<P> In 1983 , Richard Stallman , founder of the Free Software Foundation , set forth plans of a complete Unix - like operating system , called GNU , composed entirely of free software . In September of that year , Stallman published a manifesto in Dr. Dobb 's Journal detailing his new project publicly , outlining his vision of free software . Software development work began in January 1984 . By 1991 , the GNU mid-level portions of the operating system were almost complete , and the upper level could be supplied by the X Window System , but the lower level ( kernel , device drivers , system - level utilities and daemons ) was still mostly lacking . The GNU kernel was called GNU Hurd . The Hurd followed an ambitious design which proved unexpectedly difficult to implement and has only been marginally usable . </P>
who is given credit for the gnu initiative
Richard Stallman