GNU Go

GNU Go is a free program that plays the game of Go. GNU Go has played thousands of games on the NNGS Go server. GNU Go is now also playing regularly on the Legend Go Server in Taiwan and the WING server in Japan.

GNU Go 3.4 is portable and known to work well on GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac OS/X systems.

Download GNU Go 3.4

Download the source code of GNU Go 3.4.
If you can, please use a mirror.
Another copy can be found at this site.

GNU/Linux

GNU Go 3.4 and the development versions run well on GNU/Linux systems. Download the tar-ball and follow the instructions in README to compile the program.

You should use CGoban 1, Jago or gGo as a graphical user interface. An ASCII interface and an Emacs mode are also supported.

Windows

A windows binary of GNU Go 3.4 is available at Teun Burger's site.
A windows binary, and other things of interest are available at Trevor Morris' site.
Binaries of the older GNU Go 3.2 are available at Trevor Morris' GNU Go site. (Another Windows binary can be found at sjeng.sourceforge.net.)
To have a graphical Go board, you should also install Jago or gGo.
If you prefer to compile GNU Go 3.4 yourself, you can use your choice of compilers with GNU Go 3.4:
- DJGPP
- Cygwin, with or without GLIB
- MINGW32
- Visual C++ using Project files
If you happen to have Cygwin, you can get both GNU Go 3.4 and CGoban 1 through Cygwin's setup program.

Macintosh

If you have OS X, we recommend Sente Software's FreeGoban, a well-liked GPL'ed user interface for Macintosh OS X that includes GNU Go.
Mac GNU Go will run GNU Go 3.2 with a graphical interface under OS 9. There are English and Japanese versions. A bug in the client causes occasional crashes.
GNU Go 3.4 can be compiled without difficultly under Mac OS X.

Development versions

GNU Go is under continuous development. Development versions may be stronger but are not guaranteed to be as well tested as the stable version.

The GNU Go development page is your source for the very latest version.

Recent Tournaments

GNU Go took sixth place in Gifu Challenge 2003 with 5 wins in 9 games. Lost only to the four tournament winners and yielded fifth place to Many Faces only due to unfortunate pairings. Tournament results and game records are available.
GNU Go placed 8-th in the 21st Century cup in York Pennsylvania, finishing 3-3 against a strong field. Scored an upset win against Wulu but lost decisively to Go4++. Here are the century_games.tar.gz. Games from the 21st Century Cup.
GNU Go placed second in the European Go Congress, ending up 5-1 and losing only to GoAhead. Here's the Dublin games and An image from Dublin.
GNU Go place second in an informal tournament at the CGF in Japan at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo on August 25-26. GNU Go's result was 3-2 though one game was lost on time where GNU Go may have been ahead on the board by a narrow margin. Thanks to Hiroshi Yamashita, here are the game records.
Stefan Mertin's 13x13 tournament.

Other Free Go Programs

GNU Go on small computers:

Pocket GNU Go, from Ivan Davtchev, now maintained by Sid Liu, is a version of GNU Go 2.6 that runs on the Pocket PC. A GNU Go 3.2 port is in the works!
Here's a A Windows CE port of GNU Go 2.0 from Alexander Seewald. This builds on the user interface from Ivan Davtchev's program and may work a pocket PC, but it is tailored for a Win CE 2.11 device.
Benjamin Collar's GNU Go 2.6 port to the Agenda VR3, a Linux PDA.
Palm Go, derived from GNU Go 1.2, plays Go on the Palm Pilot.

Other programs that play go, and Go programming toolkits:

Vegos by Piotr Kaminski brute force AI that uses simulated annealing to play primitive Go. Includes a generic GTP client framework for Java. License is the same as zlib.
wallyplus is a C++ port by Andrew Balsa of Bill Newman's original Wally. It comes with a GTP script that allows it to play against GNU Go.
Andrew Balsa has also made GTP versions of some other free engines, Amigo, Baduki and Randy (a Go engine that plays random legal moves).
Baduki is a Go program by ``Artist'' (Lim Jaebum) licensed under the GNU GPL. We've lost track of the author's site but in the meantime the program is mirrored at Dan Stromberg's site. You can play matches between Baduki and GNU Go quite easily using CGoban 1.
OpenGo is a free (X11 style license) workbench for the Go programmer supporting different engines (such as GNU Go) and which runs under both Windows and GNU/Linux.
Mark Boon has released some Go modules in Java with a free license in the hope that this will help people to start their Go programs.
PubGo+ is a set of C++ classes for Go Programming by P. J. Leonard. It is published under the GPL.
Gtkgo is another GPL'd Go program. Sources may be found in the GNOME CVS.

