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20th Anniversary of RMS's Original GNU Post
An anonymous reader writes "Sep 27, 2003 is the 20th anniversary of Stallman's original Usenet post describing his vision of GNU. Good time for reflecting over GNU's successes and failures, about how it has changed our world."
...that this simple beginning would end up being the last possible route to grabbing back the future from unnamed monopolistic parasites?
Although he talks about his ideology, the focus of his post is on the software. When I read about anything he's said in the last few years, it's always ideology, with a little bit about the software thrown in. Might the GNU project be better served if their leaders would stop worrying about whether it should be called GNU/Linux and get back to the technical side of things?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Thank you RMS
... thanks RMS and Linus for giving us a choice, and thanks to all of them who have helped these dreams endure.
Really, I can't thank hime enough.
Thanks for providing us with the tools that make our jobs easier, and our lives freer. I use GNNU/Linux in a day to day basis, it feeds me and my family, it gives us a roof, it has helped me pay for theschool of my sons and the car we just bought.
Thanks GNU amd Linux
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
For more information, contact me.
Arpanet mail:
RMS@MIT-MC.ARPA
Usenet:
Raise your hand if you ever had a "bang-path" email address. For that matter, raise your hand if you know what a bang-path address is.
It is interesting to look at how the ideas in the post agree and disagree with the state of GNU today.
For example, Stallman states that a kernel is a top priority, yet we still don't have a really stable, working kernel out of GNU (I don't think Mach or Hurd count).
Also interesting - filename completion is mentioned as a possibility. Now it is difficult for many people, including myself, to live without it. Yet Stallman implies that a Lisp-based window system is more important. What became of this idea?
By far, my favorite quote from this is:
Is this not what GNU started? Many projects with part-time distributed workers? This is a quote from RMS, stating that the development model most open source projects now use would be very difficult.
Stallman's vision for GNU has stayed remarkably consistent. He has am overriding definition of value - "free is better", everything since has been a result of that. The dislike of the business world for the GPL is not a setback for RMS, his goal is Free Software, so the fact that it is now interested does not mean he is going to sell out his principles and do anything to get businesses to use his software.
I admire that. Although I use a lot of prorietary software (and tend toward the pragmatic over principle) I'm glad that RMS chose to start GNU and stuck with it so long.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
It almost seems that you guys are happy that he did not actually succeed. Was it the word "humanity" that turned you off?
Must-not-watch TV!
What an inspiration! I have a question, though, and maybe RMS or someone else on this site would be able to answer this. No, it's not about how the first thing he mentions is a kernel and the last thing to actually be done (if you can even say that) is the kernel.
It's about RMS switching between "I" and "we". What's up with that? Obviously this post is a shout-out to anyone interested in helping. But on that date, when RMS first shouted-out this revolutionary idea [chokes back tears, pauses to regain composure], who else was already involved? Who was this "we" he speaks of? Or was it a theoretical "we"? The Royal "we"?
While I'm writing, can I just say once more to Richard, Linus, Rusty, Alan, and all the other* millions who have contributed their code in the spirit of the GNU project: A MILLION THANK YOU'S!! You have already changed the world!
*If you're a big-kahuna-GNU/developer, please don't be offended that I left your name out. I love you too.
----
Not to be confused with Col.
He was talking about not wanting a Vax 780 or probably even a 750, which was what ARPA had declared to be the standard ARPA grant platform.
For years, the GNU project ran on a Vax 750 called "prep.ai.mit.edu", but it was at MIT on the 7th floor of Tech Square, not in RMS's house (which burned down, by the way). Quite a few times I crashed prep by using the vt100 on top of it and typing ^P in Unix EMACS (as opposed to ITS EMACS on the PDP-10). ^P takes you to the machine boot ROM on a Vax -- equivalent to taking you to the BIOS immediately on an Intel PC.
It was a while before I figured out how to recover and continue running Unix. So I probably lost the GNU project a few files due to fsck lossage...
I'm saying I'm making a living out of the GNU project, using and creating solutions based on the original philosophy. And I'm grateful.
Could I possibly make a living without it? maybe, but the fact is, I make a living and my family makes a living. I must thank RMS for starting it all.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
In 1983, I remember the PDP-11 was on the way out and the VAX computer was on the way in. I was at Berkeley then; BSD was still nastily entangled with AT&T code.
I worked at Lawrence Berkeley Labs part time during the school year and full time during summers. We ran our entire building off of a single VAX 11/780. It was about four feet high, three feet deep, and maybe 15 feet long, and it had the processing power of One MIP, and we were lucky to have it. The external disk drives were about the size of a washing machine. I don't imagine any VAX from that era would run in a residential setting. (Maybe an 11/730?)
