The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop the GNU operating system, a complete Unix-like operating system which is free software—software which respects your freedom.
Read more: http://www.gnu.org/
“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”.
Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
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.
Read more: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
The FSF advocates for free software ideals as outlined in the Free Software Definition, works for adoption of free software and free media formats, and organizes activist campaigns against threats to user freedom like Windows 7, Apple's iPhone and OS X, DRM on ebooks and movies, and software patents.
We promote completely free software distributions of GNU/Linux, and advocate that users of the GNU/Linux operating system switch to a distribution which respects their freedom.
We drive development of the GNU operating system and maintain a list of high-priority free software projects to promote replacements for common proprietary applications.
We build and update resources useful for the free software community like the Free Software and Hardware Directories, and the free software jobs board. We also provide licenses for free software developers to share their code, including the GNU General Public License.
Read more: http://www.fsf.org/
The purpose of this project is to create a free and open version of the Cocoa (formerly known as NeXTSTEP/OpenStep) APIs and tools for as many platforms as possible.
GNUstep provides a robust implementation of the AppKit and Foundation libraries as well as the development tools available on Cocoa, including Gorm (the InterfaceBuilder) and ProjectCenter (ProjectBuilder/Xcode). GNUstep currently supports Unix (GNU/Linux and GNU/HURD, Solaris, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Darwin) and Windows.
GNUstep provides an environment to easily develop applications. GNUstep is suited both for advanced GUI desktop applications as well as for server applications. GNUstep provides the foundations for a portable desktop environment, but delegates this task to other projects.
GNUstep seeks to be source code compatible with Cocoa, it can thus be used to develop and build cross-platform applications between Macintosh (Cocoa), Unix and Windows.
GNUstep's main development language is Objective-C, but GNUstep is not limited to that.
Read more: http://www.gnustep.org/