Clients, capable of running GNU Go, and other graphical front ends to GNU Go:

ccGo is a GPL'd client written in C++ capable of playing with GNU Go, or on IGS.
RubyGo is a GPL'd client by J.-F. Menon for IGS written in the scripting language Ruby. RubyGo is capable of playing with GNU Go using the GTP.
Goben, a GTP capable front end for GNU Go using GTK libraries from Wayne Myers. Licensed GPL.
dingoui-1.0.src.tar.gz. Dingoui is a free GMP client written in GTK which can run GNU Go. Here's a snapsnot.
CGoban 1 is a GPL'd client which is a great way to run GNU Go on GNU/Linux or Unix. (Note: CGoban2 is a different program and cannot be used for this.) The last CGoban release by Bill Shubert was CGoban 9.12. Currently CGoban 1 is being maintained again and the latest release is available here.
Jago is a GPL'd Java client which works for both Microsoft Windows and X-Window System.
Sente Software's FreeGoban is a well-liked user interface for GNU Go (and potentially other programs) distributed under the GPL.
Mac GNU Go is a front end for GNU Go 3.2 with both English and Japanese versions. License is GPL.
Gogui from Markus Enzenberger is a Java workbench that allows you to play with a gtp engine such as GNU Go. Source code is in the CVS. Licence is GPL. Gogui does not yet support gmp or play on servers but is potentially very useful for programmers working on GNU Go or other engines.
gGo is a Java program which was originally known as qGo for Java. It can function as a client or sgf editor and supports the GTP, so you can play on the servers or with GNU Go. Licence is GPL.

Clients for server play:

TanGo is a client for Windows with innovative features. Now distributed under he GPL. It is written in Visual Basic.
qGo is an sgf editor in C++. It may soon function also as a client. Licence is GPL.
qigc is a GPL'd client by Lambert Klasen using the qt library.
SDL Go by Andreas Röver is a different kind of a client that communicates with GNU Go through it's ascii interface. Andreas has changed his objectives slightly, intending to use a standard widget set and the GTP protocol.
Xgospel is a GPL'd X-Window client program, more specialized than CGoban 1.9 but also excellent, for playing on the servers. (This client will not help you play with GNU Go on your local machine.)
Ergo is a GPL'd Java Go Client for use with the servers.
Gcperl is a GPL'd perl module client by Reid Augustin. It supersedes Tkgc. Get it here!
Vizigo is another client issued under the GPL. It runs under either Windows or GNU/Linux.
KGO is a GPL'd client by Pieter Eendebak.

Programs for printing Go boards:

Sgf2tex, a GPL'd system for typesetting Go games in TeX by Daniel Bump and Reid Augustin, including metafont sources and a perl script for translating Smart Go Format (SGF) files.
sgf2mpost. Another approach to typesetting Go Games, this program produces a metapost file which can be turned into an encapsulated postscript file, and included in a TeX document. Metapost is included with TeTeX, Web2C and other TeX distributions, and you probably already have it on your GNU/Linux system.
Xgod is a tool for building Go diagrams for LATeX documents. It is distributed under the GPL. Mirrored in the Ibiblio Linux archives.
GPL'd Perl scripts to make Ascii diagrams into gifs by Toni Cornelissen and Nick Wedd.

Problem study:

Uligo is a program licenced under the GPL for practicing Go problems.
Dan Stromberg's web page includes two GPL'd programs for studying Go: Kentou, a program for self study of professional games, and newstosgf, a program for converting ASCII diagrams from rec.games.go into SGF files.
GoD is short for 'Go-Driller' and it is meant to be a program for drilling Go-problems. Requires TCL. Also available from this page is an NT port of CGoban 1.9 (requires an X-server).

Go recorders, SGF parsers, editors, database programs and other tools:

Pocket Go by Brian Dewey is a free SGF editor/viewer for the Pocket PC platform.
GoVRec is a GPL'd sgf game recorder for the Agenda PDA.
Kombilo, a Go database program by Ulrich Goertz.
JiGo is a collection of Go related Java applets and an API for developing such applets, with an sgf replayer already released as a sample application. The Java source is licensed under the GPL and is currently available in the Sourceforge CVS.
Steffen Glueckselig has two GPL'd tools written in JAVA including Jacoto, a tool for analyzing a library of SGF files.
Go tools is a collection of software tools, many in Python, for the game of Go. Includes an SGF parser in Python.
SGFC is a syntax checker for Smart Go Format (SGF) files. It is licenced under the GPL.
PilotGOne is a free SGF game recorder for Palm Pilot and compatible machines using PalmOS2.

Servers, Go Modem Protocol and Gnugoclient:

The NNGS server source is published under the GPL. Here's the current development page.
The Dragon Go Server source is also published under the GPL.
ML Rating by Per-Erik Martin is a rating program for Go. It is used as an alternative rating on NNGS. It is licenced under the GPL.
Gnugoclient 2.0. Not a part of GNU Go per se, this is the program used to connect GNU Go to NNGS and play games without supervision. It is licensed under the GPL. Version 2.0 released July 5, 2001 is a major enhancement. Requires GNU Go 2.7.245 or later and a recent version of Pike.
twogmp by J.-L. Martineau is a GPL'd program which allows you to play two Go Modem Protocol programs against each other.

A Go variant:

XiStrat is a board game environment which includes support for Go on general polyhedra. Licensed LGPL.

Let us know if you are aware of any other free programs for the game of Go.