Re: Why is Nvidia given GPL'd code to use in closed source drivers?

[Richard Stallman]

    You *chose* GNU/Linux to parallel Unix? I assume you mean that you
    influenced GNU into using a Unix base with the eventual goal of having
    some sort of GNU Unix base (the Hurd?). The words you selected above
    are rather assuming.

I decided in 1983 to develop a Unix-compatible operating system, and
then chose the name GNU for it.  In 1990, after finding or writing
most of the necessary components, we started developing a kernel for
the GNU system; that kernel is the GNU Hurd.  Since Linux was working
long before the Hurd, people mostly use GNU with Linux instead.

See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html for the history of GNU.