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- Thanks pal!
- What means "GNU's not Unix"?
- Can you help?
- Regards,
Maer
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It a bit of a joke. It is supposed to be the first recursive name. GNU can be expanded like:
GNU
GNU´s not UNIX
GNU´s not´s UNIX not UNIX
GNU´s not´s UNIX not´s UNIX not UNIX
.....
It was introduced by Richard Stallmann, who started Free Software Foundation and has made countless valuable contributions to the computer society (like emacs). Most of the linux operating system is based on GNU software (although Torvalds gets the honor for the kernel). The reason for creating GNU and GPL (GNU General Public Licence) was to fight Non-Free software (like UNIX), where the source is not available, and the user is bound by his licence. GPL does not prohibit any use of the source, as long as the final product is also released under GPL. There is also a lesser strict licence mostly used by GNU libraries, allowing developers to use GNU compilers (like gcc) to build non-free applications.
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- Thanks, moliate pal!
- Your reply helps a lot. But I still have a question. I still do not understand the literal meaning of GNU (the meaning of letter "G" ). Is it just a joke?
- Can you help?
- Have a nice weekend,
Maer
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It does not have any literal meaning. It is a word,"gnu" as I already told you, which is an animal's name. Later on, they added this recursive expansion, partly in humor
Nish
Sonork ID 100.9786 voidmain
www.busterboy.org
Nish is a BIG fan of Goran Ivanisevic
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- Thanks, Nish pal!
- Your reply have clarified all my doubts.
- Have a nice weekend,
Maer
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Nish is right. The central part here is "Not UNIX", which would give an recursive acronyme like '_NU'. One of the few english words that would fit that template would be 'gnu'...
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- Thanks, moliate pal!
- Yep, I think you are right and smart. You must be a fan of UNIX.
- Well, another question arises in my head. I do not know why they do not use the UNIX kernel and write a new version of their own. Why not just implement the binaries of UNIX and use the UNIX kernel? It is a nice kernel, isn't it?
- Can you help?
- Have a nice weekend,
Maer
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The keyword is "Free software" (guess that is two words). In Swedish there are two different words: "gratis", meaning "free of cost" and "fri", meaning free in the liberty sense. GNU software use both definitions. That means you can do all the things below:
(From the GNU hompage)
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
- The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
There is a whole family of UNIX-like OS:es and kernels, like BSD, freeBSD, Linux, AIX, XENIX, HP-UX, SCO, Solaris.... Most of them are not "Free" in any definition and does not make the source available. GNU did not write any kernel, but provide a lot of functionality that make up the OS, like the most common shellcommands (Fileutils).
Stallman himself is an idealist and don't use any "Non-Free" software.
> - Yep, I think you are right and smart. You must be a fan of UNIX.
Thanks  . I am a Windows programmer, like most of us in here, but I have done some occational Linux programming (and some on "non-free" Solaris).
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- Thanks pal!
- Your reply helps a lot. I still have a question.
- What means "es" in your reply? (" ... es and kernels ... " )
- Can you help me, a newbie?
- Have a nice weekend,
Maer
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That was a unsuccessful attempt to find a plural form for OS. I should have written "operating systems" instead.. 
/*english is not my first language* moliate
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See http://www.gnu.org/
Nish
Sonork ID 100.9786 voidmain
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- Thanks, Nish pal!
- After a qiuck view of "http://www.gnu.org/", I still do not find the definition of GNU.
- Can you help?
- Regards,
Maer
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The word 'gnu' originates from the animal with the same name. I think it is an animal that looks like a deer with long shapely horns.
GNU has a recursive definition of Gnu is Not Unix
Richard M Stallman was inspired by the 'Not Unix' part and so wanted to have a GNU OS.
Right now GNU has all the required UNIX binaries except for the kernel. That's why we have GNU/Linux - which is basically a UNIX distribution with the GNU tools and utilities running on top of a Linux kernel
RMS [Stallman] and gang will soon release the HURD kernel which is the GNU kernel. Once that is finished we will have a GNU operating system [no linux]
Hope this helps....
