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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."
Thank you RMS
"Imagine in 20 years when this makes the front page of Slashdot on a Saturday morning at 1am. I bet no one will see it."
It is a lesson to think big. We take GNU and Linux for granted today. 20 years ago the did not exist.
Think big and see what you can do with your life!
For more information, contact me.
Arpanet mail:
RMS@MIT-MC.ARPA
What's an "ARPA", and why wont Network Solutions let me register one!?!?!
has been teaching us to love again. *sniff*
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Free your mind.
All HAIL RMS! Agree with him or not, his efforts have made your life better.
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?
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.
I think that the GNU project has brought software freedom to the masses and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg so far. For computers to truly be a great asset to society, the software must be free and unhindered by any one entity or small group of entities. Indeed, the software must be owned by no one and should be used freely by society so that information can be exchanged without the influence of some corporate monopoly or oppressive government. GNU isn't just about free software, it is about the free exchange of ideas.
Smeghead every day of the week.
...try focusing on it being the "GNU GPL" instead of "GNU/Linux" and how GNU created the system of licencing that brought us Linux, which as more of a consequence also involved creating the first GPL'd programs. I think that would be more effective instead of focusing so much on the specific GNU utilities in a distribution.
People know their distribution (Red Hat), and the kernel (Linux). The "middleware" GNU will never be famous. But the GPL is, though the people that talk about it is a lot higher than those that have read it. That is not ment to undermine what they have achieved, it's just that sometimes I feel they're barking up the wrong tree...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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!
That statement is so full of crap. Tha Free Software movement is, by definition, extremist.
How are the GNU ideals lessened for keeping the original views? The GNU project is about freedom, is not about taking over the desktop or making Microsoft go bankrupt. It's about CHOICE, and it has been extremely successful at that.
Do you run Linux, BSD or any othe UNIX clone? chances are that you are using the ls, grep, mv, cp, cd, find, etc versions from the GNU project. Have you ever realised the contribution made from RMS to your day to day work? Maybe if you don't use free software you will not notice, but a lot of us live from it, and we are thankful.
Even if we do not share the same political views as others we can benefit from their achivements. Their ideals may lead them to create and do wonderful things, and in this case RMS deserves all the respect and recognition we can give him.
Kudos to RMS!!! You may not share his views (I DO share them), but no one can argue he has helped to make this a better world
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.
See for yourself... in his personal ad
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.
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Not to be confused with Col.
Sticking to one's principles through thick and thin is extremist, eh?
Where I come from that was once called "integrity".
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
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...
It goes to the old adage, "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." By taking what is viewed by some to be an extreme position (not the concept, but the associated zealotry), I believe that RMS has alienated a significantly-sized group of people. Not because they don't like or agree with the concept, but that they disagree with his associated zealotry.
It's similiar to the reason why some people won't use qmail or djbns. It's not that they don't like the software, it's that they perceive the author to be an asshole.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
As I just posted a while ago in the preceding thread we have ESR representing the pragmatic point of view with the Open Source Initiative.
.RMS and his "no you won't, either" position.
I'd say this is a Good Thing and obviously so does most of the commercial world.
However, the middle ground is always defined by the end points. Move the end points to the right and the "moderate" point of view moves to the right right along with them. (Errrr, right?)
So, on one end of the field we have Microsoft and their "we intend to own it all" position and on the other end of the field you have. .
I don't care if he's a nut, whack job, unrealistic idealist, extremist radical or what have you.
But I do very much care that his flag stays staked very firmly, right where it is, and that someone is protecting it.
God bless the crazy old bastard for taking on the job.
KFG
So where's that Empire game you promised?
If RMS is a "nutso prophet," ESR is the televangelist version. :-)
-- Henry Spencer
Twenty years ago I was 11. By then I already had 5 years of coding experience, mostly assembly, and a bit of Basic. Everything I knew about code came from reading books, reading other people's Basic code, and disassembling binaries. At no point was I actually aware that there were people out there fighting to make possible what I largely took for granted... the complete availabilty of source code as well as the unrestricted ability to read, modify, and distribute it.
As an adult, I nearly gave up coding altogether. I felt like a farmer without my own land. I owned no share of the programming tools that I used daily. All the API's were immutable, opaque, and hostile (VFW comes to mind).
Then I found Linux, and from there, the FSF and GNU. Beyond a doubt, without the work of Stallman and everyone fighting for Open Source, I'd be doing anything but writing code today. And aside from my family, few things are more integral to who I am than writing software. I was born to code.
So thank you Richard! It took me awhile to find everyone, but now that I'm here, I'm glad you started when you did. That said, if we had to start from scratch today, I would be part of it.
-Hope
Looking back, I'd say RMS's two greatest contributions to the world are the GNU Public License and the GCC compiler.
The GPL attracted a whole bunch of people who are willing to contribute code, but not if someone could rip the code off, change a few things, and sell it in a broken state. This is one of the reasons for the great vitality of Linux and of GNU software. Also, the GPL makes companies like IBM willing to donate patents (such as the Read-Copy-Update patent) for use in free software; thanks to the GPL they know they can still sell a patent license if anyone wants to use the patent for a proprietary purpose.
GCC, on the other hand, made it possible for people to write free software without paying thousands of dollars for a compiler. It also served as a common language across all the *NIX platforms; if you were writing a utility, you could write to GCC instead of needing to work around the quirks of the various C compilers.
Linus Torvalds got the ball rolling on the Linux kernel, but he used GCC and the GPL to do it.
Thank you, RMS.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely