The GNU Project is a free software mass collaboration announced by Richard Stallman in 1983. Its goal was to create a complete Unix-like operating system composed entirely of free software—software that users can run, copy, modify, and distribute.
Origins
Stallman announced GNU (“GNU’s Not Unix”) in 1983 and published the GNU Manifesto in 1985. Frustrated by proprietary software restrictions at MIT, he set out to create a free alternative to Unix that would preserve the hacker culture of sharing.
Key Components
GNU developed essential software tools:
- GCC: GNU Compiler Collection
- GNU Emacs: Extensible text editor
- Bash: Bourne-Again Shell
- glibc: C standard library
- GNU coreutils: Basic Unix utilities
- GDB: GNU Debugger
GNU/Linux
By 1992, GNU had most components for a complete system except a kernel. When Linus Torvalds released Linux, it provided the missing piece. The combination—GNU tools with the Linux kernel—became the basis of modern Linux distributions.
The GPL
The GNU General Public License (GPL), created for the project, pioneered “copyleft”—using copyright law to ensure software remains free. The GPL requires that derivative works also be free software, creating a growing commons of shared code.