Comment Re:Pointless (Score 1) 755
> First, what does Stallman have to do with Linux?
The core of "free software" philosophy, and much of the early work, was due to Richard M. Stallman. The Free Software Foundation, which he founded and which does very good work for "free as in speech" software, maintains all of the software at www.gnu.org. This includes.
autoconf
bash
binutils (with command like "ls", "rm", and "mv")
glibc
gcc
make
tar
wget
In order to _build_ the Linux kernel and much of the free software and open source software in the world, you need those tools or tools very much like them, maintained separately. Maintaining compilers, particularly, is filled with danger. I'm not aware of any Linux distribution that does not rely on "gcc".
Do look up the early history of Linux: while Mr. Stallman can be aggravating, his political and technical concerns seem well founded and have often proven prescient in their concerns for legal and technical abuse by software companies.