| 1 | The GNU Project |
| 2 | |
| 3 | by Richard Stallman |
| 4 | |
| 5 | originally published in the book "Open Sources" |
| 6 | |
| 7 | The first software-sharing community |
| 8 | |
| 9 | When I started working at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1971, |
| 10 | I became part of a software-sharing community that had existed for |
| 11 | many years. Sharing of software was not limited to our particular |
| 12 | community; it is as old as computers, just as sharing of recipes is as |
| 13 | old as cooking. But we did it more than most. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | The AI Lab used a timesharing operating system called ITS (the |
| 16 | Incompatible Timesharing System) that the lab's staff hackers (1) had |
| 17 | designed and written in assembler language for the Digital PDP-10, one |
| 18 | of the large computers of the era. As a member of this community, an |
| 19 | AI lab staff system hacker, my job was to improve this system. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | We did not call our software "free software", because that term did |
| 22 | not yet exist; but that is what it was. Whenever people from another |
| 23 | university or a company wanted to port and use a program, we gladly |
| 24 | let them. If you saw someone using an unfamiliar and interesting |
| 25 | program, you could always ask to see the source code, so that you |
| 26 | could read it, change it, or cannibalize parts of it to make a new |
| 27 | program. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | (1) The use of "hacker" to mean "security breaker" is a confusion on |
| 30 | the part of the mass media. We hackers refuse to recognize that |
| 31 | meaning, and continue using the word to mean, "Someone who loves to |
| 32 | program and enjoys being clever about it." |
| 33 | |
| 34 | The collapse of the community |
| 35 | |
| 36 | The situation changed drastically in the early 1980s when Digital |
| 37 | discontinued the PDP-10 series. Its architecture, elegant and powerful |
| 38 | in the 60s, could not extend naturally to the larger address spaces |
| 39 | that were becoming feasible in the 80s. This meant that nearly all of |
| 40 | the programs composing ITS were obsolete. |
| 41 | |
| 42 | The AI lab hacker community had already collapsed, not long before. In |
| 43 | 1981, the spin-off company Symbolics had hired away nearly all of the |
| 44 | hackers from the AI lab, and the depopulated community was unable to |
| 45 | maintain itself. (The book Hackers, by Steve Levy, describes these |
| 46 | events, as well as giving a clear picture of this community in its |
| 47 | prime.) When the AI lab bought a new PDP-10 in 1982, its |
| 48 | administrators decided to use Digital's non-free timesharing system |
| 49 | instead of ITS. |
| 50 | |
| 51 | The modern computers of the era, such as the VAX or the 68020, had |
| 52 | their own operating systems, but none of them were free software: you |
| 53 | had to sign a nondisclosure agreement even to get an executable copy. |
| 54 | |
| 55 | This meant that the first step in using a computer was to promise not |
| 56 | to help your neighbor. A cooperating community was forbidden. The rule |
| 57 | made by the owners of proprietary software was, "If you share with |
| 58 | your neighbor, you are a pirate. If you want any changes, beg us to |
| 59 | make them." |
| 60 | |
| 61 | The idea that the proprietary software social system--the system that |
| 62 | says you are not allowed to share or change software--is antisocial, |
| 63 | that it is unethical, that it is simply wrong, may come as a surprise |
| 64 | to some readers. But what else could we say about a system based on |
| 65 | dividing the public and keeping users helpless? Readers who find the |
| 66 | idea surprising may have taken proprietary social system as given, or |
| 67 | judged it on the terms suggested by proprietary software businesses. |
| 68 | Software publishers have worked long and hard to convince people that |
| 69 | there is only one way to look at the issue. |
| 70 | |
| 71 | When software publishers talk about "enforcing" their "rights" or |
| 72 | "stopping piracy", what they actually *say* is secondary. The real |
| 73 | message of these statements is in the unstated assumptions they take |
| 74 | for granted; the public is supposed to accept them uncritically. So |
| 75 | let's examine them. |
| 76 | |
| 77 | One assumption is that software companies have an unquestionable |
| 78 | natural right to own software and thus have power over all its users. |
| 79 | (If this were a natural right, then no matter how much harm it does to |
| 80 | the public, we could not object.) Interestingly, the US Constitution |
| 81 | and legal tradition reject this view; copyright is not a natural |
| 82 | right, but an artificial government-imposed monopoly that limits the |
| 83 | users' natural right to copy. |
| 84 | |
| 85 | Another unstated assumption is that the only important thing about |
| 86 | software is what jobs it allows you to do--that we computer users |
| 87 | should not care what kind of society we are allowed to have. |
| 88 | |
| 89 | A third assumption is that we would have no usable software (or, would |
| 90 | never have a program to do this or that particular job) if we did not |
| 91 | offer a company power over the users of the program. This assumption |
| 92 | may have seemed plausible, before the free software movement |
| 93 | demonstrated that we can make plenty of useful software without |
| 94 | putting chains on it. |
| 95 | |
| 96 | If we decline to accept these assumptions, and judge these issues |
| 97 | based on ordinary common-sense morality while placing the users first, |
| 98 | we arrive at very different conclusions. Computer users should be free |
| 99 | to modify programs to fit their needs, and free to share software, |
| 100 | because helping other people is the basis of society. |
| 101 | |
| 102 | There is no room here for an extensive statement of the reasoning |
| 103 | behind this conclusion, so I refer the reader to the web page, |
| 104 | <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html>. |
| 105 | |
| 106 | A stark moral choice. |
| 107 | |
| 108 | With my community gone, to continue as before was impossible. Instead, |
| 109 | I faced a stark moral choice. |
| 110 | |
| 111 | The easy choice was to join the proprietary software world, signing |
