The Gnu Project is fascinating; also, it deserves more and wider public attention than it receives. This is especially so here in Europe where our notions of free speech are sadly exposed when compared with the assumptions made within the Gnu Project.
Its origins are found in ideas about -- genuine -- co-operation in the achievement of common goals with a vigorous, even rigorous, insistence upon the application of free speech principles to free software; also an absence of capitalist individualism which is -- superficially -- surprising when found in the United States. These ideas as with most that are worthwhile need constant defence, especially now we live globally connected.
Below
are links to a handful of Gnu documents, cached here, which might interest
those unfamiliar with this continent of cyber-world which is very largely
terra incognita. (Specialists and devotees will by now have realised this
appendix is not aimed at them.) For non-specialists and the curious, think
of this as a brief cruise in unfamiliar waters.
Note: Links found on the pages below are as they were at gnu.org
and therefore all are 'live' and will take readers to those pages, mostly to
gnu.org. (Links to the pages cached
here have also been left intact.) It's also worth noting that the Gnu site
has documents available in many languages other than English ie
Dutch, French, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish.
The starting point for understanding the project is, naturally, its website. Therefore more than this glossary's brief introduction will be found @: www.gnu.org
This document -- What is Free
Software? -- answers its title.
Free software
This document -- The Gnu
Project -- has a précis of free software's history and also of the
establishing of the Gnu Project and the Free Software Foundation itself.
Gnu Project
The
following document is also from gnu.org. Though entitled Gnu Philosophy, it
is in fact a page of links to all subjects relating
to Gnu; those directly relevant to Gnu are at gnu.org but many others
are off-site, where the discussion becomes more general. Each link is, of
course, 'live' and will take you to that page on the Gnu site or elsewhere.
Gnu Philosophy
Here
is the GNU public licence which accompanies all software sailing under the
Free Software flag.
Gnu
licence
To return to other pages in this glossary click below