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:
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.
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.