>It's ironic how that is the first impression uninformed people have>when they come across "Linux" distributions and consider their>relationship with the GNU project. After a while, informing>themselves, some come across the idea that those are in fact>"GNU+Linux" distributions, and a minor part of these accept and>internalize the concept that those are variants of the GNU operating>system. I was one of those. It turned out however that the truth is>halfway that conclusion. Of course, it's not legitimate to call an>operating system by "Linux", because a kernel is not an operating>system nor important enough to name one; on the other hand it's not>legitimate to call those systems "GNU", because they simply are not put>together nor dubbed that way by the GNU project; we could call those>"variants of the GNU operating system", if not for the fact that there>is no GNU operating system from which derivations can be built.>To be honest with ourselves, others and the truth, we generally should>call them "operating systems using the kernel Linux and several>components developed by the GNU project". Further that point we need>to be more specific. Better to call them by the distribution name:>that's naturally the more precise definition. Unfortunately, we miss>the opportunity to point out to people the GNU project's philosophy.>To me that scenario is very sad. I wish it were different, but my>wishes don't make the reality. I can't help but to confess that I've>learned to think that "there is no system but GNU", but now, thinking>for myself in a informed position, I'm willing to reconsider and>conclude: "there are systems, but GNU".
I feel your pain, but GuixSD is the closest thing we can get to that. I am sure RMS didn't want to just pass it off as just GNU for several reasons that seem very important for him. Such as the point that if we release GuixSD as just straight up GNU, that's going to alienate all free distros including Trisquel, gNewSense, Debian, etc. I don't think that would be a very good idea, unless of course they just decide to join us, but that will probably not happen. Another reason is that because the HURD, it's not very usable yet, though it's not as bad as most people think. But it's not stable enough for most people. And Linus chooses to add blobs in the kernel, which is completely unethical, and we really can't make it the GNU kernel, so that's why we still have to work on HURD, though I do beleive the design is so much better, it's still very very very young. And at the current rate, which is actually speeding up it seems, it might release another version next year, with stable at the end of the decade hopefully. But until that happens, we really just can't have GNU.