Software - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation

GNU Software

GNU is an operating system which is 100% free software. It was launched in 1983 by Richard Stallman (rms) and has been developed by many people working together for the sake of freedom of all software users to control their computing. Technically, GNU is generally like Unix. But unlike Unix, GNU gives its users freedom.

The GNU system contains all of the official GNU software packages (which are listed below), and also includes non-GNU free software, notably TeX and the X Window System. Also, the GNU system is not a single static set of programs; users and distributors may select different packages according to their needs and desires. The result is still a variant of the GNU system.

If you're looking for a whole system to install, see our list of GNU/Linux distributions which are entirely free software.

To look for individual free software packages, both GNU and non-GNU, please see the Free Software Directory: a categorized, searchable database of free software. The Directory is actively maintained by the Free Software Foundation and includes links to program home pages where available, as well as entries for all GNU packages. Another list of all GNU packages is below. Free software documentation links are listed separately.

Finally, we have a short list of free software replacements for proprietary software running on various proprietary systems.

We have also published a list of recommended educational software.

How to get GNU software

Download distributions

If you're looking for a whole system to install, see our list of GNU/Linux distributions which are entirely free software.

GNU software is available by several different methods:

Download a wholly free GNU/Linux distribution.
Get a copy from a friend.
Buy a computer with a wholly free GNU/Linux system preinstalled from one of the companies that offers this.
Download individual packages from the web or via FTP: we provide source code for all GNU software as free software, and free of charge. (Please also make a donation to the FSF if you can, to help support the development of more free software.)
Use the GNU Guix functional package manager to install and manage GNU package releases.
Use the GNU GSRC collection to easily install the latest GNU package releases on their own, without conflicting with any system versions.
Use the GNU PPA (Personal Package Archive) on Trisquel or related distros to get the latest releases suitably packaged.
Get the development sources for a package and build them. Many GNU packages keep their development sources at the GNU hosting site savannah.gnu.org. Some packages use other source repositories, or have none at all. Each package's web pages should give the specifics.

Develop GNU software

The FSF maintains a list of high-priority free software projects; please help with these projects if you can. For other ways to contribute to GNU, including reviving unmaintained GNU packages and helping with development, see the GNU help wanted page.

If you're writing a new program and would like to make your software an official GNU package, see the evaluation information and submission form. Refer to the ethical repository criteria for guidance choosing a hosting service for your project.

If you're maintaining or developing a GNU package, whether newly dubbed or of long standing, this short list of tips for GNU maintainers may be useful, along with this information about GNU software developer resources.

All GNU packages

Links to the home pages of all current GNU packages are given below, using their identifiers (rather than long names) for brevity. They are sorted alphabetically from left to right. If you have corrections to this list or questions about it, please email <maintainers@gnu.org>.

Also available are lists of:

short descriptions for all GNU packages;
documentation for GNU packages (arranged by category);
GNU package logos; and
recent GNU releases.

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Decommissioned GNU packages

GNU packages are occasionally decommissioned, generally because they've been superseded by, or integrated into, other packages. If you have time and interest in resurrecting any of these, please contact <maintainers@gnu.org>. Here is the list; we leave the old project pages up (when they existed):