| 112 | nondisclosure agreements and promising not to help my fellow hacker. |
| 113 | Most likely I would also be developing software that was released |
| 114 | under nondisclosure agreements, thus adding to the pressure on other |
| 115 | people to betray their fellows too. |
| 116 | |
| 117 | I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing |
| 118 | code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on |
| 119 | years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life |
| 120 | making the world a worse place. |
| 121 | |
| 122 | I had already experienced being on the receiving end of a |
| 123 | nondisclosure agreement, when someone refused to give me and the MIT |
| 124 | AI lab the source code for the control program for our printer. (The |
| 125 | lack of certain features in this program made use of the printer |
| 126 | extremely frustrating.) So I could not tell myself that nondisclosure |
| 127 | agreements were innocent. I was very angry when he refused to share |
| 128 | with us; I could not turn around and do the same thing to everyone |
| 129 | else. |
| 130 | |
| 131 | Another choice, straightforward but unpleasant, was to leave the |
| 132 | computer field. That way my skills would not be misused, but they |
| 133 | would still be wasted. I would not be culpable for dividing and |
| 134 | restricting computer users, but it would happen nonetheless. |
| 135 | |
| 136 | So I looked for a way that a programmer could do something for the |
| 137 | good. I asked myself, was there a program or programs that I could |
| 138 | write, so as to make a community possible once again? |
| 139 | |
| 140 | The answer was clear: what was needed first was an operating system. |
| 141 | That is the crucial software for starting to use a computer. With an |
| 142 | operating system, you can do many things; without one, you cannot run |
| 143 | the computer at all. With a free operating system, we could again have |
| 144 | a community of cooperating hackers--and invite anyone to join. And |
| 145 | anyone would be able to use a computer without starting out by |
| 146 | conspiring to deprive his or her friends. |
| 147 | |
| 148 | As an operating system developer, I had the right skills for this job. |
| 149 | So even though I could not take success for granted, I realized that I |
| 150 | was elected to do the job. I chose to make the system compatible with |
| 151 | Unix so that it would be portable, and so that Unix users could easily |
| 152 | switch to it. The name GNU was chosen following a hacker tradition, as |
| 153 | a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix." |
| 154 | |
| 155 | An operating system does not mean just a kernel, barely enough to run |
| 156 | other programs. In the 1970s, every operating system worthy of the |
| 157 | name included command processors, assemblers, compilers, interpreters, |
| 158 | debuggers, text editors, mailers, and much more. ITS had them, Multics |
| 159 | had them, VMS had them, and Unix had them. The GNU operating system |
| 160 | would include them too. |
| 161 | |
| 162 | Later I heard these words, attributed to Hillel (1): |
| 163 | |
| 164 | If I am not for myself, who will be for me? |
| 165 | If I am only for myself, what am I? |
| 166 | If not now, when? |
| 167 | |
| 168 | The decision to start the GNU project was based on a similar spirit. |
| 169 | |
| 170 | (1) As an Atheist, I don't follow any religious leaders, but I |
| 171 | sometimes find I admire something one of them has said. |
| 172 | |
| 173 | Free as in freedom |
| 174 | |
| 175 | The term "free software" is sometimes misunderstood--it has nothing to |
| 176 | do with price. It is about freedom. Here, therefore, is the definition |
| 177 | of free software: a program is free software, for you, a particular |
| 178 | user, if: |
| 179 | |
| 180 | * You have the freedom to run the program, for any purpose. |
| 181 | * You have the freedom to modify the program to suit your needs. (To |
| 182 | make this freedom effective in practice, you must have access to |
| 183 | the source code, since making changes in a program without having |
| 184 | the source code is exceedingly difficult.) |
| 185 | * You have the freedom to redistribute copies, either gratis or for |
| 186 | a fee. |
| 187 | * You have the freedom to distribute modified versions of the |
| 188 | program, so that the community can benefit from your improvements. |
| 189 | |
| 190 | Since "free" refers to freedom, not to price, there is no |
| 191 | contradiction between selling copies and free software. In fact, the |
| 192 | freedom to sell copies is crucial: collections of free software sold |
| 193 | on CD-ROMs are important for the community, and selling them is an |
| 194 | important way to raise funds for free software development. Therefore, |
| 195 | a program which people are not free to include on these collections is |
| 196 | not free software. |
| 197 | |
| 198 | Because of the ambiguity of "free", people have long looked for |
| 199 | alternatives, but no one has found a suitable alternative. The English |
| 200 | Language has more words and nuances than any other, but it lacks a |
| 201 | simple, unambiguous, word that means "free," as in |
| 202 | freedom--"unfettered," being the word that comes closest in meaning. |
| 203 | Such alternatives as "liberated", "freedom" and "open" have either the |
| 204 | wrong meaning or some other disadvantage. |
| 205 | |
| 206 | GNU software and the GNU system |
| 207 | |
| 208 | Developing a whole system is a very large project. To bring it into |
| 209 | reach, I decided to adapt and use existing pieces of free software |
| 210 | wherever that was possible. For example, I decided at the very |
| 211 | beginning to use TeX as the principal text formatter; a few years |
| 212 | later, I decided to use the X Window System rather than writing |
| 213 | another window system for GNU. |
| 214 | |
| 215 | Because of this decision, the GNU system is not the same as the |
| 216 | collection of all GNU software. The GNU system includes programs that |
| 217 | are not GNU software, programs that were developed by other people and |
| 218 | projects for their own purposes, but which we can use because they are |
| 219 | free software. |
| 220 | |
| 221 | Commencing the project |
| 222 | |
