Ask Molly
“Hi, Molly. What is the meaning of ‘GNU’ as in ‘The GNU Public License’?”
Mike C. - Anaheim, CA
Hi Mike,
The term GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU’s Not Unix”. It is pronounced “g-noo”. The GNU project started in 1984 to develop a free Unix like operating system.
The GNU Software License is for software that the user is free to run, copy, distribute, change and improve.
Hope this helps!
-Molly