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GNU Hello

The GNU Hello program produces a familiar, friendly greeting. Yes, this is another implementation of the classic program that prints “Hello, world!” when you run it.

However, unlike the minimal version often seen, GNU Hello processes its argument list to modify its behavior, supports greetings in many languages, and so on. The primary purpose of GNU Hello is to demonstrate how to write other programs that do these things; it serves as a model for GNU coding standards and GNU maintainer practices.

GNU Hello is written in C. For implementations in other programming languages, notably including translation into other languages, please see the GNU Gettext distribution.

Downloading Hello

Hello can be found on the main GNU ftp server: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/hello/ (via HTTP) and ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/hello/ (via FTP). It can also be found on the GNU mirrors; please use a mirror if possible.

Documentation

Documentation for Hello is available online, as is documentation for most GNU software. You may also find more information about Hello by running info hello or man hello, or by looking at /usr/doc/hello/, /usr/local/doc/hello/, or similar directories on your system. A brief summary is available by running hello --help.

Mailing lists

Hello has one mailing list: <[email protected]>. It is used to discuss all aspects of Hello, including development and enhancement requests, as well as bug reports.

Announcements about Hello and most other GNU software are made on <[email protected]>.

To subscribe to these or any GNU mailing lists, please send an empty mail with a Subject: header of just subscribe to the relevant -request list. For example, to subscribe yourself to the GNU announcement list, you would send mail to <[email protected]>. Or you can use the mailing list web interface.

Getting involved

Development of Hello, and GNU in general, is a volunteer effort, and you can contribute. For information, please read How to help GNU. If you'd like to get involved, it's a good idea to join the discussion mailing list (see above).

Test releases
Trying the latest test release (when available) is always appreciated. Test releases of Hello can be found at http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/hello/ (via HTTP) and ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/hello/ (via FTP).
Development
For development sources, bug and patch trackers, and other information, please see the Hello project page at savannah.gnu.org.
Translating Hello
To translate Hello's messages into other languages, please see the Translation Project page for Hello. If you have a new translation of the message strings, or updates to the existing strings, please have the changes made in this repository. Only translations from this site will be incorporated into Hello. For more information, see the Translation Project.
Maintainer
Hello is currently being maintained by Reuben Thomas and Sami Kerola. Please use the mailing lists for contact.

Licensing

Hello is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

[FSF logo] “Our mission is to preserve, protect and promote the freedom to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer software, and to defend the rights of Free Software users.”

The Free Software Foundation is the principal organizational sponsor of the GNU Operating System. Support GNU and the FSF by buying manuals and gear, joining the FSF as an associate member, or making a donation, either directly to the FSF or via Flattr.

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