| 223 | In January 1984 I quit my job at MIT and began writing GNU software. |
| 224 | Leaving MIT was necessary so that MIT would not be able to interfere |
| 225 | with distributing GNU as free software. If I had remained on the |
| 226 | staff, MIT could have claimed to own the work, and could have imposed |
| 227 | their own distribution terms, or even turned the work into a |
| 228 | proprietary software package. I had no intention of doing a large |
| 229 | amount of work only to see it become useless for its intended purpose: |
| 230 | creating a new software-sharing community. |
| 231 | |
| 232 | However, Professor Winston, then the head of the MIT AI Lab, kindly |
| 233 | invited me to keep using the lab's facilities. |
| 234 | |
| 235 | The first steps |
| 236 | |
| 237 | Shortly before beginning the GNU project, I heard about the Free |
| 238 | University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for |
| 239 | "free" is written with a V.) This was a compiler designed to handle |
| 240 | multiple languages, including C and Pascal, and to support multiple |
| 241 | target machines. I wrote to its author asking if GNU could use it. |
| 242 | |
| 243 | He responded derisively, stating that the university was free but the |
| 244 | compiler was not. I therefore decided that my first program for the |
| 245 | GNU project would be a multi-language, multi-platform compiler. |
| 246 | |
| 247 | Hoping to avoid the need to write the whole compiler myself, I |
| 248 | obtained the source code for the Pastel compiler, which was a |
| 249 | multi-platform compiler developed at Lawrence Livermore Lab. It |
| 250 | supported, and was written in, an extended version of Pascal, designed |
| 251 | to be a system-programming language. I added a C front end, and began |
| 252 | porting it to the Motorola 68000 computer. But I had to give that up |
| 253 | when I discovered that the compiler needed many megabytes of stack |
| 254 | space, and the available 68000 Unix system would only allow 64k. |
| 255 | |
| 256 | I then realized that the Pastel compiler functioned by parsing the |
| 257 | entire input file into a syntax tree, converting the whole syntax tree |
| 258 | into a chain of "instructions", and then generating the whole output |
| 259 | file, without ever freeing any storage. At this point, I concluded I |
| 260 | would have to write a new compiler from scratch. That new compiler is |
| 261 | now known as GCC; none of the Pastel compiler is used in it, but I |
| 262 | managed to adapt and use the C front end that I had written. But that |
| 263 | was some years later; first, I worked on GNU Emacs. |
| 264 | |
| 265 | GNU Emacs |
| 266 | |
| 267 | I began work on GNU Emacs in September 1984, and in early 1985 it was |
| 268 | beginning to be usable. This enabled me to begin using Unix systems to |
| 269 | do editing; having no interest in learning to use vi or ed, I had done |
| 270 | my editing on other kinds of machines until then. |
| 271 | |
| 272 | At this point, people began wanting to use GNU Emacs, which raised the |
| 273 | question of how to distribute it. Of course, I put it on the anonymous |
| 274 | ftp server on the MIT computer that I used. (This computer, |
| 275 | prep.ai.mit.edu, thus became the principal GNU ftp distribution site; |
| 276 | when it was decommissioned a few years later, we transferred the name |
| 277 | to our new ftp server.) But at that time, many of the interested |
| 278 | people were not on the Internet and could not get a copy by ftp. So |
| 279 | the question was, what would I say to them? |
| 280 | |
| 281 | I could have said, "Find a friend who is on the net and who will make |
| 282 | a copy for you." Or I could have done what I did with the original |
| 283 | PDP-10 Emacs: tell them, "Mail me a tape and a SASE, and I will mail |
| 284 | it back with Emacs on it." But I had no job, and I was looking for |
| 285 | ways to make money from free software. So I announced that I would |
| 286 | mail a tape to whoever wanted one, for a fee of $150. In this way, I |
| 287 | started a free software distribution business, the precursor of the |
| 288 | companies that today distribute entire Linux-based GNU systems. |
| 289 | |
| 290 | Is a program free for every user? |
| 291 | |
| 292 | If a program is free software when it leaves the hands of its author, |
| 293 | this does not necessarily mean it will be free software for everyone |
| 294 | who has a copy of it. For example, public domain software (software |
| 295 | that is not copyrighted) is free software; but anyone can make a |
| 296 | proprietary modified version of it. Likewise, many free programs are |
| 297 | copyrighted but distributed under simple permissive licenses which |
| 298 | allow proprietary modified versions. |
| 299 | |
| 300 | The paradigmatic example of this problem is the X Window System. |
| 301 | Developed at MIT, and released as free software with a permissive |
| 302 | license, it was soon adopted by various computer companies. They added |
| 303 | X to their proprietary Unix systems, in binary form only, and covered |
| 304 | by the same nondisclosure agreement. These copies of X were no more |
| 305 | free software than Unix was. |
| 306 | |
| 307 | The developers of the X Window System did not consider this a |
| 308 | problem--they expected and intended this to happen. Their goal was not |
| 309 | freedom, just "success", defined as "having many users." They did not |
| 310 | care whether these users had freedom, only that they should be |
| 311 | numerous. |
| 312 | |
| 313 | This lead to a paradoxical situation where two different ways of |
| 314 | counting the amount of freedom gave different answers to the question, |
| 315 | "Is this program free?" If you judged based on the freedom provided by |
| 316 | the distribution terms of the MIT release, you would say that X was |
| 317 | free software. But if you measured the freedom of the average user of |
| 318 | X, you would have to say it was proprietary software. Most X users |
| 319 | were running the proprietary versions that came with Unix systems, not |
| 320 | the free version. |
| 321 | |
| 322 | Copyleft and the GNU GPL |
| 323 | |
| 324 | The goal of GNU was to give users freedom, not just to be popular. So |
| 325 | we needed to use distribution terms that would prevent GNU software |
| 326 | from being turned into proprietary software. The method we use is |
