Operating Systems

Like Linux, GNU (pronounced guh-noo) is also a free software operating system.  Its name is a recursive acronym for “GNU’s not Unix” which was chosen because while it is Unix based, it is freeware and contains no Unix code.  As of 2007, GNU is being actively developed although a complete system has not yet been released.

The gentleman responsible for developing GNU is Richard Stallman, a former employee at MIT.  He believed computer users should be free, as most were in the 1960s and 1970s; free to study the source code of the software they use, free to share the software with other people, free to modify the behavior of the software, and free to publish their modified versions of the software. This philosophy was published in March 1985 as the GNU Manifesto.

Much of the needed software had to be written from scratch, but existing compatible free software components were used.  Most of GNU has been written by volunteers; some in their spare time, some paid by companies, educational institutions, and other non-profit organizations.

In 1992, the operating system was more or less finished except for the kernel.  The GNU project had a microkernel, and to add the necessary Unix-kernel-like functionality to their microkernel, they were developing a project called “Hurd”.  However, “Hurd” was still very incomplete.

That year, Linus Torvalds released his Unix-like kernel Linux as free software.  The combination of the Linux kernel and the GNU system made for a whole, Unix-like free software operating system.  Linux-based variants of the GNU system became the most common way in which people use GNU.

As of 2005, Hurd is in slow development, and is now the official kernel of the GNU system.