I believe prefacing the term “Linux” with the term “GNU” serves the useful purpose of highlighting that GNU/Linux is a compound of many elements and has what many developers would term a “GNU Userland” wrapped around a “Linux kernel”. That’s why I have made it Sun’s policy to refer to GNU/Linux when speaking of Linux-based operating system distributions, and it’s why I encourage Nexenta to describe itself as “GNU/OpenSolaris”

Simon Phipps, Sun Microsystems (source)