What is the GNU operating system?
Stallman: To implement our goal of escaping from non-free software, we needed somewhere to escape to. In concrete terms, we needed a free software operating system so we could run computers without any non-free software. So, in 1983, I announced the plan to develop a Unix-like operating system called “GNU” — for “GNU’s Not Unix.” In the ’70s, proprietary — non-free — software became the usual case, but there was still some free software in 1983, such as the text formatter TeX. There were free software licenses under which those programs were released. There were also instances where a program had originally been free, but the modified version that was really usable had been made non-free by someone who extended and redistributed it. If that were to happen to the GNU system, it would defeat the whole purpose. So I came up with a way to design a free software license to ensure that all versions of GNU programs — even modified or extended versions — would bring freedom to every user.
