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Why would anybody have cared about Linux except as an academic exercise if not for GNU? If there had been another properly licensed kernel before Linux, we would all be using GNU bolted on top of that.

Linux has been great and Linus is a great steward, but Linux without GNU is a base for creating an OS, not an OS.

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I really like GNU, but are you sure that it is GNU that has succeeded and not Linux?

Linux + GNU = small marketshare

Linux + Android = big marketshare

So maybe without GNU, Linux would have gotten some other userland quicker and taken off faster? I don't think it's entirely fair to credit Linux's success to GNU at this point.

What other userland? Without GNU, Linux might never have even gotten written.

Apples to oranges. Those markets have different dynamics, gatekeepers, legacy costs, etc.

> If there had been another properly licensed kernel before Linux, we would all be using GNU bolted on top of that.

BSD?

BSD was is a legal limbo between 1992–1994, and by then Linux had gained more popularity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USL_v._BSDi

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