Accusations, accusations, always accusations

[Richard Stallman]

    I find the two quite similar actually. Cygwin32 is gcc & company, bash,
    and a standard set of file utilities (ls, tar, ...). From the user's
    perspective, it transforms their NT system into a system where the
    shells look and act just like UNIX shells.

You're talking about "the user's perspective", what the system
looks like.  I'm talking about what it is made of.

Judging from your description, adding Cygwin32 to Windows makes is a
system that looks somewhat like GNU/Linux (or equally, somewhat like
Unix).  But it still has all of Windows in it.

     While doing this work, one can't help but
    notice that Cygwin32 is effectively a method for porting the GNU system
    onto the Win32 subsystem.

Well, you might be able to do that.  And if you deleted all the
Windows DLLs and graphical applications, you might end up with
something which is the GNU system plus the kernel of Windows.

That would justify the name GNU/<kernel-of-Windows>.  (I don't know
the name of the kernel of Windows; I have never been a Windows user.)

I would rather use GNU/Linux, since Linux is free software.

    > I will ask someone to tell me what CodeFusion is.  I have heard a few
    > people mention it recently, but no one has described it to me.

    As I understand it, CodeFusion is a GUI that wrappers the GNUPro tool
    suite (gcc, gdb, etc).

Those programs, the compilation tools, are just a part of the GNU
operating system.  So this is quite different from the situation
with GNU/Linux.

As for whether they are treating us properly, giving credit properly,
that depends on the details of what they say.  I haven't seen it, so I
can't judge.  (It is a tangent which I think we need not go down.)

     The "you" in this sentence is not RMS or a plural you referring
    to developers of the GNU system; it is specifically the person I was
    responding to (John Cowan) 

Indeed, I misunderstood that part.  I apologize for my confusion.

    I guess the root of my confusion is that I just don't know how much
    credit is enough.

How about giving the GNU Project equal billing with Linus?
Since we did much more of the work, and had the overall vision
too, surely it is not unreasonable to ask for that much.