Un día como hoy, pero de 1983, Richard Stallman, el padre del movimiento del Software Libre, anunciaba el comienzo del desarrollo del sistema totalmente libre y compatible con Unix llamado GNU (Gnu’s Not Unix) de la siguiente forma:
Free Unix! Starting this Thanksgiving I am going to write a complete Unix-compatible software system called GNU (for Gnu's Not Unix), and give it away free to everyone who can use it. Contributions of time, money, programs and equipment are greatly needed. 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. GNU will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical to Unix. We will make all improvements that are convenient, based on our experience with other operating systems. In particular, we plan to have longer filenames, file version numbers, a crashproof file system, filename completion perhaps, terminal-independent display support, and eventually a Lisp-based window system through which several Lisp programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen. Both C and Lisp will be available as system programming languages. We will have network software based on MIT's chaosnet protocol, far superior to UUCP. We may also have something compatible with UUCP.
El 27 de septiembre de 1983 marcó la historia de la informática mundial, y poco a poco fue modificando nuestra concepción de las tecnologías para llegar a lo que es hoy en día el movimiento del Software Libre.
GNU, en su conjunto con Linux, forman el sistema operativo GNU/Linux que tantos disfrutamos en el día a día y en sus diferentes sabores (distribuciones).
En este día, no podemos más que agradecer y felicitar a GNU por todo el trabajo realizado en estos 27 años. Felicidades GNU!
Aquí puedes ver el anuncio original completo.