| 327 | called "copyleft".(1) |
| 328 | |
| 329 | Copyleft uses copyright law, but flips it over to serve the opposite |
| 330 | of its usual purpose: instead of a means of privatizing software, it |
| 331 | becomes a means of keeping software free. |
| 332 | |
| 333 | The central idea of copyleft is that we give everyone permission to |
| 334 | run the program, copy the program, modify the program, and distribute |
| 335 | modified versions--but not permission to add restrictions of their |
| 336 | own. Thus, the crucial freedoms that define "free software" are |
| 337 | guaranteed to everyone who has a copy; they become inalienable rights. |
| 338 | |
| 339 | For an effective copyleft, modified versions must also be free. This |
| 340 | ensures that work based on ours becomes available to our community if |
| 341 | it is published. When programmers who have jobs as programmers |
| 342 | volunteer to improve GNU software, it is copyleft that prevents their |
| 343 | employers from saying, "You can't share those changes, because we are |
| 344 | going to use them to make our proprietary version of the program." |
| 345 | |
| 346 | The requirement that changes must be free is essential if we want to |
| 347 | ensure freedom for every user of the program. The companies that |
| 348 | privatized the X Window System usually made some changes to port it to |
| 349 | their systems and hardware. These changes were small compared with the |
| 350 | great extent of X, but they were not trivial. If making changes were |
| 351 | an excuse to deny the users freedom, it would be easy for anyone to |
| 352 | take advantage of the excuse. |
| 353 | |
| 354 | A related issue concerns combining a free program with non-free code. |
| 355 | Such a combination would inevitably be non-free; whichever freedoms |
| 356 | are lacking for the non-free part would be lacking for the whole as |
| 357 | well. To permit such combinations would open a hole big enough to sink |
| 358 | a ship. Therefore, a crucial requirement for copyleft is to plug this |
| 359 | hole: anything added to or combined with a copylefted program must be |
| 360 | such that the larger combined version is also free and copylefted. |
| 361 | |
| 362 | The specific implementation of copyleft that we use for most GNU |
| 363 | software is the GNU General Public License, or GNU GPL for short. We |
| 364 | have other kinds of copyleft that are used in specific circumstances. |
| 365 | GNU manuals are copylefted also, but use a much simpler kind of |
| 366 | copyleft, because the complexity of the GNU GPL is not necessary for |
| 367 | manuals. |
| 368 | |
| 369 | (1) In 1984 or 1985, Don Hopkins (a very imaginative fellow) mailed me |
| 370 | a letter. On the envelope he had written several amusing sayings, |
| 371 | including this one: "Copyleft--all rights reversed." I used the word |
| 372 | "copyleft" to name the distribution concept I was developing at the |
| 373 | time. |
| 374 | |
| 375 | The Free Software Foundation |
| 376 | |
| 377 | As interest in using Emacs was growing, other people became involved |
| 378 | in the GNU project, and we decided that it was time to seek funding |
| 379 | once again. So in 1985 we created the Free Software Foundation, a |
| 380 | tax-exempt charity for free software development. The FSF also took |
| 381 | over the Emacs tape distribution business; later it extended this by |
| 382 | adding other free software (both GNU and non-GNU) to the tape, and by |
| 383 | selling free manuals as well. |
| 384 | |
| 385 | The FSF accepts donations, but most of its income has always come from |
| 386 | sales--of copies of free software, and of other related services. |
| 387 | Today it sells CD-ROMs of source code, CD-ROMs with binaries, nicely |
| 388 | printed manuals (all with freedom to redistribute and modify), and |
| 389 | Deluxe Distributions (where we build the whole collection of software |
| 390 | for your choice of platform). |
| 391 | |
| 392 | Free Software Foundation employees have written and maintained a |
| 393 | number of GNU software packages. Two notable ones are the C library |
| 394 | and the shell. The GNU C library is what every program running on a |
| 395 | GNU/Linux system uses to communicate with Linux. It was developed by a |
| 396 | member of the Free Software Foundation staff, Roland McGrath. The |
| 397 | shell used on most GNU/Linux systems is BASH, the Bourne Again |
| 398 | Shell(1), which was developed by FSF employee Brian Fox. |
| 399 | |
| 400 | We funded development of these programs because the GNU project was |
| 401 | not just about tools or a development environment. Our goal was a |
| 402 | complete operating system, and these programs were needed for that |
| 403 | goal. |
| 404 | |
| 405 | (1) "Bourne again Shell" is a joke on the name ``Bourne Shell'', which |
| 406 | was the usual shell on Unix. |
| 407 | |
| 408 | Free software support |
| 409 | |
| 410 | The free software philosophy rejects a specific widespread business |
| 411 | practice, but it is not against business. When businesses respect the |
| 412 | users' freedom, we wish them success. |
| 413 | |
| 414 | Selling copies of Emacs demonstrates one kind of free software |
| 415 | business. When the FSF took over that business, I needed another way |
| 416 | to make a living. I found it in selling services relating to the free |
| 417 | software I had developed. This included teaching, for subjects such as |
| 418 | how to program GNU Emacs and how to customize GCC, and software |
| 419 | development, mostly porting GCC to new platforms. |
| 420 | |
| 421 | Today each of these kinds of free software business is practiced by a |
| 422 | number of corporations. Some distribute free software collections on |
| 423 | CD-ROM; others sell support at levels ranging from answering user |
| 424 | questions, to fixing bugs, to adding major new features. We are even |
| 425 | beginning to see free software companies based on launching new free |
| 426 | software products. |
| 427 | |
| 428 | Watch out, though--a number of companies that associate themselves |
| 429 | with the term "open source" actually base their business on non-free |
| 430 | software that works with free software. These are not free software |
| 431 | companies, they are proprietary software companies whose products |
| 432 | tempt users away from freedom. They call these "value added", which |
