Given that
this is a biography of Richard Stallman, it seemed
inappropriate to define the operating system in
apolitical terms.
In the final phases of the book, when it became clear
that O'Reilly & Associates would be the book's
publisher, Stallman did make it a condition that I use
"GNU/Linux" instead of Linux if O'Reilly expected him
to provide promotional support for the book after
publication. When informed of this, I relayed my
earlier decision and left it up to Stallman to judge
whether the resulting book met this condition or not.
At the time of this writing, I have no idea what
Stallman's judgment will be.
A similar situation surrounds the terms "free software"
and "open source." Again, I have opted for the more
politically laden "free software" term when describing
software programs that come with freely copyable and
freely modifiable source code. Although more popular, I
have chosen to use the term "open source" only when
referring to groups and businesses that have championed
its usage.
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