On September 27, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) celebrates the 40th anniversary of the GNU operating system and the launch of the free software movement. Free software advocates, tinkerers, and hackers all over the world will celebrate this event, which was a turning point in the history of computing. Forty years later, GNU and free software are even more relevant. While software has become deeply ingrained into everyday life, the vast majority of users do not have full control over it.
It is hard to overstate the importance of FSF in software development. We need them now more than ever. Long live the FSF!
I fully support this comment. Thank for attributing the FSF itself.
Historically, we owe a lot to the GNU project as well. I wish people understood what GNU was though and how GNU and the FSF differ from each other.
And here’s to the next forty!
I’m no expert … I just enjoy reading about all this stuff.
But isn’t the entire internet built, maintained and made possible by the free software movement. Isn’t Linux systems basically the entire backbone of the internet?
Not just Linux; gcc was very important as well.
Linux is a big part of it, but not all of Linux. Linux also isn’t part of the GNU project that the OP talks about.
They do say that:
Usually combined with the kernel Linux, GNU forms the backbone of the Internet and powers millions of servers, desktops, and embedded computing devices.
Please point out which GNU applications form “the backbone of the Internet”.
Here is the complete list from the horses mouth:
https://www.gnu.org/software/software.en.html#allgnupkgs
It bugs me that people do not know what GNU is.
I’m just quoting the Free Software Foundation themselves. I didn’t say I agree with them. It’s a deceptive use of language that is rather unbecoming of an organization normally so careful with its words.
Edit: For the record, I think the GNU Project’s biggest contributions have been to the desktop, not the server world.
Sorry. I replied to the wrong comment. I was not calling you out.
I mean, both RHEL and Debian use Glibc which means the vast majority of the Linux applications running outside the cloud are calling into GNU code. So, I cannot take that away from them.
In the container space ( the cloud ), I am not sure that is true. Anything calling into Alpine, for example, would be MUSL.
Why do you say that GNU has had a bigger impact on the desktop? They have nothing to do with the GUI layer ( like X11, Wayland, Mesa, or Proton / WINE ). Do you mean GNOME? It is not part of the GNU project. I would argue it never was as it was started and staffed by totally different people. The G in GNOME originally stood for GNU so the GNOME founders ( like Miguel de Icaza ) were clearly inspired by GNU. Given that, I guess I agree with you.
It is ironic, de Icaza founded the GNOME project with the idea of bringing not only a modern desktop but a broad array of modern free software applications. Unlike GNU, his vision of the Linux desktop was populated by music players, spreadsheets, email / calendar programs, PDF viewers, and video editors. He even formed a company to make them. But he found writing modern desktop apps in the languages GNU GCC supported really difficult. So he set out to write a clone of .NET so that he could write GUI desktop apps easier ( the Mono Project ). It looked like it was worked for a while as, for a few years, the most modern Linux desktop apps were Mono apps ( .NET ). But Richard Stallman ( FSF / GNU ) hated it and railed against it and warned everybody not to use it. There was even an attempt to make a GNU Project competitor to Mono ( dotGNU ) but that went nowhere. It is interesting to me that de Icaza gave up on the Linux desktop. He not only stopped making desktop apps but in fact moved to the Mac as he main platform. Mono became more about the web and then eventually mobile with de Icaza’s second company ( Xamarin ).
Microsoft bought Xamarin ( and basically Mono too ). Today, Linux is practically the premiere platform for .NET. Certainly Linux dominates in the cloud. If you install .NET on your Linux box, you may be running more Microsoft code than GNU.:’
I’m familiar with the history of GNOME, and somewhat with Xamarin and Mono. While I have made that argument in the past, it was pointed out to me that the GNOME name was used to ride off the coattails of the popularity the GNU project had in the '90s, and they ended the association when it stopped being convenient for them.
(A GNOME developer pointed this out to me using this language; I could link you to the interaction, but it was on reddit)
I mean, both RHEL and Debian use Glibc which means the vast majority of the Linux applications running outside the cloud are calling into GNU code.
This also includes the proprietary NVIDIA driver, which only works with glibc.
Unlike GNU, his vision of the Linux desktop was populated by music players, spreadsheets, email / calendar programs, PDF viewers, and video editors.
I think this is a strange characterization of the GNU Project’s goals. This is the Initial Announcement for the GNU Project:
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 normally comes with a Unix system, and anything else useful, including on-line and hardcopy documentation.
and eventually a Lisp-based window system through which several Lisp programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen.
Do you know something I don’t? I don’t think the GNU Project was against multimedia software; they were just focusing on the more fundamental stuff first.
The GNU Project’s biggest contributions were when the kernel was in its infancy. The most major contribution is undoubtedly the GPL. Without it, Linux would not be where it is today. I think enough has been said on that subject, but it’s what made RHEL billions. It’s the philosophy of free software that has made so much of the programs today possible. It’s incredibly important.
