The GNU Foundation started developing a kernel it called Hurd in 1990 but to date that has been only marginally usable. In the meantime, work by both Linux and GNU developers ensured that all the GNU software which was needed for a complete operating system was made to work with Linux; the kernel became the last link in creating a free (as in speech) operating system.

Here comes a small point of difference between Stallman and Torvalds which has blown up into a major point of friction - the former wants the system called GNU/Linux, in my opinion, to actually acknowledge the pioneering work of the GNU Foundation. Some distributions do respect this wish. But Torvalds disagrees. In an interview in 1997, he said: "rms (sic) asked me if I minded the name before starting to use it, and I said 'go ahead'. I didn't think it would explode into the large discussion it resulted in, and I also thought that rms would only use it for the specific release of Linux that the FSF was working on rather than 'every' Linux system. I never felt that the naming issue was all that important, but I was obviously wrong judging by how many people felt very strongly about it. So these days I just tell people to call it just plain 'Linux' and nothing more."

Initially, Torvalds released the kernel under his own licence which did not permit commercial redistribution. This was way back in September 1991. Two months later came version 0.11 of the kernel and shortly after this Torvalds put it under the GPL. In the same interview referred to in the preceding paragraph, Torvalds said: "Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did." And in his autobiography, Just for Fun, released a few years ago, Torvalds acknowledges that  Stallman influenced this decision - after he had seen the long-haired, bearded hacker give a speech at the Polytechnic University in  Helsinki, Finland in 1990. 

In the book Free as in Freedom, this encounter is characterised thus: "While not exactly attuned to the 'sociopolitical' side of the Stallman agenda, Torvalds nevertheless appreciated the agenda's underlying logic: no programmer writes error-free code. By sharing software, hackers put a program's improvement ahead of individual motivations such as greed or ego protection."

This encounter played its role in convincing Torvalds to put the Linux kernel under the GPL. And there it has stayed ever since. Indeed, if one goes by what is current Torvald-speak, March will make no difference; the kernel will remain under GPLv2.

If one goes by current Stallman-speak, all the GNU contributions to the GNU/Linux operating system will move to GPLv3. As pointed out there are differences in the licences, particularly to cope with the new threat posed by digital rights management and patents. The incompatibilities will, as of the last draft of the GPLv3, make it impossible for the existing mix of kernel and other bits and pieces to stay together as a whole operating system.

But let's look at the reality? How many companies are now interested in both the Linux kernel and the GNU/Linux operating system? Let me count - IBM, Red Hat, HP, Dell, Sun, Oracle and Novell, for starters. Don't forget Google, Yahoo! and practically every ISP on the face of the earth. How many developers are interested in a peaceful settlement between the two licence camps? Let's say at least a few hundred thousand if not a million-plus. Are all these companies and developers going to stand by and watch things take a massive leap back in time?

While this tussle between GPLv2 and GPLv3 - or as some put it the Stallman v Torvalds battle - is portrayed as going down to the wire, is it really possible that neither will yield a bit to prevent things going back to the 1990s when FOSS was not even an idea?

Even Stallman (and all his GNU mates) would have to admit that without the Linux kernel, all his contributions would have been in vain - like a bus without a driver. And Torvalds would have to admit that he (and all those who joined him as developers of the kernel) would have taken at least another five to 10 years to build what Stallman and his mates had ready and waiting. The operating system which some call Linux and others GNU/Linux would then have been ready by the turn of the century.

That's why I think there will be a solution to what looks like an impasse, one that enable both camps to emerge without losing face. Stallman is often painted as a man who is the equivalent of a Taliban leader while Torvalds is portrayed as the don't-carish engineer who is only bothered about good technology. I think together they both care deeply about the future of FOSS - Stallman about the free element and Torvalds about the open source bit - and while neither is overly bothered about the financial implications, both know that for the FOSS world to continue rotating on its axis, they will both have to make small compromises. And I think they will.

{moscomment}

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Intellectual property rights  Linux  Open Source  Sam Varghese  Software