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A lot of us have heard the word 'GNU' before, but does anybody know what it means? when it has originate? or who started this movement? I'll elaborate more on the word 'GNU' throughout this article.
In the late 1970s and the early 1980s the hackers community at the MIT began to thrive; however, software vendors began to limit the freedom of hackers by not embedding the source code with the software and using the copyright(We are talking about UNIX, smart people never use windows :p). A man called Richard Stallman wanted to create a UNIX like system that is build from scratch rather than on top of UNIX. He called the project 'GNU' which is a recursive word meaning "GNU Is Not Unix." Stallman invented a new concept in the copyrighting world, which is copyleft. Copyleft means you're free to share and edit my work, but when you share it you give the same rights that you've originally received to whomever you share with. This type of license is called the GPL—The GNU General Public License.
The GNU project started to thrive as thousands of people worldwide started to contribute to the projects and make it even better. But there's a problems, now we have programs similar to UNIX; however, we still don't have the Kernel, the heart of the Operating System. Here's where Linus Trovalds filled the gap. He introduced his Unix like kernel called "Linux" and People started to combine the Kernel with whatever GNU applications they like and make a pre-compiled GNU/Linux package called a distro—distribution. a distribution is a thousand times more simple to install than a raw linux kernel which you'll have to compile then add whatever programs you like.
I hope I've made what the 'GNU' term means clear, and have given you a concise computer history class
In the late 1970s and the early 1980s the hackers community at the MIT began to thrive; however, software vendors began to limit the freedom of hackers by not embedding the source code with the software and using the copyright(We are talking about UNIX, smart people never use windows :p). A man called Richard Stallman wanted to create a UNIX like system that is build from scratch rather than on top of UNIX. He called the project 'GNU' which is a recursive word meaning "GNU Is Not Unix." Stallman invented a new concept in the copyrighting world, which is copyleft. Copyleft means you're free to share and edit my work, but when you share it you give the same rights that you've originally received to whomever you share with. This type of license is called the GPL—The GNU General Public License.
The GNU project started to thrive as thousands of people worldwide started to contribute to the projects and make it even better. But there's a problems, now we have programs similar to UNIX; however, we still don't have the Kernel, the heart of the Operating System. Here's where Linus Trovalds filled the gap. He introduced his Unix like kernel called "Linux" and People started to combine the Kernel with whatever GNU applications they like and make a pre-compiled GNU/Linux package called a distro—distribution. a distribution is a thousand times more simple to install than a raw linux kernel which you'll have to compile then add whatever programs you like.
I hope I've made what the 'GNU' term means clear, and have given you a concise computer history class
Last edited by AmrH on Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:33 pm; edited 1 time in total