RMS came to talk to the Berkeley Computer club. It might have been that year; I don't think he'd officially started GNU yet. About a dozen of us took him out to sushi; I remember thinking he was an anticapitalist nut. (I've changed my opinion since.)
That was the year the Macintosh came out; they had two models, one with 128k and one with 512k. A lot of "real programmers" scoffed at them, but some people praised the excellent interface.
But maybe you could get an old PDP 11/70, and run it in your garage. It probably ran off of 110 volts, and didn't need special cooling or a special room with a raised floor. Sure, it was 16 bit, but those were what all the early Berkeley Unix code was written on. We had a bunch of them! Imagine running 30 interactive users on something less powerful than your cellphone today, and you'll be about right.
"I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement."
Thankyou RMS
The Death Penalty: Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.
... the GPL isn't about "Freedom" at all.
It's just a way of covering his true agenda, that of destroying commercial software.
With the boom in software in the early 80's, many left his "Ivory Tower" at MIT to get better-paid work in the real world. This pissed off RMS so much he started a crusade to destroy the commercial software world.
Don't believe me? It's all out there in black and white, written by his own hand.
Remember, the GPL *IS* Communism. Really. I regularly hear this denied, yet it is a fact. If you support the GPL, then you support Communism.
I've always found it somewhat ironic that so many support the GPL in the name of "Freedom" (hint: it doesn't give you any, Guys) when the reality is it really hurts the small computing shops.
Big business can afford to rewrite code easily. Small shops often can't afford the kind of delay it incurs.
So, kudos to Stallman for both being an asshat for wanting to kill businesses and doing it in a way that actually shifts the balance of power even more towards the MegaCorps.
He is, in fact, responsible for direct damage to the economies of many nations around the world.
All because of spite.
Screw GNU. Screw Stallman. You've done those of us who work for a living a major dis-service.
My job leads me to deal with software vendors on a regular basis, and many of them have been hostile or dismissive of Linux and the GPL - such companies don't get our business and some have later changed their minds, but the attitude exists.
My other experience with this has been that a contractor released a work for hire under the GPL without my companies permission, this has created a credibility problem with management regarding the GPL and halted later attempts to release anything under the GPL.
My employer is not a software publishing house, but we do wind up consuming and producing a fair amount of software anyway. MS encourages us to use their software in order to get their business and this sort of quid pro quo makes more sense to most business types than the "hippy nonsense" of the GPL.
My experience might not be typical, but from what I read and hear it is fairly common.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Great post.
A while back I read a post which (to paraphrase) went something like this;
In fifty years, Stallman will be considered the most important luminary, with whole chapters devoted to his exploits. By contrast, Bill Gates will warrant only a footnote.
I'm not convinced that there will be a clear winner between these two extremes of principle. I think it's more likely that our current software ecology will continue to evolve a symbiotic relationshhip between F/OSS and proprietary, but that's speculation.
Stallman's Post contrasts nicely with the famous Open Letter to Hobbyists by Bill Gates during the same era. I think that those yet to be written history books would do well to juxtapose the two letters for an insight into the philosophical difference between the two men.
Want GPLed Empire? Right here! And there are probably a lot of more or less direct descendants of the idea - someone already mentioned Freeciv. And, of course, if you prefer real time, there's Stratagus (nee Freecraft).
So, where's GNU/Hurd?
Here.
Read, L
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
My friends and I gave a barbeque in Austin, Texas for RMS when he came for a speaking engagement. It was kind of like barbequing for Napoleon. He scarfed down the best ribs on the planet, treated his hosts and our guests like peasants, and as he left snarled, "IT'S GNULINUX!" and left his spit on my cheek upon his exit. He also paid too much attention to the hosts' 15-year-old daughter and whined too much about not being able to find a girlfriend in front of a woman he knew cared for him. I have a problem with him being called an ideologist. I do not think a person's accomplishments give them license to treat people badly. If he is perceived as an asshole, it is because he is an asshole. I would think someone as intelligent as he is would consider peoples' perception of him, but I really do not think he gives a damn about people's feelings. He is all about himself and the credit he gets. He also forgets to mention the key people that helped him in the beginning. All of these "All hail RMS" statements will do nothing but inflate his monumental ego. It is more than obvious to me that he doesn't bother with manners. We also barbequed for Eric Raymond twice because he is fun and a genuinely warm human being. We are looking forward to spending time with him again.
the loudest words are the ones we never say