In reference to Linux, what is GNU?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU

GNU (pronounced /gnu藧/ (help路info)) is a computer operating system composed entirely of free software. Its name is a recursive acronym for GNU's Not Unix; it was chosen because its design is Unix-like, but differs from Unix by being free software and by not containing any Unix code.[2] GNU was founded by Richard Stallman and was the original focus of the Free Software Foundation (FSF).

The project to develop GNU is known as the GNU Project, and programs released under the auspices of the GNU Project are called GNU packages or GNU programs. The system's basic components include the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), the GNU Binary Utilities (binutils), the bash shell, the GNU C library (glibc), and GNU Core Utilities (coreutils).

The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete Unix-like operating system which is free software: the GNU system.

GNU's kernel wasn't finished, so GNU is used with the kernel Linux. The combination of GNU and Linux is the GNU/Linux operating system, now used by millions. (Sometimes this combination is incorrectly called Linux.)

http://www.gnu.org/

GNU is a computer operating system composed entirely of free software. Its name is a recursive acronym for GNU's Not Unix; it was chosen because its design is Unix-like, but differs from Unix by being free software and by not containing any Unix code. GNU was founded by Richard Stallman and was the original focus of the Free Software Foundation