A little lesson in UNIX. Many people refer to a open source UNIX operating system as a Linux operating system. This is incorrect. Referring to Linux as an operating system or the predominant name for all things UNIX is a common mistake and problem. What it is actually called is GNU/Linux or GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU core-libs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux. GNU:Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16, 1953), often shortened to RMS, is an American software freedom activist and computer programmer. In September 1983, he launched the GNU Project to create a free Unix-like operating system, and he has been the project's lead architect and organizer. With the launch of the GNU Project, he initiated the free software movement; in October 1985 he founded the Free Software Foundation. Stallman pioneered the concept of copyleft, and he is the main author of several copyleft licenses including the GNU General Public License, the most widely usedfree software license. Since the mid-1990s, Stallman has spent most of his time advocating for free software, as well as campaigning against software patents,digital rights management, and what he sees as excessive extension of copyright laws. Stallman has also developed a number of pieces of widely used software, including the original Emacs, the GNU Compiler Collection, the GNU Debugger, and various tools in the GNU coreutils. He co-founded the League for Programming Freedom in 1989. GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system" composed wholly of free software. Development of GNU was initiated by Richard Stallman in 1983 and was the original focus of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), but no stable release of GNU yet exists as of September 2010. The FSF maintains that Linux, when used with GNU tools and utilities, should be considered a variant of GNU, and promotes the term GNU/Linux for such systems, (leading to the GNU/Linux naming controversy). Linux:Linus Benedict Torvalds (born December 28, 1969) is a Finnish American software engineer and hacker, who was the principal force behind the development of the Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator. He also created the revision control system Git. He was honored, along with Shinya Yamanaka, with the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize by the Technology Academy Finland "in recognition of his creation of a new open source operating system for computers leading to the widely used Linux kernel". Linux was coined by the creator of the Linux Kernel, Linus Torvalds. The defining component of Linux is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. The Linux Kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software. Linux operating systems is also another incorrect term. The correct term is Unix or GNU/Linux Distributions. The Founding Father's of All Things Unix are Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Bruce Perens, Michael Tiemann, Eric S. Raymond. Each played a vital role in the development of what we know today as the world of GNU/Linux.
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