The Making of GNU: The World's First Open-Source Software

The GNU Project was the first widely recognized open source software project, as we understand the term today (the practice of sharing and collaborating on software code predates GNU by several years). The making of the GNU Project is a story that every tech enthusiast should know.

It all started in the early 1980s at the prestigious MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where Richard Stallman, a passionate computer programmer and MIT alumnus, was working. Due to his increasing frustration of proprietary software, Richard Stallman announces the GNU Project on September 27, 1983 and resigns from the MIT AI Lab in 1984 to work on GNU full time. Stallman outlines all of the project’s objectives and philosophy in the now-famous GNU Manifesto.
In 1985, he founds the Free Software Foundation, or FSF, to support the GNU Project and promote the free software movement. The FSF becomes the project’s beating heart, providing legal and financial backing to help fund the development of free software. This was swiftly followed by the release of the powerful GNU Emacs text editor in 1985, the versatile GNU Compiler Collection, or GCC, in 1987, and the robust GNU Debugger, or GDB, in 1988.
As the project gains momentum, Stallman introduces the first version of the GNU General Public License, or GPL, in 1989. This ingenious legal framework protects the rights of free software users and developers, ensuring that GPL-licensed software remains free and open for all to modify and redistribute.
But he hadn’t created other software, like text editors, compilers, or debuggers - like GNU already had. But the kernel, that’s the one thing GNU was missing. Stallman saw Torvald’s kernel as the missing piece of the puzzle and set out to integrate it with the rest of the GNU operating system.
In 1992, Torvalds released the kernel under the GNU General Public License. Now that Linux was GPL-licensed, the Linux and GNU developers worked to combine the Linux kernel with the existing GNU components to create a fully functional and free operating system known as GNU/Linux.
This is kind of the merging point of the two videos where in that one you can see how the Linux kernel came about, merged with GNU, and learn just how prevalent GNU/Linux is today.
Anyway… what began as Richard Stallman’s vision has grown into a global movement that champions the values of freedom, collaboration, and community-driven innovation. The GNU Project and the GNU/Linux operating system have not only inspired countless developer and users, but also laid the foundation for a thriving free and open source software ecosystem.

I hope you enjoyed it! If I could ask a favor from those who made it this far and enjoyed this video, share it with your friends. The more I know y’all like it, the more inclined I am to make more episodes in the series. Also comment what software, or even hardware or other historical technologies you’d like to see in this series. I appreciate you all for the never-ending support. Until next time.

00:00 GNU's Not Unix
00:33 Announcing My Series "The Making Of..."
01:07 Why Stallman Built GNU
02:13 Richard Stallman Announces The GNU Project
02:47 Founding the Free Software Foundation
03:17 Developers Join GNU and Build Free Software
03:54 First Version of GNU GPL
04:15 Linus Torvald's Makes the Linux Kernel
05:37 GNU/Linux is Built
06:40 Open and Free Software Continues Today...
07:28 Thanks for Watching!!
07:50 Stallman Got Moves

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[mrhyperbit]

“With software there are only two possibilites: either the users control the programme or the programme controls the users. If the programme controls the users, and the developer controls the programme, then the programme is an instrument of unjust power.”
― Richard Stallman

[ethgraham]

Richard Stallman was meant to be speaking at my school next week, but it unfortunately got cancelled due to some controversial things he said in the past :/

[ananthuskumar]

I am watching this on Arch linux. I am thankful to all the developers working for GNU/Linux.

[merial]

Great mini-documentary! I really like the script and your narration! Cheers from Brazil.

[josemedeiros]

Good video and explanation on Linux and GNU history. I met Richard Stallman when he spoke at U.C. Berkley on GNU/Linux.

[lawrencedoliveiro]

4:34 Perhaps more importantly, MINIX was only available under a non-Free licence: you had to buy a copy of Tanenbaum’s textbook in order to get the licence. Linus wanted something he could use and redistribute freely, and that others could also use and redistribute freely.

[ismailahmad]

Great video! Something from a slightly different sphere in tech would be cool too. Like the making of C or of C++, I've tried learning a tiny bit about it but just learned how ubiquitous it is. Apperently there was B before?
It's crazy to me the amount of foresight needed in designing something like this.

Also, if you ever reached out to interview some of these legends- I wouldn't be surprised if they were down. I'm not sure if you've watched any of the honeypot documentaries, but your channel is much bigger so if there was any person you wished you could have a conversation with, it may be possible (and we'd love to see parts of it!)

[tyk]

Thanks for the great GNU/YouTube video

[vitorpinheiroferreira]

Stalman hates when people say that he is the open-source.s father. There is a big diference between open an free software.

[shallex]

it's a shame that people feel the need to misrepresent Stallman, GNU, and the Free Software Foundation's name by referring to his and their works of Free Software as "open source" software, whose principles Stallman does not align or agree with

[liquidmobius]

Great job and nice upload! Do one on the old-school MIT and Berkeley hacker culture!

[hotdogjon]

I've already commented this in another video of yours like this but I really do love this kind of content, it's great to know the history of how technology got here today, you should do a video on Bill Joy! He had a famous interview where he predicted ai being what it is today about 20 years ago, his life is a great subject. Again, love the content!

[lolikpof]

Literally watched the first episode about Linux a few hours ago, and this comes out a few hours later 😹 Good thing I subscribed, else I would've missed it 😏

[fdfgsa]

It would be neat to cover creative software such as obs, gimp, krita, blender, inkscape, etc. Great work! And then programming languages?

[eurim.]

Richard Stallman himself have said he's not the open source father and GNU is not open source, it is LIBRE SOFTWARE.

Libre software has the liberty ideology
Open source is for practical reasons only.

[honkhonk]

Lol its wild how much stuff GNU really made.
Glibc, gcc, gdb, and all that stuff, they really just made themselves.

Like I use them hella but its kinda wierd knowing they were the ones who wrote it all.

[First_Principals]

A video about the POSIX standards would be good.

[HenriQ]

Thank you for this video. It is perfect to explain the history of opensource to newcomers

[KrakonosovoBabka]

Really nice video. I thought it was from some top creator while watching it. I believe you will get some recognition with this level of quality.

[_PulpoPaul]

I love this serie, I love you too. Greetings from Argentina!