GNU Project some is released under a weak copyleft or a lax, push-over free software license. The first goal of the GNU project was to create a whole free-software operating system. By 1992, the GNU project had completed all of the major operating system utilities, but had not completed their proposed operating system kernel, GNU Hurd. With the release of the Linux kernel, started independently by Linus Torvalds in 1991, and released under the GPL with version 0.12 in 1992, for the first time it was possible to run an operating system composed completely of free software. Though the Linux kernel is
Operating system Operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, printing, and other resources. For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation, the operating system acts as an intermediary between programs and the computer hardware, although the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware and frequently makes system calls to an OS function or is interrupted by