Launch of GNU Project

Name: Launch of GNU Project
Start: 1984-01-01
Location: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Richard Stallman officially announced the GNU Project, an ambitious initiative to develop a complete, Unix-compatible software system that would be free software.

Significance

This laid the philosophical and practical groundwork for GCC, as a free compiler was identified as a critical component of the future GNU operating system.

Key facts

Date: 1984-01-01
Type: milestone
Location: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA