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From: milod@netcom.com (John DiCamillo)
Subject: Re: What does GNU mean?
Message-ID: <milodD69I8z.BD4@netcom.com>
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Date: Thu, 30 Mar 1995 16:38:59 GMT
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i31ade@applsrv.rz.unibw-muenchen.de (Frank Derichsweiler) writes:
>afn08995@usenet.freenet.ufl.edu (Andy L. Krietemeyer) writes:

>>I aplogize in advance for asking what may be one of the dumbest
>>questions in this list, but: can anyone tell me what "GNU" means
>>or signifies - as in GNU Smalltalk?

>GNU is a name of a group of programmes. They produce only
>public available programms (with copyleft -- not copyright --
>as described in the GNU General Public License)

GNU is a "recursive acronym" that expands to "Gnu's Not Unix".

The GNU project was originally started to provide a totally
free alternative to Unix when legal battles over licensing
that operating system began to make it look like no one would
be able to afford "real" USL Unix.  Over the past few years,
the GNU project has produced a prodigious amount of really
neat junk for free...

The GNU General Public License (sometimes called the General
Public Virus) states that you can do anything you want with
GNU software except sell it to others.  If you modify GPL
source code in the production of a commercial program, you
are required to give away the source code for the modifications
(not the source code for the commercial product itself).  This
is different from true "public domain" software, which places
no restrictions whatsoever on use or merchantability.

-- 
    ciao,
    milo
================================================================
    John DiCamillo                         Fiery the Angels Fell 
    milod@netcom.com       Deep thunder rode around their shores