Nish
Sonork ID 100.9786 voidmain
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- Thanks, Nish pal!
- What means "UNIX binaries" in your reply?
- Regards,
Maer
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The executable files like ls and cat
Nish
Sonork ID 100.9786 voidmain
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- Thanks, Nish pal!
- I still have a question. Why they do not use the UNIX kernel? I think the UNIX kernel is nice kernel.
- Can you help?
- Regards,
Maer
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Presumably because the UNIX kernel is not free nor is it open-source.
I could be wrong though. And there might be other legal issues involved.
Nish
Sonork ID 100.9786 voidmain
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If my memory serves my right the deer with the long shapely horns is an Oryx antilope. The gnu is also called a wilderbeest, lives on the big plains in Africa (saw them myself on a safari to Kenya), notably on the Masai Mara plain spanning Kenya and Tanzania. Here they migrate from north to south (and back, obviously  ) in flocks counting millions of individuals. It was a gnu stampeed that killed Simba's father in Lion King. Gnus look like a smallish, ugly ox. So why anybody would name a Unix clone after this is beyond my comprehension 
Cheers
Steen.
"To claim that computer games influence children is rediculous. If Pacman had influenced children born in the 80'ies we would see a lot of youngsters running around in dark rooms eating pills while listening to monotonous music"
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So why anybody would name a Unix clone after this is beyond my comprehension
they kinda like animals
even imaginary ones
gnu, gnome, jackal, tomcat...
and tux is a penguin of all animals !!!
Nish
Sonork ID 100.9786 voidmain
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In essence, it means nothing.
Unix people have a wierd sense of humor. There is another famous Unix program called Yacc (which I think stands for "Yet Another Compiler Compiler"), and another named Bison (who knows what that means? Anyway, these are both ruminants (ie cattle), so whatever joker came up with the Gnu project decided to name it after yet another herdbeast. (Why they didn't name it BULL is beyond me.)
Later, some clown decided to get funny and tag a meaningless recursive definition to the name: Gnu's Not Unix. Yawn. I hate to think what these nuts name their kids.
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- Thanks, Jim pal!
- Yep, I think you are right and smart. You must be a fan of UNIX.
- Well, another question arises in my head. I do not know why they do not use the UNIX kernel and write a new version of their own. Why not just implement the binaries of UNIX and use the UNIX kernel? It is a nice kernel, isn't it?
- Can you help?
- Have a nice weekend,
Maer
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- What is the difference between a normal function and a static function?
- For example, static int StaticFunc(int n);
- Can you show me an example?
- Regards,
Maer
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When static is applied to a global function it means the function is visible only in that .CPP file.
--Mike--
http://home.inreach.com/mdunn/
#include "witty_sig.h"
![Heart | [heart]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/love.gif) your ![Green Alien | [Alien]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/alien.gif) with ![Good Stuff | [The good stuff]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/vegemite.gif) and ![Beer | [beer]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/beer.gif)
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- Thanks pal!
- Your reply helps a lot. But I still have a question. What means "global function"?
- Can you show me an example?
- Regards,
Maer
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I'm not sure why you'd make a global function static ( I only glanced at Michael's answer, but whatever he says is most certainly correct. ).
A static function loses one of the characteristics of a normal function, that it must be called from a this pointer. In other words, if I have a class called CGraus, and I add a function called EmptyWallet, the I would need to call it from within my class, or through an instance of my class. A static function is like a static variable, it only exists once. A less frivolous xe examples exists in GDI+. The Bitmap class has a static function called FromFile. This means instead of
Bitmap bm;
bm.FromFile("Claudia Schiffer.jpg");
I do it like this:
Bitmap * bm = Bitmap::FromFile("Michelle Pfeiffer.jpg");
You'll notice when I call the function there isn't necessarily an instance of Bitmap in memory, certainly the constructor for my pointer has not been called, and is in fact called by my method. For this reason, I suspect the most useful way to use static functions is for methods to initialise pointers of the class in question.
I hope I've not muddied the waters too much.
Christian
After all, there's nothing wrong with an elite as long as I'm allowed to be part of it!! - Mike Burston Oct 23, 2001
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