This is how the story began.
Against all odds.
They told us it couldn’t happen.
Before the cloud, before the hype, before the phones we hold.
There was Richard with a vision that the world shouldn’t be sold.
He wrote the pledge, raised the flag, said “Freedom is the way,”
Dropped the fuse in the system locked in NDA.
Then Linus took the keyboard, lit the match without a claim.
Just a student in the shadows ‘bout to redefine the game.
Typed the kernel to the world like a message in the rain.
One commit became a river, then a storm, then a flame.
The Internet was waiting, gasoline across the wire.
Every mirror, every server turning sparks into a fire.
What began inside a dorm room became thunder without shame
Two initials on a README, now the world knows the name.
From Richard’s spark (check it) To Linus’ code.
To the wildfire burning on every single node…
It’s the fuse and the flame. Yeah, we’re breaking the frame.
From a spark in the dark to a world we reclaimed.
Supercomputers sing it, every handset vibes the same.
It’s Linux in the bloodstream, the fuse and the flame.
The fuse and the flame. Watch it rise, watch it spread.
From the code of a few to the whole world being fed.
Five-hundred out of five-hundred? Yeah, that’s no game.
We sitting on the throne now. The fuse and the flame.
Now the cloud runs on the rhythm of a billion steady pings.
Every packet on a journey wearing OpenSource wings.
Android in your pocket, talking Linux every day.
Every drone, every rover… even rockets on the way.
Servers on the ocean floor, routers in the sky.
All the tools of modern life built on freedom, built on why.
From the fridge inside your kitchen to the labs where they compute.
Every microchip is humming running after the truth.
They said it wouldn’t scale, said chaos couldn’t win.
But millions wrote together - that’s how revolutions spin.
From a kernel to an empire, from a comment to a claim.
We all lit this fire - we’re the fuse and the flame.
From the first commit… To the global grid.
We didn’t buy the future…
We BUILT it, kid.
It’s the fuse and the flame. Yeah, we’re breaking the frame.
From a spark in the dark to a world we reclaimed.
Five-hundred out of five-hundred? Forever we remain.
Linux in the lifeblood. The fuse and the flame.
The fuse and the flame.
Open source. Power to the user.
Historical clarification (GNU+Linux)
Richard Stallman kindly pointed out an important historical nuance related to the GNU and Linux projects. He wrote:
“I started developing the GNU system years before Torvalds got involved.
When it was mostly finished, Torvalds started working on the last remaining piece, the kernel Linux.
That’s why we call the system GNU+Linux.”
The lyrics above use compressed, symbolic language to describe the emergence of the Free Software ecosystem.
This clarification is included to preserve historical accuracy and acknowledge the foundational role of the GNU Project.