GNU (GNU's Not Unix!)

GNU is a unix like operating system developed by the GNU Project. This project was initiated by Richard Stallman at MIT on 27^th September 1983. It is a free software mass collaboration project aimed at giving the computer users freedom and control by developing and providing 100% free software. Some of the GNU packages that form an integral part of a basic system include GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), the GNU C Library (glibc), GNU Core and binary utilities (coreutils/binutils) and bash shell. The number of contributors for this project have increased over the years and strongly supported by Free Software Foundation.

If you have a fair knowledge about computer operating systems, you would have heard the word “Linux” or “Ubuntu”. All these are name of Operating systems under GNU project.  Operating system refers to a collection of software that stands as a medium between the application and the underlying computer hardware.  Microsoft 98, Microsoft XP, Windows Vista, 7, 8, Mac OS are all examples of Operating systems. The core part of an operating system is the kernel. Kernel is a computer program that manages input/output requests from software and translates them into data processing instructions.

Ubuntu is a debian based linux operating system with a GNOME interface. GNOME project comes under GNU and is related to the programs for desktop environments. Debian is an operating system that can either use linux kernel, the FreeBSD kernel, GNU Hurd Kernel or GNU Mach microkernel. Ubuntu is aone of the most popular debian system.

There are different ways to contribute to this GNU project. If you want to release your own software under GNU Project you can use GNU Public license V2 or V3 in order to support the cause of this project. The goal was to bring a wholly free software operating system into existence. Stallman wanted computer users to be "free", as most were in the 1960s and 1970s – free to study the source code of the software they use, free to share the software with other people, free to modify the behavior of the software, and free to publish their modified versions of the software.

The logo for GNU is a gnu head (antelope). It appears in GNU software and in printed and electronic documentation for the GNU Project, and is also used in Free Software Foundation materials.

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