Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, have surprisingly never met before. That all changed at a recent dinner hosted by Sysinternals creator Mark Russinovich.
The worlds of Linux and Windows finally came together in real life, and Dave Cutler, Microsoft technical fellow and Windows NT lead developer, was also there to witness the moment and meet Torvalds for the first time. “No major kernel decisions were made,” jokes Russinovich in a post on LinkedIn.
[Image: Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds meet for the first time. https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/1750435121315.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]
Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds have apparently never met in person before, despite their pseudo-rivalry.
The vast majority of people also don’t interact with the GNU tools at all, so GNU/Linux isn’t the OS either. KDE would be, or perhaps the distro itself. I’m not sure I’d call the OS GNU/Linux/Ubuntu/KDE. At that point might as well throw in firefox, for many it’s pretty much all the interaction they have with the computer.
Or what about the distros that don’t use the GNU coreutils? They are generally still called linux and still get to run apps made for linux, even with no traces of GNU.
I made that comment in slight jest. But anyway using non GNU OS still is consistent with my viewpoint that you don’t operate the kernel per se. The kernel sits at a layer below what the user operates.
As for the argument of apps being made for Linux, it is nothing more than just a semantic shortcut to the common ground between all these independent OS
Of course you don’t operate the kernel, but the kernel operates the system.
My point is that there are many layers between the kernel and user and which you interact with depends on the person. The only common point between all these, at least for linux, is the linux kernel itself.
I get that the “axchually GNU/linux” is just a joke, but considering how much impact linux has versus GNU, it’s totally fine to omit it. You can totally just use busybox instead and you’re still using a Linux OS.
Torvalds wrote the kernel, not the operating system. It’s a part of the GNU/Linux OS ;)
… or as I have taken recently to call it, GNU plus Linux.
The kernel is the OS though.
Is it, though? I don’t know about you, but most (if not all) of my interactions with my computer are at levels above the kernel
Then where do you draw the line?
The vast majority of people also don’t interact with the GNU tools at all, so GNU/Linux isn’t the OS either. KDE would be, or perhaps the distro itself. I’m not sure I’d call the OS GNU/Linux/Ubuntu/KDE. At that point might as well throw in firefox, for many it’s pretty much all the interaction they have with the computer.
Or what about the distros that don’t use the GNU coreutils? They are generally still called linux and still get to run apps made for linux, even with no traces of GNU.
I made that comment in slight jest. But anyway using non GNU OS still is consistent with my viewpoint that you don’t operate the kernel per se. The kernel sits at a layer below what the user operates.
As for the argument of apps being made for Linux, it is nothing more than just a semantic shortcut to the common ground between all these independent OS
Of course you don’t operate the kernel, but the kernel operates the system.
My point is that there are many layers between the kernel and user and which you interact with depends on the person. The only common point between all these, at least for linux, is the linux kernel itself.
I get that the “axchually GNU/linux” is just a joke, but considering how much impact linux has versus GNU, it’s totally fine to omit it. You can totally just use busybox instead and you’re still using a Linux OS.