From: Shawn Hargreaves Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: I have some question. Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 21:52:54 +0000 Organization: None Distribution: world Message-ID: References: <3 DOT 0 DOT 16 DOT 19971124180152 DOT 2fb7c506 AT hem1 DOT passagen DOT se> NNTP-Posting-Host: talula.demon.co.uk MIME-Version: 1.0 Lines: 31 To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Precedence: bulk Peter Palotas writes: >>I heard it is "GNU is Not Unix" or something like that. > >I can't understand what they mean with that, there must be another >original meaning to GNU, right? What does the G in GNU stand for, it >can't stand for GNU, can it!? Why not? It is a recursive acronym, defined in terms of itself. I think this is rather an appropriate name for the GNU project, since the overall goal is to come up with a complete and self-contained computer environment, which is itself a recursive task: you can't write the OS until you have a compiler and development environment, but how do you make those tools until you have an OS for them to run under? According to the Hacker's Dictionary: recursive acronym pl.n. A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition is to choose acronyms/abbreviations that refer humorously to themselves or to other acronyms/abbreviations. The classic examples were two MIT editors called EINE ("EINE Is Not EMACS") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). More recently, there is a Scheme compiler called LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and GNU (q.v., sense 1) stands for "GNU's Not UNIX!" --- and a company with the name CYGNUS, which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU Support". -- Shawn Hargreaves - shawn AT talula DOT demon DOT co DOT uk - http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/ "Pigs use it for a tambourine" - Frank Zappa