+++ /dev/null
-@c Copyright (C) 1997, 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
-@c This is part of the GCC manual.
-@c For copying conditions, see the file gcc.texi.
-
-@node GNU/Linux
-@unnumbered Linux and the GNU Project
-
-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 more often known as
-``Linux'', and many users are not aware of the extent of its
-connection with the GNU Project.
-
-There really is a Linux; it is a kernel, and these people are using
-it. But you can't use a kernel by itself; a kernel is useful only as
-part of a whole system. The system in which Linux is typically used
-is a modified variant of the GNU system---in other words, a Linux-based
-GNU system.
-
-Many users are not fully aware of the distinction between the kernel,
-which is Linux, and the whole system, which they also call ``Linux''.
-The ambiguous use of the name doesn't promote understanding.
-
-Programmers generally know that Linux is a kernel. But since they
-have generally heard the whole system called ``Linux'' as well, they
-often envisage a history which fits that name. For example, many
-believe that once Linus Torvalds finished writing the kernel, his
-friends looked around for other free software, and for no particular
-reason most everything necessary to make a Unix-like system was
-already available.
-
-What they found was no accident---it was the GNU system. The available
-free software added up to a complete system because the GNU Project
-had been working since 1984 to make one. The GNU Manifesto
-had set forth the goal of developing a free Unix-like system, called
-GNU@. By the time Linux was written, the system was almost finished.
-
-Most free software projects have the goal of developing a particular
-program for a particular job. For example, Linus Torvalds set out to
-write a Unix-like kernel (Linux); Donald Knuth set out to write a text
-formatter (TeX); Bob Scheifler set out to develop a window system (X
-Windows). It's natural to measure the contribution of this kind of
-project by specific programs that came from the project.
-
-If we tried to measure the GNU Project's contribution in this way,
-what would we conclude? One CD-ROM vendor found that in their ``Linux
-distribution'', GNU software was the largest single contingent, around
-28% of the total source code, and this included some of the essential
-major components without which there could be no system. Linux itself
-was about 3%. So if you were going to pick a name for the system
-based on who wrote the programs in the system, the most appropriate
-single choice would be ``GNU''@.
-
-But we don't think that is the right way to consider the question.
-The GNU Project was not, is not, a project to develop specific
-software packages. It was not a project to develop a C compiler,
-although we did. It was not a project to develop a text editor,
-although we developed one. The GNU Project's aim was to develop
-@emph{a complete free Unix-like system}.
-
-Many people have made major contributions to the free software in the
-system, and they all deserve credit. But the reason it is @emph{a
-system}---and not just a collection of useful programs---is because the
-GNU Project set out to make it one. We wrote the programs that were
-needed to make a @emph{complete} free system. We wrote essential but
-unexciting major components, such as the assembler and linker, because
-you can't have a system without them. A complete system needs more
-than just programming tools, so we wrote other components as well,
-such as the Bourne Again SHell, the PostScript interpreter
-Ghostscript, and the GNU C library.
-
-By the early 90s we had put together the whole system aside from the
-kernel (and we were also working on a kernel, the GNU Hurd, which runs
-on top of Mach). Developing this kernel has been a lot harder than we
-expected, and we are still working on finishing it.
-
-Fortunately, you don't have to wait for it, because Linux is working
-now. When Linus Torvalds wrote Linux, he filled the last major gap.
-People could then put Linux together with the GNU system to make a
-complete free system: a Linux-based GNU system (or GNU/Linux system,
-for short).
-
-Putting them together sounds simple, but it was not a trivial job.
-The GNU C library (called glibc for short) needed substantial changes.
-Integrating a complete system as a distribution that would work ``out
-of the box'' was a big job, too. It required addressing the issue of
-how to install and boot the system---a problem we had not tackled,
-because we hadn't yet reached that point. The people who developed
-the various system distributions made a substantial contribution.
-
-The GNU Project supports GNU/Linux systems as well as @emph{the}
-GNU system---even with funds. We funded the rewriting of the
-Linux-related extensions to the GNU C library, so that now they are
-well integrated, and the newest GNU/Linux systems use the current
-library release with no changes. We also funded an early stage of the
-development of Debian GNU/Linux.
-
-We use Linux-based GNU systems today for most of our work, and we hope
-you use them too. But please don't confuse the public by using the
-name ``Linux'' ambiguously. Linux is the kernel, one of the essential
-major components of the system. The system as a whole is more or less
-the GNU system.
projects / gcc.git / commitdiff