| 433 | reflects the values they would like us to adopt: convenience above |
| 434 | freedom. If we value freedom more, we should call them "freedom |
| 435 | subtracted" products. |
| 436 | |
| 437 | Technical goals |
| 438 | |
| 439 | The principal goal of GNU was to be free software. Even if GNU had no |
| 440 | technical advantage over Unix, it would have a social advantage, |
| 441 | allowing users to cooperate, and an ethical advantage, respecting the |
| 442 | user's freedom. |
| 443 | |
| 444 | But it was natural to apply the known standards of good practice to |
| 445 | the work--for example, dynamically allocating data structures to avoid |
| 446 | arbitrary fixed size limits, and handling all the possible 8-bit codes |
| 447 | wherever that made sense. |
| 448 | |
| 449 | In addition, we rejected the Unix focus on small memory size, by |
| 450 | deciding not to support 16-bit machines (it was clear that 32-bit |
| 451 | machines would be the norm by the time the GNU system was finished), |
| 452 | and to make no effort to reduce memory usage unless it exceeded a |
| 453 | megabyte. In programs for which handling very large files was not |
| 454 | crucial, we encouraged programmers to read an entire input file into |
| 455 | core, then scan its contents without having to worry about I/O. |
| 456 | |
| 457 | These decisions enabled many GNU programs to surpass their Unix |
| 458 | counterparts in reliability and speed. |
| 459 | |
| 460 | Donated computers |
| 461 | |
| 462 | As the GNU project's reputation grew, people began offering to donate |
| 463 | machines running UNIX to the project. These were very useful, because |
| 464 | the easiest way to develop components of GNU was to do it on a UNIX |
| 465 | system, and replace the components of that system one by one. But they |
| 466 | raised an ethical issue: whether it was right for us to have a copy of |
| 467 | UNIX at all. |
| 468 | |
| 469 | UNIX was (and is) proprietary software, and the GNU project's |
| 470 | philosophy said that we should not use proprietary software. But, |
| 471 | applying the same reasoning that leads to the conclusion that violence |
| 472 | in self defense is justified, I concluded that it was legitimate to |
| 473 | use a proprietary package when that was crucial for developing free |
| 474 | replacement that would help others stop using the proprietary package. |
| 475 | |
| 476 | But, even if this was a justifiable evil, it was still an evil. Today |
| 477 | we no longer have any copies of Unix, because we have replaced them |
| 478 | with free operating systems. If we could not replace a machine's |
| 479 | operating system with a free one, we replaced the machine instead. |
| 480 | |
| 481 | The GNU Task List |
| 482 | |
| 483 | As the GNU project proceeded, and increasing numbers of system |
| 484 | components were found or developed, eventually it became useful to |
| 485 | make a list of the remaining gaps. We used it to recruit developers to |
| 486 | write the missing pieces. This list became known as the GNU task list. |
| 487 | In addition to missing Unix components, we listed added various other |
| 488 | useful software and documentation projects that, we thought, a truly |
| 489 | complete system ought to have. |
| 490 | |
| 491 | Today, hardly any Unix components are left in the GNU task list--those |
| 492 | jobs have been done, aside from a few inessential ones. But the list |
| 493 | is full of projects that some might call "applications". Any program |
| 494 | that appeals to more than a narrow class of users would be a useful |
| 495 | thing to add to an operating system. |
| 496 | |
| 497 | Even games are included in the task list--and have been since the |
| 498 | beginning. Unix included games, so naturally GNU should too. But |
| 499 | compatibility was not an issue for games, so we did not follow the |
| 500 | list of games that Unix had. Instead, we listed a spectrum of |
| 501 | different kinds of games that users might like. |
| 502 | |
| 503 | The GNU Library GPL |
| 504 | |
| 505 | The GNU C library uses a special kind of copyleft called the GNU |
| 506 | Library General Public License, which gives permission to link |
| 507 | proprietary software with the library. Why make this exception? |
| 508 | |
| 509 | It is not a matter of principle; there is no principle that says |
| 510 | proprietary software products are entitled to include our code. (Why |
| 511 | contribute to a project predicated on refusing to share with us?) |
| 512 | Using the LGPL for the C library, or for any library, is a matter of |
| 513 | strategy. |
| 514 | |
| 515 | The C library does a generic job; every proprietary system or compiler |
| 516 | comes with a C library. Therefore, to make our C library available |
| 517 | only to free software would not have given free software any |
| 518 | advantage--it would only have discouraged use of our library. |
| 519 | |
| 520 | One system is an exception to this: on the GNU system (and this |
| 521 | includes GNU/Linux), the GNU C library is the only C library. So the |
| 522 | distribution terms of the GNU C library determine whether it is |
| 523 | possible to compile a proprietary program for the GNU system. There is |
| 524 | no ethical reason to allow proprietary applications on the GNU system, |
| 525 | but strategically it seems that disallowing them would do more to |
| 526 | discourage use of the GNU system than to encourage development of free |
| 527 | applications. |
| 528 | |
| 529 | That is why using the Library GPL is a good strategy for the C |
| 530 | library. For other libraries, the strategic decision needs to be |
| 531 | considered on a case-by-case basis. When a library does a special job |
| 532 | that can help write certain kinds of programs, then releasing it under |
| 533 | the GPL, limiting it to free programs only, is a way of helping other |
| 534 | free software developers, giving them an advantage against proprietary |
| 535 | software. |
| 536 | |
| 537 | Consider GNU Readline, a library that was developed to provide |
| 538 | command-line editing for BASH. Readline is released under the ordinary |
| 539 | GNU GPL, not the Library GPL. This probably does reduce the amount |
| 540 | Readline is used, but that is no loss for us. Meanwhile, at least one |
| 541 | useful application has been made free software specifically so it |
