On September 27, 1983, Richard Stallman posted a message to Usenet that began the free software movement. The original announcement, preserved on gnu.org, opens: “Starting this Thanksgiving I am going to write a complete Unix-compatible software system called GNU (for Gnu’s Not Unix), and give it away free to everyone who can use it.”
Stallman set out an ambitious scope. GNU would initially include a kernel and the utilities needed for C programming, including an editor, a shell, a compiler, a linker, and an assembler. Over time he expected it to provide text formatting, games, a spreadsheet, and full documentation, and to run existing Unix programs.
The announcement was not merely a port. Stallman promised improvements over existing Unix, listing longer file names, file version numbers, a crash-proof filesystem, and a Lisp-based window system. The goal was a system that was both better and, crucially, free for everyone to use, study, and share.
This message is the documented starting point for the GNU Project, which would go on to produce GNU Emacs, the GNU Compiler Collection, and the copyleft licensing model. It also set the stage for the Free Software Foundation, founded two years later to carry the work forward.