Datasheet

8
❘
CHAPTER 1 THE HISTORY OF UNIX, GNU, AND LINUX
GNU stands for “GNU’s Not Unix,” which is a recursive acronym; if you
expand the acronym “IBM,” you get “International Business Machines,” and
you’re done. If you expand “GNU,” you get “GNU’s Not Unix’s Not Unix.”
Expand that, and you get “GNU’s Not Unix’s Not Unix’s Not Unix” and so
on. This is an example of “hacker humor,” which is usually quite a dry sense
of humor, with something a little bit clever or out of the ordinary about it. At
the bottom of the
grep manpage, under the section heading “NOTES” is a
comment: “GNU’s not Unix, but Unix is a beast; its plural form is Unixen,” a
friendly dig at Unix.
Richard Stallman is a strong-willed character (he has described himself as “borderline autistic”),
with a very logical mind, and he determined to fi x the problem in the only way he knew how: by
making a new operating system that would maintain the old unwritten freedoms to allow equal
access to the system, including the code that makes it run. As no such thing existed at the time, he
would have to write it. So he did.
STALLMAN CHARGES AHEAD!
From CSvax:pur-ee:inuxc!ixn5c!ihnp4!houxm!mhuxi!eagle!mit-vax!mit-
eddie!RMS@MIT-OZ
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.usoft
Organization: MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA
From: RMS%MIT-OZ@mit-eddie
Subject: new Unix implementation
Date: Tue, 27-Sep-83 12:35:59 EST
Free Unix!
Starting this Thanksgiving I am going to write a complete Unix-compatible software
system called GNU (for Gnu’s Not Unix), and give it away free to everyone who can
use it. Contributions of time, money, programs and equipment are greatly needed.
To begin with, GNU will be a kernel plus all the utilities needed to write and run C
programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker, assembler, and a few other things. After
this we will add a text formatter, a YACC, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and
hundreds of other things. We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that nor-
mally comes with a Unix system, and anything else useful, including on-line and
hardcopy documentation.
GNU will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical to Unix. We will
make all improvements that are convenient, based on our experience with other
operating systems. In particular, we plan to have longer fi lenames, fi le version
024485c01.indd 8024485c01.indd 8 7/26/11 8:31:58 AM7/26/11 8:31:58 AM