| 542 | could use Readline, and that is a real gain for the community. |
| 543 | |
| 544 | Proprietary software developers have the advantages money provides; |
| 545 | free software developers need to make advantages for each other. I |
| 546 | hope some day we will have a large collection of GPL-covered libraries |
| 547 | that have no parallel available to proprietary software, providing |
| 548 | useful modules to serve as building blocks in new free software, and |
| 549 | adding up to a major advantage for further free software development. |
| 550 | |
| 551 | Scratching an itch? |
| 552 | |
| 553 | Eric Raymond says that "Every good work of software starts by |
| 554 | scratching a developer's personal itch." Maybe that happens sometimes, |
| 555 | but many essential pieces of GNU software were developed in order to |
| 556 | have a complete free operating system. They come from a vision and a |
| 557 | plan, not from impulse. |
| 558 | |
| 559 | For example, we developed the GNU C library because a Unix-like system |
| 560 | needs a C library, the Bourne-Again Shell (bash) because a Unix-like |
| 561 | system needs a shell, and GNU tar because a Unix-like system needs a |
| 562 | tar program. The same is true for my own programs--the GNU C compiler, |
| 563 | GNU Emacs, GDB and GNU Make. |
| 564 | |
| 565 | Some GNU programs were developed to cope with specific threats to our |
| 566 | freedom. Thus, we developed gzip to replace the Compress program, |
| 567 | which had been lost to the community because of the LZW patents. We |
| 568 | found people to develop LessTif, and more recently started GNOME and |
| 569 | Harmony, to address the problems caused by certain proprietary |
| 570 | libraries (see below). We are developing the GNU Privacy Guard to |
| 571 | replace popular non-free encryption software, because users should not |
| 572 | have to choose between privacy and freedom. |
| 573 | |
| 574 | Of course, the people writing these programs became interested in the |
| 575 | work, and many features were added to them by various people for the |
| 576 | sake of their own needs and interests. But that is not why the |
| 577 | programs exist. |
| 578 | |
| 579 | Unexpected developments |
| 580 | |
| 581 | At the beginning of the GNU project, I imagined that we would develop |
| 582 | the whole GNU system, then release it as a whole. That is not how it |
| 583 | happened. |
| 584 | |
| 585 | Since each component of the GNU system was implemented on a Unix |
| 586 | system, each component could run on Unix systems, long before a |
| 587 | complete GNU system existed. Some of these programs became popular, |
| 588 | and users began extending them and porting them---to the various |
| 589 | incompatible versions of Unix, and sometimes to other systems as well. |
| 590 | |
| 591 | The process made these programs much more powerful, and attracted both |
| 592 | funds and contributors to the GNU project. But it probably also |
| 593 | delayed completion of a minimal working system by several years, as |
| 594 | GNU developers' time was put into maintaining these ports and adding |
| 595 | features to the existing components, rather than moving on to write |
| 596 | one missing component after another. |
| 597 | |
| 598 | The GNU Hurd |
| 599 | |
| 600 | By 1990, the GNU system was almost complete; the only major missing |
| 601 | component was the kernel. We had decided to implement our kernel as a |
| 602 | collection of server processes running on top of Mach. Mach is a |
| 603 | microkernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University and then at the |
| 604 | University of Utah; the GNU HURD is a collection of servers (or ``herd |
| 605 | of gnus'') that run on top of Mach, and do the various jobs of the |
| 606 | Unix kernel. The start of development was delayed as we waited for |
| 607 | Mach to be released as free software, as had been promised. |
| 608 | |
| 609 | One reason for choosing this design was to avoid what seemed to be the |
| 610 | hardest part of the job: debugging a kernel program without a |
| 611 | source-level debugger to do it with. This part of the job had been |
| 612 | done already, in Mach, and we expected to debug the HURD servers as |
| 613 | user programs, with GDB. But it took a long time to make that |
| 614 | possible, and the multi-threaded servers that send messages to each |
| 615 | other have turned out to be very hard to debug. Making the HURD work |
| 616 | solidly has stretched on for many years. |
| 617 | |
| 618 | Alix |
| 619 | |
| 620 | The GNU kernel was not originally supposed to be called the HURD. Its |
| 621 | original name was Alix--named after the woman who was my sweetheart at |
| 622 | the time. She, a Unix system administrator, had pointed out how her |
| 623 | name would fit a common naming pattern for Unix system versions; as a |
| 624 | joke, she told her friends, "Someone should name a kernel after me." I |
| 625 | said nothing, but decided to surprise her with a kernel named Alix. |
| 626 | |
| 627 | It did not stay that way. Michael Bushnell (now Thomas), the main |
| 628 | developer of the kernel, preferred the name HURD, and redefined Alix |
| 629 | to refer to a certain part of the kernel--the part that would trap |
| 630 | system calls and handle them by sending messages to HURD servers. |
| 631 | |
| 632 | Ultimately, Alix and I broke up, and she changed her name; |
| 633 | independently, the HURD design was changed so that the C library would |
| 634 | send messages directly to servers, and this made the Alix component |
| 635 | disappear from the design. |
| 636 | |
| 637 | But before these things happened, a friend of hers came across the |
| 638 | name Alix in the HURD source code, and mentioned the name to her. So |
| 639 | the name did its job. |
| 640 | |
| 641 | Linux and GNU/Linux |
| 642 | |
| 643 | The GNU Hurd is not ready for production use. Fortunately, another |
| 644 | kernel is available. In 1991, Linus Torvalds developed a |
| 645 | Unix-compatible kernel and called it Linux. Around 1992, combining |
| 646 | Linux with the not-quite-complete GNU system resulted in a complete |
| 647 | free operating system. (Combining them was a substantial job in |
| 648 | itself, of course.) It is due to Linux that we can actually run a |
| 649 | version of the GNU system today. |
| 650 | |
