Big smelly animals. And Gnu's Not Unix. I'm not going to try to duplicate all the information out there. I'm not going to call RMS[1] a lunatic or a saint (though if you want some support for the saint opinion, you can find it by clicking on that link... some could argue that it supports the prior, of course :P ). I think that the fact I'm writing this page using Emacs, running on Linux, says more than enough about my opinion of the GNU project, and free software in general. So look at the pages, look at what has been produced so far, look at all arguments, and decide for yourself. You can decide for yourself, right? I don't have to tell you what to think, right? Go forth, unbeliever, and seek the truth.
The core of the GNU project is the Gnu General Public Licence. This is essentially a restrictive copyright statement that is applied (mostly) to software, which requires that any and all modifications to the software must be made available in source code form, if a modified version of the program is released publicly. Arguments rage back and forth that the license is too restrictive. It doesn't allow you to take the code, change it, and release (sell) it as a product in binary form only. It doesn't mean you can't sell it. It doesn't mean that it won't cost anything to get it. It means that when Company X goes bust 5 years down the road, and Product Y goes plop, it can be fixed. Decide for yourself whether you like it.
There is a ton of software available under the GPL, both by the fsf and other people. A good listing is available from the gnu software page. I also have a guile page, which mostly deals with the garbage collector.
When you get to the bottom you go back to the [TOP] of the slide.
Last modified Sun Nov 08,1998
Contains some annoyances for page harvesters >;^).