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September 12, 2007
Stallman: are you ready to fight for freedom?
Are you ready to fight for freedom or are you too lazy to resist? That is the challenge Richard Stallman throws down to the open source community in this major interview from our sister title Computerworld Brazil. He also spells out his views on Microsoft, Linus Torvalds and much more
By Peter Moon, Computerworld Brazil
You launched the GNU Project in September 1983 to create a free Unix-like operating system, and have been the project's lead architect and organizer since then. Why did you start it in the first place? Back then it was already clear that software was becoming proprietary?
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Stallman: In 1983, all operating systems were proprietary, non-free software. It was impossible to buy a computer and use it in freedom. Proprietary software keeps the users divided and helpless, by forbidding them to share it and denying them the source code to change it. The only way I could use computers in freedom was to develop another operating system and make it free software. I announced the plan in September 1983, and began development of the GNU system in January 1984.
On Feb. 3, 1976, Bill Gates wrote his famous "open letter to hobbyists" where he stated that software should be paid [for] just like hardware. Did you read that manifesto at the time? What was your impression back then?
Stallman: I never heard of it at the time. I was not a hobbyist, I was a system developer employed at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. I had little interest in 16-bit microcomputers, because the lab's PDP-10, with a memory equivalent to 2.5 megabytes, was much more fun. Pascal is both weak and inelegant compared with Lisp, our high-level language, and for things that had to be fast, assembler language was more flexible.
I don't know how I would have reacted at that time if I had seen that memo. My experience at the AI lab had taught me to appreciate the spirit of sharing and free software, but I had not yet come to the conclusion that non-free (proprietary) software was an injustice. In 1976 I did not use any non-free software. It was only in 1977, when Emacs was ported to the non-free Twenex time-sharing system that I started to experience the nastiness of proprietary software. After that, I needed time to recognize this as an ethical and political issue.
What do you think about intellectual property?
Stallman: I am careful not to use that confusing term in my thoughts, because it does not refer to a coherent thing, although it misleadingly appears to. The term lumps together laws that raise totally different issues, as if they were one subject.
Copyrights exist, and I have opinions about copyright law. Patents also exist, but patent law is almost completely different from copyright law. My opinions about patent law are also completely different from my opinions about copyright law. Trademark law exists too and it has nothing at all in common with copyright law or patent law. If you want to think clearly about any of these laws, the first step is firmly insisting on treating them as three different subjects.
If you say something about "intellectual property," you are trying to generalize about three laws that are totally different. Whatever you say will be a foolish over-generalization, because that term only leads to such. I've decided to avoid that pitfall by never using the term. [see here for more explanation.]
What's more important to you, GNU's huge user base or its large developer base?
Stallman: I appreciate them both, but neither is what matters most. We didn't develop GNU just to make it a technical triumph, or just to have a success. Our goal was to win freedom, for ourselves and for you.
What's important about GNU is that it provides a way to use computers in freedom. But this achievement is precarious. There are hundreds of GNU/Linux distros, and nearly all include some non-free software.
In 1992, GNU/Linux made it possible for the first time to use a PC and keep your freedom. By 2000, ironically, every version of GNU/Linux included non-free software and thus invited users to surrender their freedom by installing some. Today, I am glad to say, the Ututo and gNewSense distributions are 100 percent free software.
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Comments received
Trey said on Wednesday, 12 September 2007
Now I really wish the Hurd kernel was ready for mainstream.
Failsafe said on Wednesday, 12 September 2007
To paraphrase Linus, code is the best argument. Linus produced the kernel that has become the basis of a movement. There was no significant movement before Linux, just a few activists who could code but didn't make a large impact. The community is about sharing code, not bickering, internal politics or who thought of non-proprietary code first. Going out of our way to spite companies is contrary to the spirit of the movement, and will not benefit anyone except proprietary code companies like Microsoft.
Make no mistake: Microsoft will continue to use RMS's inflammatory statements to convince companies that it isn't safe to use open source software.
John said on Wednesday, 12 September 2007
In my experience most users are indeed "as foolish as Microsoft predicts." It is a sorry shame...
Marco said on Wednesday, 12 September 2007
Linux without GNU and the reverse are in a tight relation, if GNU had not existed, Linux probably could never seen the wide adoption that it has today. It was for the GNU project that all started (as a philosopy, and code)
remember, there was an entire system without a kernel, before the Linux kernel
George said on Wednesday, 12 September 2007
User "Failsafe" commented:
"To paraphrase Linus, code is the best argument. Linus produced the kernel that has become the basis of a movement. There was no significant movement before Linux, just a few activists who could code but didn't make a large impact."
