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+[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 2008, 2009 Free Software
+Foundation, Inc."]]
+
+[[!meta license="Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is
+permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved."]]
+
+[[!meta title="The Hurd and Linux"]]
+
+[[!tag stable_URL]]
+
+by <A HREF="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</A>.
+
+<P>
+People sometimes ask, ``Why did the FSF develop a new free kernel
+instead of using Linux?''  It's a reasonable question.  The answer,
+briefly, is that that is not the question we faced.
+
+<P>
+When we started developing the Hurd in 1990, the question facing us
+was, ``How can we get a free kernel for the GNU system?''  There was
+no free Unix-like kernel then, and we knew of no other plan to write
+one.  The only way we could expect to have a free kernel was to write
+it ourselves.  So we started.
+
+<P>
+We heard about Linux after its release.  At that time, the question
+facing us was, ``Should we cancel the Hurd project and use Linux
+instead?''
+
+<P>
+We heard that Linux was not at all portable (this may not be true
+today, but that's what we heard then).  And we heard that Linux was
+architecturally on a par with the Unix kernel; our work was leading to
+something much more powerful.
+
+<P>
+Given the years of work we had already put into the Hurd, we decided
+to finish it rather than throw them away.
+
+<P>
+If we did face the question that people ask---if Linux were already
+available, and we were considering whether to start writing another
+kernel---we would not do it.  Instead we would choose another project,
+something to do a job that no existing free software can do.
+
+<P>
+But we did start the Hurd, back then, and now we have made it work.
+We hope its superior architecture will make free operating systems
+more powerful.