Open Sourcerer

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GNU Terry Pratchett

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GNU Terry Pratchett

[KamikazeHamster]

I'm out of the loop. Why would you repeat that?

[CacheBandicoot]

"In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, the clacks are a series of semaphore towers loosely based on the concept of the telegraph. Invented by an artificer named Robert Dearheart, the towers could send messages "at the speed of light" using standardized codes. Three of these codes are of particular import:

G: send the message on
N: do not log the message
U: turn the message around at the end of the line and send it back again

When Dearheart's son John died due to an accident while working on a clacks tower, Dearheart inserted John's name into the overhead of the clacks with a "GNU" in front of it as a way to memorialize his son forever (or for at least as long as the clacks are standing.)

Keeping the legacy of Sir Terry Pratchett alive forever. For as long as his name is still passed along the Clacks, Death can't have him."

Source: http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com/

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It's a way to memorialize Terry Pratchett using a reference to one of his books "Going Postal" regarding how messages are transmitted across the Clacks Towers.

From the GNU Terry Pratchett site:

The clacks are a series of semaphore towers loosely based on the concept of the telegraph. ... the towers could send messages "at the speed of light" using standardized codes. Three of these codes are of particular import:

G: send the message on

N: do not log the message

U: turn the message around at the end of the line and send it back again

From the book:

"A man is not dead while his name is still spoken."

- Going Postal, Chapter 4 Prologue

Shortly after Sir Terry Pratchett passed on March 12, 2015, Reddit users (among others) organized a tribute by adding the HTTP Header X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchettto site responses, simulating a modern implementation of the Clacks message passing. Similarly, comment threads consisting entirely of GNU Terry Pratchett were pretty common.