GNU Software
In 1984, Richard Stallman, a former worker at the MIT Artificial Intelligence lab, founded the GNU project. GNU is a recursive acronym for Gnu’s Not UNIX. Stallman held the belief that ideas should be shared and that proprietary software (software owned and developed by a single company or individual) was unethical, antisocial and immoral. He developed a C compiler called GCC (for GNU C Compiler) and began working on other development and application tools with the idea of building a UNIX-like operating system that was free. He was faced with a moral dilemma; he wanted to provide “free” software but needed to pay the bills. How do you keep something free but make enough money so you can continue your work?