> GNU made them for free first, but if they hadn't, someone else would have.
Chnage that to "GNU re-packaged or re-wrote versions of utilities that had existed for quite a while in the BSD world, but if they hadn't, someone would have just used the BSD version" and you would be closer to reality. GCC is really the only lingering semi-dependency and as clang improves to the point where it takes fewer patches to build around GCC-specific bits of the kernel the remaining contributions will become nice to have but not essential.
Chnage that to "GNU re-packaged or re-wrote versions of utilities that had existed for quite a while in the BSD world, but if they hadn't, someone would have just used the BSD version" and you would be closer to reality. GCC is really the only lingering semi-dependency and as clang improves to the point where it takes fewer patches to build around GCC-specific bits of the kernel the remaining contributions will become nice to have but not essential.