| 651 | We call this system version GNU/Linux, to express its composition as a |
| 652 | combination of the GNU system with Linux as the kernel. |
| 653 | |
| 654 | Challenges in our future |
| 655 | |
| 656 | We have proved our ability to develop a broad spectrum of free |
| 657 | software. This does not mean we are invincible and unstoppable. |
| 658 | Several challenges make the future of free software uncertain; meeting |
| 659 | them will require steadfast effort and endurance, sometimes lasting |
| 660 | for years. It will require the kind of determination that people |
| 661 | display when they value their freedom and will not let anyone take it |
| 662 | away. |
| 663 | |
| 664 | The following four sections discuss these challenges. |
| 665 | |
| 666 | Secret hardware |
| 667 | |
| 668 | Hardware manufacturers increasingly tend to keep hardware |
| 669 | specifications secret. This makes it difficult to write free drivers |
| 670 | so that Linux and XFree86 can support new hardware. We have complete |
| 671 | free systems today, but we will not have them tomorrow if we cannot |
| 672 | support tomorrow's computers. |
| 673 | |
| 674 | There are two ways to cope with this problem. Programmers can do |
| 675 | reverse engineering to figure out how to support the hardware. The |
| 676 | rest of us can choose the hardware that is supported by free software; |
| 677 | as our numbers increase, secrecy of specifications will become a |
| 678 | self-defeating policy. |
| 679 | |
| 680 | Reverse engineering is a big job; will we have programmers with |
| 681 | sufficient determination to undertake it? Yes--if we have built up a |
| 682 | strong feeling that free software is a matter of principle, and |
| 683 | non-free drivers are intolerable. And will large numbers of us spend |
| 684 | extra money, or even a little extra time, so we can use free drivers? |
| 685 | Yes, if the determination to have freedom is widespread. |
| 686 | |
| 687 | Non-free libraries |
| 688 | |
| 689 | A non-free library that runs on free operating systems acts as a trap |
| 690 | for free software developers. The library's attractive features are |
| 691 | the bait; if you use the library, you fall into the trap, because your |
| 692 | program cannot usefully be part of a free operating system. (Strictly |
| 693 | speaking, we could include your program, but it won't run with the |
| 694 | library missing.) Even worse, if a program that uses the proprietary |
| 695 | library becomes popular, it can lure other unsuspecting programmers |
| 696 | into the trap. |
| 697 | |
| 698 | The first instance of this problem was the Motif toolkit, back in the |
| 699 | 80s. Although there were as yet no free operating systems, it was |
| 700 | clear what problem Motif would cause for them later on. The GNU |
| 701 | Project responded in two ways: by asking individual free software |
| 702 | projects to support the free X toolkit widgets as well as Motif, and |
| 703 | by asking for someone to write a free replacement for Motif. The job |
| 704 | took many years; LessTif, developed by the Hungry Programmers, became |
| 705 | powerful enough to support most Motif applications only in 1997. |
| 706 | |
| 707 | Between 1996 and 1998, another non-free GUI toolkit library, called |
| 708 | Qt, was used in a substantial collection of free software, the desktop |
| 709 | KDE. |
| 710 | |
| 711 | Free GNU/Linux systems were unable to use KDE, because we could not |
| 712 | use the library. However, some commercial distributors of GNU/Linux |
| 713 | systems who were not strict about sticking with free software added |
| 714 | KDE to their systems--producing a system with more capabilities, but |
| 715 | less freedom. The KDE group was actively encouraging more programmers |
| 716 | to use Qt, and millions of new "Linux users" had never been exposed to |
| 717 | the idea that there was a problem in this. The situation appeared |
| 718 | grim. |
| 719 | |
| 720 | The free software community responded to the problem in two ways: |
| 721 | GNOME and Harmony. |
| 722 | |
| 723 | GNOME, the GNU Network Object Model Environment, is GNU's desktop |
| 724 | project. Started in 1997 by Miguel de Icaza, and developed with the |
| 725 | support of Red Hat Software, GNOME set out to provide similar desktop |
| 726 | facilities, but using free software exclusively. It has technical |
| 727 | advantages as well, such as supporting a variety of languages, not |
| 728 | just C++. But its main purpose was freedom: not to require the use of |
| 729 | any non-free software. |
| 730 | |
| 731 | Harmony is a compatible replacement library, designed to make it |
| 732 | possible to run KDE software without using Qt. |
| 733 | |
| 734 | In November 1998, the developers of Qt announced a change of license |
| 735 | which, when carried out, should make Qt free software. There is no way |
| 736 | to be sure, but I think that this was partly due to the community's |
| 737 | firm response to the problem that Qt posed when it was non-free. (The |
| 738 | new license is inconvenient and inequitable, so it remains desirable |
| 739 | to avoid using Qt.) |
| 740 | |
| 741 | [Subsequent note: in September 2000, Qt was rereleased under the GNU |
| 742 | GPL, which essentially solved this problem.] |
| 743 | |
| 744 | How will we respond to the next tempting non-free library? Will the |
| 745 | whole community understand the need to stay out of the trap? Or will |
| 746 | many of us give up freedom for convenience, and produce a major |
| 747 | problem? Our future depends on our philosophy. |
| 748 | |
| 749 | Software patents |
| 750 | |
| 751 | The worst threat we face comes from software patents, which can put |
| 752 | algorithms and features off limits to free software for up to twenty |
| 753 | years. The LZW compression algorithm patents were applied for in 1983, |
| 754 | and we still cannot release free software to produce proper compressed |
| 755 | GIFs. In 1998, a free program to produce MP3 compressed audio was |
| 756 | removed from distribution under threat of a patent suit. |
| 757 | |
| 758 | There are ways to cope with patents: we can search for evidence that a |
| 759 | patent is invalid, and we can look for alternative ways to do a job. |
| 760 | But each of these methods works only sometimes; when both fail, a |
| 761 | patent may force all free software to lack some feature that users |
