June 20, 2011
What is GNU: The “GNU Project” is the project to develop the GNU system . The GNU operating system is a complete free software system, upward-compatible with Unix.
Founded by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983.
The name GNU is a recursive acronym for Gnu’s Not Unix. According to the official website, the name GNU was chosen “because it met a few requirements; first, it was a recursive acronym for “GNU’s Not Unix”, second, because it was a real word, and third, it was fun to say (or Sing).”
Trivia:
- The GNU manifesto was the first popular publication of the Copyleft concept. Copyleft is what helps maintain free use of this software among other programmers. Copyleft gives the legal right to everyone to use, edit, and redistribute programs or program’s code as long as the distribution terms do not change.
- The Linux kernel was developed by Linus Torvalds using GNU applications
- Richard Stallman’s only computer is a Lemote Yeeloong netbook (using the same company’s Loongson processor) which he chose because it can run with 100% free software even at the BIOS level.
- Richard Stallman has a main-belt asteroid called 9882 Stallman (1994 SS9) named after him. It was discovered on September 28, 1994 by Spacewatch at Kitt Peak.
- Stallman chooses not to celebrate Christmas, instead celebrating Grav-mass on December 25. The name and date are references to Isaac Newton, whose birthday falls on that day on the old style calendar.
