Difference between revisions of "GNU.org"

The GNU Operating System, Free Software, Free Society

Founded in 1983, GNU (pronounced guh-noo, like "canoe") is an organization which develops a free software operating system, the GNU system. This system is qualified as Unix-like in that it works much the way that Unix does, but is built as free software and does not contain any Unix code. (Giving rise to the recursive acronym for GNU as meaning "GNU's Not Unix").

The GNU operating system is developed under the "GNU Project," with programs released by the project being called GNU packages of GNU programs. The basic components of the GNU operating system include the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), the GNU Binary Utilities (binutils), the GNU C library (glibc) and the GNU Core Utilities (coreutils). A variant of the GNU kernal, Linux is now widely used by a variety of operating systems, including the Macintosh Operating System, known as "OS X".

In addition to the GNU/Linux kernal, GNU is known as a fierce proponent for free software, claiming, " 'Free software' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech', not as in 'free beer'." Included in their ideas of free software are the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.

GNU Licenses

As part of their free software movement, GNU developed several free licenses allowing for the release of software and documentation for their works and derivatives. While written for GNU, the General Public License (GPL), Lesser General Public License (LGPL), and GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) have found use in various unrelated projects as well and are among the earliest available licenses for freely distributing and sharing software and documentation.

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Boston MA 02111 US

Contact

Free Software Foundation

+1 617 542 5942

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External Links

• Alexa: Gnu.org