That’s not exactly true, we also watched Krtek and Nu Pogodi in out childhoods, and both nations are considered “glum” (as never smiling) and cynical (and the correlation between being educated and being cynical, sometimes to the point of dark humor), relatively recent urbanisation. Otherwise, yes, of course, things are different, there is almost as much common with Bulgaria or Croatia

Why would I discount the most popular applications of the kernel? That is almost the whole userbase

That is an entirely different argument which I did not contest and the comment I have answered to did not make

EDIT: Although, it depends on what we define as “bigger”. Binary size is certainly bigger, but user adoption is abysmal comparatively.

But what about Linux distributions compiled without GNU tools? Most popular Linux distribution’s kernel currently is compiled with Clang, not GCC, and as far as I am aware does not include anything from GNU. Of course Linux is historically influenced by GNU, but in current day and age they are orthogonal

That is a valid, but still different argument. Exchange rate still exists for average Joe (or Ivan), it isn’t North Korea (yet?)

You cant exchange millions of dollars (but tbf you couldn’t do that easily in the best times), but people can exchange theirs money into euro and dollar for that rate (realistic limit is $10k/month, but there are legal ways to cricumvent that limit). To say “you cant actually exchange USD to RUB” is untrue.