Adel Mu.

In 1984, it was impossible to use a modern computer without installing a proprietary operating system, which you would have to obtain under a restrictive license. No one was allowed to share software freely with fellow computer users, and hardly anyone could change software to fit his or her own needs. 

The GNU Project was founded to change all that. Its first goal: to develop a Unix-compatible portable operating system that would be 100% free software. Not 95% free, not 99.5%, but 100%—so that users would be free to redistribute the whole system, and free to change and contribute to any part of it. The name of the system, GNU, is a recursive acronym meaning “GNU's Not Unix”—a way of paying tribute to the technical ideas of Unix, while at the same time saying that GNU is something different. Technically, GNU is like Unix. But unlike Unix, GNU gives its users freedom.

In 1991, the last major essential component of a Unix-like system was developed: Linux, the free kernel written by Linus Torvalds. Today, the combination of GNU and Linux is used by millions of people around the world, and its popularity is growing.