That is simply not correct. To understand the significance of the "gnu" part of "gnu/linux", consider "linux" as the engine of a car, and "gnu" as everything else. And this analogy is kind of poor, because gnu's part is even bigger. Linux was built on top and using gnu (and couldn't actually be created without the gnu tools). Also the freedom that Mr. Stallman is talking about, encoded in the GPL license, is what made the amazing adoption and improvement possible. Some people (probably out of greed) now think that there is enough into it to just forget about freedom and be "practical", but that is foolish as it is short sighted and suicidal.
George 34
Waldo said on Thursday, 13 September 2007
I'm not a GNU booster or anything, but I have to echo George-- I remember using BSD w/a GNU C compiler in college back in the late 80s/early 90s. The Linux kernel helped build momentum in the Open Source movement and was in the right place at the right time to do so, but if it wasn't Linux, it would have been HURD. The BSD variants were (and I guess still are) another "free" Unix for people to play with and install on their home computers, so it wasn't like Linux was the only choice either.
Linux fit right into the GPL'd "kernel" slot in the GNU OS in the early-mid 90s, but it's totally inaccurate that "there was no significant movement before Linux".
W
Waldo said on Thursday, 13 September 2007
One last thing-- if there was single event that really brought open source into the mainstream, it was when Netscape opened the source to Communicator 5.0 which blew people's minds at the time and lead directly to Mozilla.org and Firefox.
Prakash Jose Kokkattu said on Sunday, 16 September 2007
RMS envisages the future.I truely want to follow his Free Software ideology.but i know that it is impractical as humans are humans-they are lured by the ready made mac or windows or even "Linux" like Ubuntu.but no one want to give credit to this software gandhi for GNU and the political movement associated with it.
I sincerely hope we can use GNU/Hurd soon atleast before 2010 :-| Linus is taking the full credit for "linux" the operating system forgetting the GNU part.
dear RMS,I(we) admire your efforts!
George Smiley said on Monday, 17 September 2007
Stallman's arrogance is simply breathtaking. He thinks that code is all there is. Most of us could not give two sh*ts about code for its own sake; we have other jobs, and other passions. In short, we have work to do, computers are merely tools (not religion), and life is too short to spend time f*cking around on a day-late dollar-short OS implementation that does not at present meet our needs.
SickofpeoplelikeStallman said on Monday, 17 September 2007
Why do you continue to give press to this bozo? He's employed by MIT - a government supported institution which in fact has supported the use of 1000s of patents. In fact MIT's various laboratories are funded in part from patent royalties.
Stallman doesn't know the slightest thing about starting, much less running, a business. He has never had to raise money, live in his garage while building the business, please shareholders, much less pay employees a market wage.
Stallman talks about free but only in the context of it being an option. The reality is that free isn't a business and it isn't an option for anyone in America. Richard you live in America so please shut up and let the rest of us get on with running the world's biggest economy.
DBL said on Tuesday, 18 September 2007
In principle, Stallman is absolutely right. I often finish listening to him speak filled with a desire to ditch my Macs and switch to LINUX. But then I try another distro, and I remember the problem with Richard Stallman: he should spend less time pontificating and squabbling over minutiae with his compatriots, and more time making damn sure that his OS is usable -- and especially, troubleshootable -- for a non-programmer. In fact, if he had done so from the beginning, the Hurd would have been a reality when it should have been -- not fifteen years later and counting. So in the end, Torvalds is right about one thing. Code talks, and bull walks. Put it on my desk, Stallman! And make it as easy as OS X. If you're asking millions of users to build these bridges themselves -- who is being lazy here? You don't deserve my desktop. Earn it, pal!
George said on Tuesday, 18 September 2007
What a Frigtard. OMG STFU you N00B. "Freedom" in computer is all fine and dandy. But there are way more important "Freedom" issues in the world besides code. What about human freedom. In IRAQ people are killing each other by the thousands to control and eliminate freedom from people and control them. I think places like this need our attention much more than some computer software.
As for the "Free" as in Freedom not as in Beer. You can kiss my ass. I need to get work done. I don't need or want to become a coder so modify a driver to do what I want. That is want I pay Apple or Microsoft to do. A Computer is a tool and I choose the best tool for my work. Which is web site development. GNU/Linux is NOT the best tool for my work by a long shot. I need a system that will actually work out of the box and let me work with it, instead of work on it.
Billy said on Thursday, 20 September 2007
Okay let's compromise we can call it LiGNUX-G and LiGNUX-K. Prounced the same as Linux. Li for the kernel (Linux), GNU (obvious), X for Xfree or X.org, and G or K for Gnome or KDE. That's how absurd this whold GNU/Linux concept is at this point. Had Stallman insisted on this from the start I would have listened. But, he sat by as the whole world branded it Linux and said nothing until now. For Stallman I have to say, keep up the fight for freedom but let this one go.