Obviously, we also have the GNU Project financially backing Debian GNU/Linux in its infancy. And while you say GNU wasn’t involved in the GUI layer, that’s not true. They worked on the free Harmony toolkit as a matter of high priority, and would have kept working on it if GNOME had not been so successful. Thanks to the success of another GNU project, GIMP, the GTK toolkit was able to be repurposed for general usage.
I don’t think it’s fair to discard contributions that never panned out like HURD and Harmony, because it shows GNU was actively involved in making the desktop better for everyone, which has really been its mission from the start. Maybe they’re not “the backbone” of the desktop, but I think it’s fair to say their biggest/most notable contributions have been to the desktop, not the server.
I don’t contribute to the GNU Project because frankly, they don’t do anything I consider worthwhile at the moment. I don’t contribute to the Linux Foundation, either. I contribute to user-facing software I’m interested in, like Lutris, GIMP, and Kdenlive.
It’s mostly linux now (except for most of the actual networking gear) but it wasn’t 20 years ago, so the internet is certainly “possible” without linux.
Crazy to think that this movement was born in data centers on huge mainframes. The kind you see in old school computer documentaries with the huge spinning tape drives. They recognized the need for free software before mainstream users even existed.
Thank you daddy Stallman
Oh no, please don’t call the guy “daddy”.
Started reading the FAQ on why we should call it GNU/Linux.
Ship had said my friends. I think Linux just won through being easier to say. (Yes I know how to say it…)
Edit: Ship has sailed…
What’s confusing to me is this article talking about the “GNU operating system”. What is that supposed to refer to? They say "Usually combined with the kernel Linux, GNU forms the… " Do they mean that the kernel isn’t part of the OS?
GNU is a project, started by the FSF, to create a “free” operating system. The goal is a full POSIX compatible OS that provides the 4 freedoms to its users.
GNU is not the whole universe of free software. It is not everything released via the GPL. GNU is specifically a project to create an free operating system. Here is what they have done so far:
https://www.gnu.org/software/software.en.html#allgnupkgs
The GNU project pre-dates Linux. When Linux was created, it was not intended to be part of the GNU project. In fact, in the initial announcement, Linus said Linux would “not be big and professional like GNU”.
The GNU project always intended to write its own kernel. And it has—something called HURD.
All that said, when the Linux kernel appeared, people took parts of the GNU project to create a full operating system out of Linux. In particular, the C library ( Glibc ), C compiler ( GCC ), and core utilities were used with Linux.
In the early days, other than X11, a lot of the software running in a Linux system was GNU software. Nobody called it GNU / Linux back then but it would have been accurate.
These days, even though most Linux distros still ship with the GNU software, GNU represents a small fraction of the ecosystem overall. Some Linux distros ship without any GNU software at all.
Anyway, the reason they talk about “the GNU operating system” is because that is what GNU is and was meant to be—an operating system.
The issue is that practically nobody uses “the GNU operating system”—all the GNU stuff running on HURD. But lots of people run GNU stuff on Linux. So, the GNU folks have promoted the idea that “the GNU operating system” is any kernel with the GNU stuff running on it. So, GNU / Linux is GNU running on Linux. There was an attempt to create GNU / BSD which is GNU stuff running on the FreeBSD kernel. In this naming scheme, HURD is not implied by GNU anymore so that operating system would now be GNU / HURD.
You can probably tell that I do not like the term GNU / Linux. I think it confuses people as it makes it seem like GNU means “free software” or “GPL software” as opposed to a specific project to create an OS. Also, not all Linux distros use GNU and, of the ones that do, GNU software is a small piece. Also, most distros do not actually represent the ideals of the original GNU project very well. There is a reason that there are only a few distros that the FSF endorses. How can you brand something as “GNU” and then have the FSF not recommend it?
This is not a rant against free software. Most of the software shipping with a typical Linux distro is free software. That is a tremendous achievement for the FSF and they should celebrate it. But why try to brand that as GNU. Let GNU be GNU and do more to promote free software in general. The GNU utilities will eventually be replaced I expect and you see some of that now. Clang can replace GCC. MUSL or relibc could replace Glibc. So what? It is all free software ( though not all copyleft ). It would not be GNU, but it is free software nonetheless.
The hurd kernel exists, and is a theoretical alternative to the Linux kernel
Right, but if they prefer we call linux “GNU/Linux”, wouldn’t they want to call their OS “GNU/Hurd” instead of just “GNU”?
Nope, because Hurd is created by the GNU project. Linux is entirely independent.
They want you to call it GNU / HURD now so they can contrast it with GNU / Linux. You are correct though that the real “GNU Operating System” includes HURD.
See Debian / HURD for example:
Basically when you log into your Linux pc, everything you see and click on is GNU. Only the invisible part that makes your hardware work (display driver, usb driver, printer driver etc) is Linux (the kernel)
The kernel recognises only hardware and peripherals. Everything else you do on your system is GNU.
