Need information about GNU Project

[Ananika]

Tell me tell you (frankly), that I need help of you members to complete my assignments. I am posting here because you people have solved my number of queries. Now I need some information on GNU Project. Also I came to know about the free software, so please give some your experience on it. I am believing that some members will help me like always. Thanks for all for helping us...

[spuff]

The real breakthrough in the history leading to Linux came with the founding of the FSF (Free Software Foundation) and the GNU Project by Richard Stallman. Stallman (still living) was an expert in artificial intelligence and Lisp, developer of the first version of a very famous editor, Emacs (which means Editor Macros), able to manage macros and be re-configured and programmed. Richard Stallman is important in the development of Linux because the ideas on which it bases the project are his. He founded the FSF moved by a deep conviction about the nature of software: according to Stallman, the software is pure thought, scientific research, and as such can in no case be subject to protection or restriction of use. This view leads to the conclusion that every software has made available the source as a result of research that belongs to humanity, so that others may learn and change. Many criticisms have been made to this setting, including the main one is: what will live programmers? Stallman's response is: service and support to their software. That this approach is utopian is the fact that there are for-profit companies that make money selling support for free software, this media is bought by giants like Intel or Cisco, to name a few. Stallman put into practice his belief by founding the FSF whose mission was the GNU Project, a completely free version, redistribution, and best of Unix (which was then under the control of AT & T that had largely restricted the use of code source). GNU stands for GNU's Not Unix, a recursive acronym! In reality, Americans do not pronounce the G in GNU would sound like New, new: the original intention was probably to indicate the new Unix. However Stallman warns today to deliver G to avoid "horrible confusion."

[afidelino]

To ensure that no one can steal the software developed by the FSF, perhaps changing a few parts and depriving others of the right to review, Stallman's GNU software protected with a license called the GNU Public License (GPL). The GPL is quite "legalese" but it essentially says that no one can steal the source of software: If you distribute a binary from GPLed software, those who do so should always make available the source code and can not in any way restrict the 'use. Not only that equally important is the fact that if you develop other software derived from GPL-covered software, then the derivative work is covered under the GPL. It is often said jokingly (but not much) that the GPL is "viral" license, which attaches to all the sources that come into contact with sources "GPLed". The software covered by the GPL or similar license that is free software, and explicitly indicates that software whose source code is freely available. Note that the GPL does not prevent you from selling the software. What prevents the restriction of the "right" to examine and modify the source and develop the labor legislation.

[Abraham.J]

Perhaps Stallman's ideas could be the opinions of a idealist, except that the FSF is successful in the years to produce a considerable amount of free high quality software, developed with rigorous professional criteria. A Unix operating system is composed primarily of a "kernel" that can run programs, but also of several programs used by the user. Today there is a commercial software and operating system is just a base, but at the time of Stallman was intended for a complete operating system software required to use and develop other software: the shell, compiler, editor and formatter texts. The GNU Project and then began the development of programs "boundary" to be run on other Unix is not free before focusing on the development of the kernel. Therefore it has made available a considerable amount of high-quality software freely used in non-restrictive limits of the GPL. For these reasons, many commercial Unix programs incorporate some time free from the GNU Project or the BSD Unix. This fact is very important: the use of free software in the Unix world is by no means a novelty or a scandal: this software from the FSF or research projects that may, in a sense, be regarded as a cultural organization and science. For this reason, reliability and quality of free software is guaranteed by the scientific prestige of those who wrote it, not by the marketing software company. The FSF is funded, inter alia, through the resale of tapes and CD-ROM free software. The purchase of these media is not absolutely essential: it is only a voluntary contribution to the cause to which anyone is invited benefited from free or software that believes the ideal. The FSF also receives contributions from commercial software vendors who make profits from free software built into their systems.

[Naresh Modi]

I think that you must have seen Linux is not the work of one person, but the result of decades of research-oriented software development, and that the kernel was actually developed by a team of volunteers in contact with each other via the Internet. Most of the programs come from the GNU Project for Linux, other Unix BSD, and others from various research projects. We will do a review of some of the major free software packages that run on Linux. Surely the richest group of software programs are of the GNU Project. The FSF would (rightly) that the name of the systems today called Linux is GNU / Linux. In fact, if Linux is the kernel, the rest is mostly GNU software, but not only GNU.

[Quattro]

Linux itself has been developed using the GNU gcc compiler. This is one of the first programs developed by the FSF. This compiler is very important in the Unix world: it is widely recognized as excellent, and some commercial Unix vendors have abandoned the development of their C compilers preferring to finance the development of gcc. This compiler is a good example of how the software can be considered research, and how the availability of sources can bring remarkable results: the compiler is modular, divided into a front end that parses the source and produces an intermediate code and a back end that intermediate code generated by the machine code for various processors. Have been developed several other front ends for languages other than C can generate the intermediate code to the existing back end.

[Mentos]

the compiler is modular, divided into a front end that parses the source and produces an intermediate code and a back end that intermediate code generated by the machine code for various processors. Have been developed several other front ends for languages other than C can generate the intermediate code to the existing back end.

Were also developed various modules for the back end can generate code for many different processors. In practice, those who needed a compiler for a new language or a new platform, has found more convenient to add a piece and contributing to the cause of gcc to redo all the work again. The GCC is therefore the core of a group of compilers for languages like C + +, Pascal, Fortran, Objective-C and Modula-3 can produce code for Intel, Alpha, PowerPC, 68000, and myriad other platforms. The results are fast and compact program. It took several years for the GCC will stabilize and correct the many bugs were inevitable in such a complex project, but now gcc is quite stable. Do not forget that its library is the most complete in existence and is able to compile C code from diverse sources. It is in large part on whether the gcc many programs for many different Unix can compile without problems or with a few modifications to Linux.