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work in progress The GNU project has the aim to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices, by having written and providing them with software for their computers that is based on the following freedom rights: users are free to run the software, share it (copy, distribute), study it and modify it. GNU software guarantees these freedom-rights legally (via its license), and is therefore free software; the use of the word "free" always being taken to refer to freedom.

The GNU project was announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman, and development began in January 1984.

In order to ensure that the entire software of a computer grants its users all freedom rights (use, share, study, modify), even the most basic and fundamental yet important part, the operating system (including all its numerous utility programs), needed to be written. Stallman decided to call the operating system GNU (a humerous recursive acronym meaning "GNU's not Unix"), basing its design on that of Unix; however, in contrast to Unix which was proprietary software, GNU was to be freedom-respecting software (free software) that users can use, share, study and modify.

The historic develpment of the GNU project can be traced via GNU's Bulletins^[1] starting from February 1986, showing the status of various software in development and completed software, and people involved: e.g. by June 1987 the project had accumulated and developed free software for an editor (GNU Emacs), an almost finished portable optimizing C compiler (GCC), an assember, utilities (ls, grep, awk, make, ld), etc.^[2]. To compile all software, the GNU system had to develop its own tool-programs, such as a C compiler that also had to be developed to be free (source available).

By 1990 the operating system was missing only one last component: the kernel (a program which schedules programs to run and manages resources). The GNU kernel GNU Hurd was not yet ready. In 1992 Linus Torvalds put his kernel Linux under the GNU General Public License, a license that ensures enduser freedom rights, so that by combining GNU with the Linux kernel, it was was possible to run a complete operating system, that consisted of entirely free software, that users are free to run, share, study and modify. The GNU Hurd is not usable as a full-featured kernel, and has had stagnation-periods as a project, so that most users wanting stable systems use GNU/Linux.

Today, the GNU system is widely used in combination with the Linux kernel. The GNU project calls this GNU/Linux, where the GNU packages^[3]^[4] (except for the hurd) are used together with the Linux kernel. The GNU part consists of numerous operating system tools and utilities (shell, coreutils, compilers, libraries, etc.)^[3]^[4] including a library implementation of all of the functions specified in POSIX System Application Program Interface (POSIX.1),^[5]^[6] while the Linux kernel is hardware-near software that allows running of the system on a large variety of computer-architectures and implements program scheduling, multitasking, device drivers, memory management, etc.^[7]

While the GNU Project recommends calling the combination GNU/Linux, many people call it only Linux (even though it includes numerous GNU packages). The GNU project is against calling it only Linux, since many users of the GNU/Linux system are unaware of freedom rights that are the motivation for why the system exists: Linux was the name used by many early GNU/Linux distros (distributions) and organizations^[8]^[9] for the entire system, and they promoted ideas of the system's popularity, stability, robustness and usability. However this demoted and sidelined the philosophy and ideas behind the creation of GNU, namely the freedom rights of users. Today most distros combine GNU packages with a Linux kernel which contains proprietary binary blobs and a number of proprietary programs and packages (e.g. zero price but without availability of source code) that go directly against the freedom goals of the GNU project. Only very few distros follow the aim of the GNU project to create a system that consists entirely of free (distributable and modifiable) software, linux-libre...

http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#allgpled http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#whyslash http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#claimlinux http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#linusagreed

^ GNU's Bulletins
^ GNU's Bulletin, vol. 1 no. 3 (June 1987) (gnu.org)
^ ^a ^b All GNU packages (gnu.org)
^ ^a ^b GNU @ Free Software Directory (fsf.org)
^ POSIX - The GNU C Library
^ GNU_C_Library#A_temporary_fork
^ The Linux Kernel Archives
^ Linux Journal: What is Linux? (wabymack machine snapshot: 16 January 1999)
^ About Linux International (wayback machine snapshot: 9 November 1996)

[1] GNU's Bulletins

[2] GNU's Bulletin, vol. 1 no. 3 (June 1987) (gnu.org)

[gnu_packages-3] All GNU packages (gnu.org)

[gnu_packages_fsf-4] GNU @ Free Software Directory (fsf.org)

[5] POSIX - The GNU C Library

[6] GNU_C_Library#A_temporary_fork

[7] The Linux Kernel Archives

[8] Linux Journal: What is Linux? (wabymack machine snapshot: 16 January 1999)

[9] About Linux International (wayback machine snapshot: 9 November 1996)

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