[mikegerwitz]

rms refers to this combination as "GNU/kWindows". I wrote about GNU's perspective back in 2016:

https://mikegerwitz.com/2016/04/gnu-kwindows

Please remember that GNU is not just a collection of programs that fall under the umbrella of the GNU Project---GNU is a complete operating system, and it was an explicit decision to use existing free software when it was already available, and write replacements only for non-free components needed replacing. A detailed history of the development of GNU can be found here:

https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html

As distro maintainers know, it is a lot of work to come up with the right combination of programs to produce a complete, working operating system using _existing_ free components and being able to draw inspiration from existing GNU/Linux distributions. Imagine how difficult this effort was 30 years ago when nobody had done it yet.

[snotrockets]

“When I use a word,” the commenter replied, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said the public, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

(with apologies to Dodgson)