Stallman wanted Murdock to call its
distribution "GNU/Linux." At first, Murdock says,
Stallman had wanted to use the term " Lignux"-"as in
Linux with GNU at the heart of it"-but a sample testing
of the term on Usenet and in various impromptu hacker
focus groups had merited enough catcalls to convince
Stallman to go with the less awkward GNU/Linux.
Although some would dismiss Stallman's attempt to add
the "GNU" prefix as a belated quest for credit, Murdock
saw it differently. Looking back, Murdock saw it as an
attempt to counteract the growing tension between GNU
Project and Linux-kernel developers. "There was a split
emerging," Murdock recalls. "Richard was concerned."
The deepest split, Murdock says, was over glibc. Short
for GNU C Library, glibc is the package that lets
programmers make "system calls" directed at the kernel.
Over the course of 1993-1994, glibc emerged as a
troublesome bottleneck in Linux development. Because so
many new users were adding new functions to the Linux
kernel, the GNU Project's glibc maintainers were soon
overwhelmed with suggested changes.
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