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GNU is a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix!", [6] [12] chosen because GNU's design is Unix-like, but differs from Unix by being free software and containing no Unix code. [6] [13] [14] Stallman chose the name by using various plays on words, including the song The Gnu. [4]: 45:30
The GNU Project was not, is not, a project to develop specific software packages. [...] Many people have made major contributions to the free software in the system, and they all deserve credit. But the reason it is an integrated system—and not just a collection of useful programs—is because the GNU Project set out to make it one.
The main goal was to create many other applications to be like the Unix system. GNU was able to run Unix programs but was not identical to it. GNU incorporated longer file names, file version numbers, and a crash-proof file system. The GNU Manifesto was written to gain support and participation from others for the project.
The name GNU is a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix". [17] Soon after, he started a nonprofit corporation called the Free Software Foundation to employ free software programmers and provide a legal infrastructure for the free software movement.
The first entirely free Unix for personal computers, 386BSD, did not appear until 1992, by which time Torvalds had already built and publicly released the first version of the Linux kernel on the Internet. [32] Like GNU and 386BSD, Linux did not have any Unix code, being a fresh reimplementation, and therefore avoided the then legal issues. [33]
A recursive acronym is an acronym that refers to itself, and appears most frequently in computer programming.The term was first used in print in 1979 in Douglas Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, in which Hofstadter invents the acronym GOD, meaning "GOD Over Djinn", to help explain infinite series, and describes it as a recursive acronym. [1]
In 1983, Richard Stallman announced the GNU (short for "GNU's Not Unix") project, an ambitious effort to create a free software Unix-like system—"free" in the sense that everyone who received a copy would be free to use, study, modify, and redistribute it.
The kernel was, however, frequently used together with other software, especially that of the GNU project. This quickly became the most popular adoption of GNU software. In June 1994 in GNU's Bulletin, Linux was referred to as a "free UNIX clone", and the Debian project began calling its product Debian GNU/Linux.