Gnu Glossary

Browse 11 gnu terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

11 Gnu Terms

Autotools
A family of GNU build tools including Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool used to configure and build portable software across Unix-like systems. In open-source...
Coreutils
The collection of fundamental GNU command-line utilities such as `ls`, `cp`, and `sort` that underpin many Unix-like workflows.
Emacs
A highly extensible text editor created by Richard Stallman, famous for being so configurable it's essentially an operating system with a text editor built in....
Free Software
Software distributed in a way that preserves users’ freedom to run, study, modify, and share it. The phrase refers to liberty rather than price and is central...
Free Software Foundation
The nonprofit organization founded by Richard Stallman to promote software freedom and support the GNU project. The Free Software Foundation has been highly...
GNU Coreutils
The GNU collection of essential command-line utilities such as `ls`, `cp`, `mv`, `cat`, and many others used across Unix-like systems. In open-source culture,...
GNU General Public License
A family of strong copyleft licenses, commonly called the GPL, requiring that distributed derivative works also provide source code under the same license...
GNU/Linux
A term used by some in the free software community to emphasize that many so-called Linux systems combine the Linux kernel with core GNU userland tools and...
GNU Toolchain
The collection of GNU development tools, often including the compiler, linker, debugger, and related utilities used to build and inspect software. In systems...
Guix
A package management and system configuration approach from the GNU ecosystem focused on reproducibility, declarative state, and transactional upgrades. In...
Richard Stallman
The founder of the GNU project and a central figure in the free-software movement, frequently cited in software freedom debates.

Related Topics