The Free Software Foundation have been working on their
GNU![[*]](/file/17320/Turnbull China Bikeride - Disc 2.iso/BARNET/GNU/PROJECT/HURD1/footnote.png)
operating
system since 1985. It was designed to be a replacement
for Unix. This had the advantage that when it was released,
there would already be a large number of people who were
able to use the system, and it meant that programmers
could work on implementing small pieces of the system
independently of each other. Many hundreds of utilities
have been released by GNU and they run on a wide variety
of Unix and Unix-like platforms, and even some totally
unrelated platforms. Because they are so widely available
and used, they have received a great deal of testing.
The HURD is the GNU replacement for the Unix kernel. It was
first released on the 6th August 1996.