Skip to main text Your example can empower users just like you to take important steps towards software freedom. Become an FSF associate member by Dec. 31st. Read more > 37 500 Members GNU Operating System Supported by the Free Software Foundation ABOUT GNU PHILOSOPHY LICENSES EDUCATION SOFTWARE DOCS Fight to Repair: A video from the FSF What is GNU? GNU is an operating system that is free software—that is, it respects users' freedom. The GNU operating system consists of GNU packages (programs specifically released by the GNU Project) as well as free software released by third parties. The development of GNU made it possible to use a computer without software that would trample your freedom. We recommend installable versions of GNU (more precisely, GNU/Linux distributions) which are entirely free software. More about GNU below. Try GNU/Linux Trisquel 9 with MATE desktop, and VLC media player Dragora / IceWM Guix / GNOME3 Hyperbola / i3 Parabola / LXDE PureOS / GNOME3 Trisquel / MATE ... or Try parts of GNU What is the Free Software Movement? The free software movement campaigns to win for the users of computing the freedom that comes from free software. Free software puts its users in control of their own computing. Nonfree software puts its users under the power of the software's developer. See the video explanation. What is Free Software? Free software means the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the 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”. More precisely, free software means users of a program have the four essential freedoms: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2). The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. Developments in technology and network use have made these freedoms even more important now than they were in 1983. Nowadays the free software movement goes far beyond developing the GNU system. See the Free Software Foundation's web site for more about what we do, and a list of ways you can help. More about GNU GNU is a Unix-like operating system. That means it is a collection of many programs: applications, libraries, developer tools, even games. The development of GNU, started in January 1984, is known as the GNU Project. Many of the programs in GNU are released under the auspices of the GNU Project; those we call GNU packages. 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. The program in a Unix-like system that allocates machine resources and talks to the hardware is called the “kernel”. GNU is typically used 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. GNU's own kernel, The Hurd, was started in 1990 (before Linux was started). Volunteers continue developing the Hurd because it is an interesting technical project. More information UK universities find that many students are fed up with virtual courses and want to attend class physically. Others feel the opposite. If you are a student, or have been admitted, and you are disgusted with being forced to use nonfree software for school, now is your chance to make a difference — tell the university you don't want to do that. Be civil to the staff, but show how strongly you feel this. GNU and FSF move official IRC channels to Libera.Chat network. Read the full announcement and the follow-up update. The GNU Project supports the Free Software Foundation's petition to call on school administrators around the world to stop requiring students to run nonfree software. Sign the petition for freedom in the classroom. The GNU Project strongly urges the community to communicate in ways that are friendly, welcoming and kind. See the GNU Kind Communications Guidelines. Planet GNU FSF Giving Guide: Freedom is the greatest gift of all Global variable initialisation in C++: Today Volker Birk (https://fdik.org/) and I were speaking over lunch about object initialisation in C++ and about how weakly defined a program entry poi... Wrapping up my internship, focused on helping build the GPLv3 drafting archive Take Action Support the efforts on net neutrality in the USA, and in your home country. Defend privacy, and support global copyright reform with LQDN. Support current FSF campaigns. Fight against software patents: worldwide, and in Europe. More action items Can you contribute to any of these High Priority Areas? Free phone operating system, decentralization, federation and self-hosting, free drivers, firmware and hardware designs, real-time voice and video chat, encourage contribution by people underrepresented in the community, and more. Can you help maintain a GNU package? cfengine, freedink, freetalk, halifax, mcron, quickthreads, are all looking for maintainers. Also, these packages are looking for co-maintainers: aspell, bison, gnuae, gnubik, metaexchange, powerguru, xboard. See the package web pages for more information. Recent GNU releases Short descriptions for all GNU packages Today's random package… Guile-opengl Guile-OpenGL is a library for Guile that provides bindings to the OpenGL graphics API. (doc) ▲ “The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom. We defend the rights of all software users.” JOIN DONATE SHOP The FSF also has sister organizations in Europe, Latin America and India. Feel free to join them! Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to <gnu@gnu.org>. There are also other ways to contact the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent to <webmasters@gnu.org>. Please see the Translations README for information on coordinating and contributing translations of this article. Copyright © 1996-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Copyright Infringement Notification Updated: $Date: 2021/07/21 16:39:16 $