The Real GNU Anniversary (Not Manifesto or Announcement) is Today

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jan 05, 2026,
updated Jan 05, 2026

It started exactly 42 years ago: "In 1983 Stallman launched the Free Software Movement by announcing the project to develop the GNU operating system, planned to consist entirely of free software. Stallman began working on GNU on January 5, 1984, resigning from MIT employment in order to do so. In October 1985 he established the Free Software Foundation." -Richard Stallman's personal site

Despite losing one important person on the same month as the FSF's anniversary (we've since then learned more about it), the FSF has raised about 1.3 million dollars since that anniversary and it looks like later this week it'll reach its funding goal:

GNU's anniversary (the development, not the manifesto [1, 2, 3]) is today. █

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