What is the difference between an operating system and a kernel? (HaHa) Well, if you can point me out to some ressource regarding my questions about RMS' decisions, that would be cool. Regarding the GNU name, as far as I am informed RMS wanted to point out that the GNU is a UNIX-like OS as opposed to a non-UNIX like VMS. He decided to go with a unix because it had proven itself to be portable (unlike ITS for example).