GNU/Linux my ass

I don't know what flavor of linux you are running but I know that I am not running GNU/Linux. The asinine argument of RMS is that the entire system already existed except for a kernel which Linus' kernel satisfied. That may be true but who is running a purely GNU system? For that matter who is running a system of which GNU is the primary component?

On my personal box I know that GNU software makes a pretty small percentage of total code and number of binaries. In fact the biggest chunk of stuff on the box is Everquest running under wine. Should my system be called Everquest/linux? I think not. Maybe I should look at source code? Hmm, looks like X and the kernel are taking up more space that glibc and gcc on my box. How about system tools? Well, it looks like there's about as many things from various flavors of BSDs as from GNU. There's about as many non-affiliated programs too.

Since the personal box isn't much of a GNU linux machine let's look at the distro a coworker and I have designed and implemented.

awk --Bell Labs
bc --GNU
busybox --GNU license
dash --NetBSD
dhcp --ISC
dialog --GNU license
e2fsprogs --GNU license
ethtool --GNU license
grep --GNU
gzip --GNU
iptables --GNU license
kernel --GNU license
klibc --no license listed
lilo --BSD license
lvs --GNU license
makedev --no license listed
ncurses --GNU
net-tools --GNU
openssh --BSD license
openssl --BSD license
procps --GNU license
rsync --GNU license
sh-utils --GNU
syslinux --GNU license
tar --GNU
util-linux --no license listed

Well, there's seven GNU packages out of twenty-six. There are definitely more projects under the GNU banner than any other but does just under 27% GNU by project make the system GNU? Not in my opinion it doesn't. There's a chance a couple of the ones I list as GNU license are in fact GNU projects but that's still well under half. If I go by source code percentage GNU falls waaaay back because the kernel alone is bigger than most of the rest of the projects put together.