GNU is a free software operating system. Its name is a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix", which was chosen because its design is Unix-like, but it contains no actual UNIX code.
The correct pronunciation of GNU is g'noo (IPA: /gnu/), with a hard "g", to distinguish it from the word new. According to Stallman, the name was inspired by various plays on words, including the song I'm a gnu.
