Richard Stallman's GNU Project Turns 25
The GNU Project celebrated its 25th birthday on September 27, 2008. With its GCC compiler and bash shell, GNU was ever at the forefront of today's Linux distribution. To kick off the celebration, British humorist Stephen Fry appears in a video in defense of free software.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF), always tightly interwoven with the GNU project, has produced a short video, "Happy Birthday to GNU," in honor of the celebration. During its five minutes, actor, novelist and filmmaker Stephen Fry lectures with a certain dry humor on the history of the GNU Project and the debate over free and proprietary software. His narration accompanies such images as an ancient computer and Richard Stallman playing the flute.
The FSF publicized further events covering free software leading up to the September 20th Software Freedom Day and the September 27th GNU birthday celebration. Peter Brown, executive director of the foundation, suggests that the 25th anniversary should be "more than just a reflection." The Fry video and subsequent offerings at the event should be "a rallying call for the work that still needs to be done" to replace proprietary software on user systems.
The raison d'etre of the anniversary is the date September 27, 1983, when Richard Stallman brought the GNU Project to life in a mailing list with the subject "New Unix Implementation." At that time Stallman had been working 12 years at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In his 13th year he quit the job to commit himself entirely to the GNU (Gnu's Not Unix) Project. In 1985 he founded the Free Software Foundation that supported the GNU Project from the start and now sponsors, among other things, a GPL Compliance Lab and a Free Software Directory.
In 1992 Linus Torvalds brought the Linux kernel under the GNU General Public License (GPL) developed by the GNU Project and made public by the Free Software Foundation. Ever since then the Linux kernel together with the GNU Project have developed tools and software for the Linux platform. The GNU Project thus constantly reminds us that the Linux operating system should actually be called GNU/Linux: it might contain the Linux kernel, but also includes over 300 GNU Project programs. Among them is the Linux project known simply as Debian but officially known as Debian GNU/Linux, evidence of a successful GNU Project.
The GNU Project always had the goal to develop a completely free operating system that included a kernel, tools and applications. Under Stallman's leadership based on good will, the Project was vehemently against software that was exclusively binary and whose sources were not readily available to developers. Among these are certain Linux distributions that contain proprietary drivers. By 1992 the project had developed everything an operating system needed outside of the kernel. GNU Hurd with Mach was to become the kernel until Linus Torvalds brought Linux under GPL.
GNU Hurd as a native development of the GNU kernel has been operative since 2001. The current release is 0.2.
Comments
comments powered by DisqusIssue 269/2023
Buy this issue as a PDF
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Find SysAdmin Jobs
News
-
MNT Seeks Financial Backing for New Seven-Inch Linux Laptop
MNT Pocket Reform is a tiny laptop that is modular, upgradable, recyclable, reusable, and ships with Debian Linux.
-
Ubuntu Flatpak Remix Adds Flatpak Support Preinstalled
If you're looking for a version of Ubuntu that includes Flatpak support out of the box, there's one clear option.
-
Gnome 44 Release Candidate Now Available
The Gnome 44 release candidate has officially arrived and adds a few changes into the mix.
-
Flathub Vying to Become the Standard Linux App Store
If the Flathub team has any say in the matter, their product will become the default tool for installing Linux apps in 2023.
-
Debian 12 to Ship with KDE Plasma 5.27
The Debian development team has shifted to the latest version of KDE for their testing branch.
-
Planet Computers Launches ARM-based Linux Desktop PCs
The firm that originally released a line of mobile keyboards has taken a different direction and has developed a new line of out-of-the-box mini Linux desktop computers.
-
Ubuntu No Longer Shipping with Flatpak
In a move that probably won’t come as a shock to many, Ubuntu and all of its official spins will no longer ship with Flatpak installed.
-
openSUSE Leap 15.5 Beta Now Available
The final version of the Leap 15 series of openSUSE is available for beta testing and offers only new software versions.
-
Linux Kernel 6.2 Released with New Hardware Support
Find out what's new in the most recent release from Linus Torvalds and the Linux kernel team.
-
Kubuntu Focus Team Releases New Mini Desktop
The team behind Kubuntu Focus has released a new NX GEN 2 mini desktop PC powered by Linux.
happy birthday