If the point is supposed to be "why insist on calling it GNU/Linux when xx% of it isn't even produced by GNU?", it's an ill-made point. Most of the userland (and certainly what we could call the "core" userland, especially in terms of development tools) is GNU software. The system would be pretty unusable libc, gcc, ld, make, etc.
GNU's argument for why it deserves specific recognition over other equally and more significant contributions is uncompelling. Repeating it isn't going to make it more so.
I think when Other is the majority, it makes it less meaningful.
Things in other are basically all individual projects. So they're not included in any overarching project or grouping. And I actually find that very interesting as it means that development is highly fragmented and distributions do an essential job in putting it all together.
No expert, but I always thought Ubuntu was probably the distro least likely to have a large % of GNU thanks to all the extra stuff that comes with it. Would be interested to see this for Debian or etc.
If the point is supposed to be "why insist on calling it GNU/Linux when xx% of it isn't even produced by GNU?", it's an ill-made point. Most of the userland (and certainly what we could call the "core" userland, especially in terms of development tools) is GNU software. The system would be pretty unusable libc, gcc, ld, make, etc.
BSD libc and BSD make are pretty much drop in replacements for glibc and GNU make. LLVM is a drop-in replacement for gcc.
It seems like it would be pretty straightforward to build a Linux userland without GNU.
I use the command line a lot, but really, how big of a contribution is cat, ls, find, etc.? It's not like these are extremely complex or difficult programs; the GNU version is still the dominant one mainly because it works fine and it had momentum. I acknowledge that these have grown to be relatively advanced and it may not be an overnight job to rig up a replacement, and I appreciate the effort that has been put in…
Lines of code is a poor way to measure contribution.
Why? It is a reasonable proxy for how long it would take to replace something, and it's the effort to replace something that is core to the "you wouldn't be where you are without us" argument. How would you measure contribution?
I use the command line a lot, but really, how big of a contribution is cat, ls, find, etc.? It's not like these are extremely complex or difficult programs; the GNU version is still the dominant one mainly because it works fine and it had momentum. I acknowledge that these have grown to be relatively advanced and it may not be an overnight job to rig up a replacement, and I appreciate the effort that has been put in…
FSF's insistence on "GNU/Linux" has always been childish, but now it's just silly really. For years the proportion of GNU software that actually gets run has been dwarfed by the code from Mozilla, KDE and/or GNOME, and other major desktop software vendors. The GNU/Linux argument has never been persuasive and I'd say it's high time they let it go.
Just so you know, GNOME stands for GNU Object Model Environment. Not that that negates your point, but I still disagree with you for other reasons. Firefox is in no way part of the operating system itself. I would argue that Bash and the core-utils on the other hand are. Also keep in mind that the GNU Project created the whole idea of a Free alternative to Unix and created the culture and licenses that made it possible. For example, Linux is even licensed under the GNU General Public License v2. They provided every part of the operating system except for the kernel (again the core-utils and bash but gcc, emacs, and screen are probably also worth mentioning). Linux as we know it would absolutely not exist if it weren't for the GNU Project. I see people disrespecting the FSF constantly and I just really don't understand why you would when you know how much they've done for Free software.
I use the command line a lot, but really, how big of a contribution is cat, ls, find, etc.? It's not like these are extremely complex or difficult programs; the GNU version is still the dominant one mainly because it works fine and it had momentum. I acknowledge that these have grown to be relatively advanced and it may not be an overnight job to rig up a replacement, and I appreciate the effort that has been put in…
What about gcc?
What about clang?
The point isn't that GNU programs aren't useful -- it's just that the claim that GNU is so important it should be included as a mandatory prefix any time anyone mentions "Linux" in a context that is not kernel exclusive is grating and silly.