Richard Stallman announced in September 1983 the plan to develop a free software Unix-like operating system called GNU. GNU is the only operating system developed specifically for the sake of users' freedom.
What is GNU?
GNU is a Unix-like operating system that is free software—it respects your freedom. You can install Linux-based versions of GNU which are entirely free software.
The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop the GNU system. The name “GNU” is a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not Unix!”. "GNU" is pronounced g'noo, as one syllable, like saying "grew" but replacing the r with n.
A Unix-like operating system is a software collection of applications, libraries, and developer tools, plus a program to allocate resources and talk to the hardware, known as a kernel.
The Hurd, GNU's own kernel, is some way from being ready for daily use. Thus, GNU is typically used today with a kernel called Linux. This combination is the GNU/Linux operating system. GNU/Linux is used by millions, though many call it "Linux" by mistake.
Planet GNU 
Branching FreeGLUT SVN with Git: I'm working on porting FreeGLUT to Android! Since I don't have access so the repository (I'm not a regular contributor), and since it will be a BIG patch, I th... more
GNOME Commit Digest, Issue 175: This week: 1943 commits, in 182 projects, by 213 happy hackers (and 275 were translation commits). Lennart Poettering ported gnome-screensaver to systemd-logind, while keeping a fa... more
GnuCash 2.4.10-1 Release: The GnuCash development team is pleased to announce that we have released GnuCash 2.4.10-1... more
For more news, see Planet GNU.
GNU Guile
GNU Guile is the official extension language for the GNU Operating System. Version 2.0 was released February 16, 2011 with a wealth of new features. Its compiler infrastructure, libraries, and dynamic programming environment make it a great language to write applications in. Join the community now!
GNUstep
GNUstep is a fully-functional object-oriented development environment. We need developers to write and port applications to GNUstep so that we can make it a great experience for users.
What is Free Software?
“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”.
Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
Take Action
Can you contribute to any of these High Priority Projects? Gnash, coreboot, free distributions of GNU/Linux, GNU Octave, drivers for network routers, reversible debugging in GDB, automatic transcription, PowerVR drivers, and also free software replacements for Skype, OpenDWG libraries, and Oracle Forms.
Can you take over an unmaintained GNU package? alive, dotgnu-forum, dr-geo, gnu-queue, goldwater, gsrc, halifax, metahtml, orgadoc, pgccfd, polyxmass, quickthreads, snakecharmer, sxml, trueprint are all looking for maintainers. We also need GNU configure for Python packages.
