What is GNU/LINUX ?

" In the early days of computing, it was a standard practice for programmers to share software. However since the 1960s, software has been trapped in a battle of ownership and users have been prevented from sharing or modifying programs. By the 1980s, proprietary software became the norm and the software freedom was lost.
" The owners of software had erected walls to divide us from each other." These are the words of Richard M Stallman (RMS)., a celebrated programmer and an accomplished hacker. RMS quit his job at MIT's AI lab, to zealously campaign for safeguarding software freedom. In 1984, he launched the free software movement and started the GNU project to develop a free operating system called GNU (a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix"). The next year, he founded Free Software Foundation ( FSF) to promote free software. FSF promotes the use of GNU/Linux (oftenly mistakenly called 'Linux') based on the kernel developed by Linus Torvalds. ".

Moglen says "Free software is a fundamental requirement for a democratic and free society in which we are surrounded by and dependent upon technical devices. Moglen is closely involved with the Free Software Foundation, serving as general counsel since 1994 and board member from 2000 to 2007. He was responsible for drafting version 3 of the GPL. He has called on lawyers to help the Free Software movement, saying: "Those who want to share their code can make products and share their work without additional legal risks."

--Eben Moglen

to know more about G.N.U\LINUX CLICK HERE
there is much more to know about Free Software and OpenSource and where do they differ, to read click here
to know about the licenses used by Free Software click here