Re: GNU License for Hardware

[Richard Stallman]

    > We're the
    > principal (though not the sole) developers of the system,

    This is a question of fact.  What is the evidence for it?

It is a question of fact and interpretation.  Here are
several reasons, which I think are more than sufficient.

1. We launched the project to develop a complete free operating system
   like this one.
2. All the other projects that wrote programs now in the system
   aimed to write a program to do this or that specific job.
   We alone proposed the goal of a whole system, and did whatever
   was necessary to achieve that goal.
   GNU is and always was the name for an operating system,
   not just a brand for software packages.
3. We persisted through the early days, when most people said the
   job was too big ever to be done--years before Linus Torvalds
   got involved.  (Not that this should be held against him,
   since he was pretty young at the time.)
4. We contributed more of the system than any other project.