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 <title>Overview of the GNU System
 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
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 <h2>Overview of the GNU System</h2>
 <div class="thin"></div>
 
 <p>
 The GNU operating system is a complete free software system,
 upward-compatible with Unix.  GNU stands for &ldquo;GNU's Not Unix.&rdquo;
 It is pronounced as <a href="/gnu/pronunciation.html">one syllable with a
 hard <i>g</i></a>.
 <a href="https://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a> made the
 <a href="/gnu/initial-announcement.html">Initial Announcement</a> of
 the GNU Project in September 1983.  A longer version called
 the <a href="/gnu/manifesto.html">GNU Manifesto</a> was published in
 March 1985.  It has been translated into several
 <a href="/gnu/manifesto.html#translations">other languages</a>.</p>
 
 <p>
 The name &ldquo;GNU&rdquo; was chosen because it met a few
 requirements; first, it was a recursive acronym for &ldquo;GNU's Not
 Unix,&rdquo; second, because it was a real word, and third, it was fun
 to say (or
 <a href="http://www.poppyfields.net/poppy/songs/gnu.html">sing</a>).</p>
 
 <p>
 The word &ldquo;free&rdquo; in &ldquo;free software&rdquo; pertains to
 <a href="/philosophy/free-sw.html">freedom</a>, not price.  You may or
 may not pay a price to get GNU software.  Either way, once you have
 the software you have four specific freedoms in using it.  The freedom
 to run the program as you wish; the freedom to copy the program and
 give it away to your friends and co-workers; the freedom to change the
 program as you wish, by having full access to source code; the freedom
 to distribute an improved version and thus help build the community.
 (If you redistribute GNU software, you may charge a fee for the
 physical act of transferring a copy, or you may give away copies.)</p>
 
 <p>
 The project to develop the GNU system is called the &ldquo;GNU
 Project.&rdquo;  The GNU Project was conceived in 1983 as a way of
 bringing back the cooperative spirit that prevailed in the computing
 community in earlier days&mdash;to make cooperation possible once again by
 removing the obstacles to cooperation imposed by the owners of
 proprietary software.</p>
 
 <p>
 In 1971, when Richard Stallman started his career at MIT, he worked in
 a group which used <a href="/philosophy/free-sw.html">free
 software</a> exclusively.  Even computer companies often distributed
 free software.  Programmers were free to cooperate with each other,
 and often did.</p>
 
 <p>
 By the 1980s, almost all software was
 <a href="/philosophy/categories.html#ProprietarySoftware">proprietary</a>,
 which means that it had owners who forbid and
 prevent cooperation by users.  This made the GNU Project necessary.</p>
 
 <p>
 Every computer user needs an operating system; if there is no free
 operating system, then you can't even get started using a computer
 without resorting to proprietary software.  So the first item on the
 free software agenda obviously had to be a free operating system.</p>
 
 <p>
 We decided to make the operating system compatible with Unix because
 the overall design was already proven and portable, and because
 compatibility makes it easy for Unix users to switch from Unix to GNU.</p>
 
 <p>
 A Unix-like operating system includes a kernel, compilers, editors,
 text formatters, mail software, graphical interfaces, libraries, games
 and many other things.  Thus, writing a whole operating system is a
 very large job.  We started in January 1984.
 The <a href="https://www.fsf.org/"> Free Software Foundation</a> was
 founded in October 1985, initially to raise funds to help develop
 GNU.</p>
 
 <p>By 1990 we had either found or written all the major components
 except one&mdash;the kernel.  Then Linux, a Unix-like kernel, was
 developed by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and made free software in 1992.
 Combining Linux with the almost-complete GNU system resulted in a
 complete operating system: the GNU/Linux system.  Estimates are that
 tens of millions of people now use GNU/Linux systems, typically
 via <a href="/distros/distros.html">GNU/Linux distributions</a>.  The principal
 version of Linux now contains nonfree firmware &ldquo;blobs&rdquo;;
 free software activists now maintain a modified free version of Linux,
 called <a href="https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Linux-libre">
 Linux-libre</a>.</p>
 
 <p>
 However, the GNU Project is not limited to the core operating system.
 We aim to provide a whole spectrum of software, whatever many users
 want to have.  This includes application software.  See
 the <a href="https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Main_Page">Free Software Directory</a> for a catalogue
 of free software application programs.</p>
 
 <p>
 We also want to provide software for users who are not computer
 experts.  Therefore we developed a
 <a href="https://www.gnome.org/">graphical desktop (called GNOME)</a> to help
 beginners use the GNU system.</p>
 
 <p>We also want to provide games and other recreations.  Plenty of <a
 href="https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Category/Game">free games</a> are
 already available.</p>
 
 <p>
 How far can free software go?  There are no limits, except
 when <a href="/philosophy/fighting-software-patents.html">laws such as
 the patent system prohibit free software</a>.  The ultimate goal is to
 provide free software to do all of the jobs computer users want to
 do&mdash;and thus make proprietary software a thing of the past.</p>
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 <p>Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to
 <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org">&lt;gnu@gnu.org&gt;</a>.
 There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
 the FSF.  Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
 to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org">&lt;webmasters@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
 
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 of this article.</p>
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 Free Software Foundation, Inc.</p>
 
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 <p class="unprintable">Updated:
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 $Date: 2021/11/02 13:25:56 $
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