Gnulib, also called the GNU portability library, is a collection of software
subroutines which are designed to be usable on many
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...
s. The goal of the project is to make it easy for
free software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
authors to make their software run on many operating systems. Since source is designed to be copied from gnulib, it is not a library per-se, as much as a collection of portable
idioms
An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, ...
to be used in other projects.
Making a software package work on a system other than the original system it worked on is usually called "
porting
In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...
" the software to the new system, and a library is a collection of subroutines which can be added to new programs. Thus, Gnulib is the GNU project's
portability library.
It is primarily written for use by the
GNU Project
The GNU Project () is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices by collaborat ...
, but can be used by any
free software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
project.
See also
*
GLib
GLib is a bundle of three (formerly five) low-level system libraries written in C and developed mainly by GNOME. GLib's code was separated from GTK, so it can be used by software other than GNOME and has been developed in parallel ever sin ...
*
libiberty
GNU libiberty is a software library with a collection of subroutines used by various GNU programs. The library is now a decommissioned GNU package.
It was originally intended to be a sort of standard cross-platform library, thus enabling it to be ...
References
External links
The official Gnulib homepage
Free computer libraries
GNU Project software
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