there is no way they could come up with a way to screw things up on the unimaginable scale you just did. When Jesus died for our sins, he could not have seen this sacrilegious act we just witnessed, because if he had, he would have left humanity long ago, so that your birth might never have become a reality. After you die, your skeleton will be displayed in a museum, after it has been scientifically examined, so that all future generations will learn not to generate your skeletal structure, because every little detail that anyone might have to do with you degrades it into a useless piece of trash and a burden to society. No wonder your father questioned whether you were really his son, because you would have to be a waste of carbon matter for anyone to love you as a family member. Your birth has made humanity inferior in every way imaginable, and you have ensured that society can never truly regain its state of organization. Everything has forever fallen into staggering chaos, through whose unrecognizable core, only misery can be found. I would say that the apocalypse has arrived, but that’s just the closest word people have for the sheer scale of horror that is now a reality. You have forever condemned everyone you love and know to an eternal state of suffering, worse than any human concept of hell. You are such a godless being that if you come within a hundred feet of a holy place or any place that has ever been considered important by anyone, your warped, religious soul will ruin any meaning it ever had. You are an idiotic, crass, dull ape and no one has ever loved you. The island of Rhodes would be better off if you had never joined us. You are a lying, deceitful, cowardly, useless piece of shit and I hate you with every part of my being.