| 762 | want. What will we do when this happens? |
| 763 | |
| 764 | Those of us who value free software for freedom's sake will stay with |
| 765 | free software anyway. We will manage to get work done without the |
| 766 | patented features. But those who value free software because they |
| 767 | expect it to be techically superior are likely to call it a failure |
| 768 | when a patent holds it back. Thus, while it is useful to talk about |
| 769 | the practical effectiveness of the "cathedral" model of development, |
| 770 | and the reliability and power of some free software, we must not stop |
| 771 | there. We must talk about freedom and principle. |
| 772 | |
| 773 | Free documentation |
| 774 | |
| 775 | The biggest deficiency in our free operating systems is not in the |
| 776 | software--it is the lack of good free manuals that we can include in |
| 777 | our systems. Documentation is an essential part of any software |
| 778 | package; when an important free software package does not come with a |
| 779 | good free manual, that is a major gap. We have many such gaps today. |
| 780 | |
| 781 | Free documentation, like free software, is a matter of freedom, not |
| 782 | price. The criterion for a free manual is pretty much the same as for |
| 783 | free software: it is a matter of giving all users certain freedoms. |
| 784 | Redistribution (including commercial sale) must be permitted, on-line |
| 785 | and on paper, so that the manual can accompany every copy of the |
| 786 | program. |
| 787 | |
| 788 | Permission for modification is crucial too. As a general rule, I don't |
| 789 | believe that it is essential for people to have permission to modify |
| 790 | all sorts of articles and books. For example, I don't think you or I |
| 791 | are obliged to give permission to modify articles like this one, which |
| 792 | describe our actions and our views. |
| 793 | |
| 794 | But there is a particular reason why the freedom to modify is crucial |
| 795 | for documentation for free software. When people exercise their right |
| 796 | to modify the software, and add or change its features, if they are |
| 797 | conscientious they will change the manual too--so they can provide |
| 798 | accurate and usable documentation with the modified program. A manual |
| 799 | which does not allow programmers to be conscientious and finish the |
| 800 | job, does not fill our community's needs. |
| 801 | |
| 802 | Some kinds of limits on how modifications are done pose no problem. |
| 803 | For example, requirements to preserve the original author's copyright |
| 804 | notice, the distribution terms, or the list of authors, are ok. It is |
| 805 | also no problem to require modified versions to include notice that |
| 806 | they were modified, even to have entire sections that may not be |
| 807 | deleted or changed, as long as these sections deal with nontechnical |
| 808 | topics. These kinds of restrictions are not a problem because they |
| 809 | don't stop the conscientious programmer from adapting the manual to |
| 810 | fit the modified program. In other words, they don't block the free |
| 811 | software community from making full use of the manual. |
| 812 | |
| 813 | However, it must be possible to modify all the *technical* content of |
| 814 | the manual, and then distribute the result in all the usual media, |
| 815 | through all the usual channels; otherwise, the restrictions do |
| 816 | obstruct the community, the manual is not free, and we need another |
| 817 | manual. |
| 818 | |
| 819 | Will free software developers have the awareness and determination to |
| 820 | produce a full spectrum of free manuals? Once again, our future |
| 821 | depends on philosophy. |
| 822 | |
| 823 | We must talk about freedom |
| 824 | |
| 825 | Estimates today are that there are ten million users of GNU/Linux |
| 826 | systems such as Debian GNU/Linux and Red Hat Linux. Free software has |
| 827 | developed such practical advantages that users are flocking to it for |
| 828 | purely practical reasons. |
| 829 | |
| 830 | The good consequences of this are evident: more interest in developing |
| 831 | free software, more customers for free software businesses, and more |
| 832 | ability to encourage companies to develop commercial free software |
| 833 | instead of proprietary software products. |
| 834 | |
| 835 | But interest in the software is growing faster than awareness of the |
| 836 | philosophy it is based on, and this leads to trouble. Our ability to |
| 837 | meet the challenges and threats described above depends on the will to |
| 838 | stand firm for freedom. To make sure our community has this will, we |
| 839 | need to spread the idea to the new users as they come into the |
| 840 | community. |
| 841 | |
| 842 | But we are failing to do so: the efforts to attract new users into our |
| 843 | community are far outstripping the efforts to teach them the civics of |
| 844 | our community. We need to do both, and we need to keep the two efforts |
| 845 | in balance. |
| 846 | |
| 847 | "Open Source" |
| 848 | |
| 849 | Teaching new users about freedom became more difficult in 1998, when a |
| 850 | part of the community decided to stop using the term "free software" |
| 851 | and say "open source software" instead. |
| 852 | |
| 853 | Some who favored this term aimed to avoid the confusion of "free" with |
| 854 | "gratis"--a valid goal. Others, however, aimed to set aside the spirit |
| 855 | of principle that had motivated the free software movement and the GNU |
| 856 | project, and to appeal instead to executives and business users, many |
| 857 | of whom hold an ideology that places profit above freedom, above |
| 858 | community, above principle. Thus, the rhetoric of "open source" |
| 859 | focuses on the potential to make high quality, powerful software, but |
| 860 | shuns the ideas of freedom, community, and principle. |
| 861 | |
| 862 | The "Linux" magazines are a clear example of this--they are filled |
| 863 | with advertisements for proprietary software that works with |
| 864 | GNU/Linux. When the next Motif or Qt appears, will these magazines |
| 865 | warn programmers to stay away from it, or will they run ads for it? |
| 866 | |
| 867 | The support of business can contribute to the community in many ways; |
| 868 | all else being equal, it is useful. But winning their support by |
| 869 | speaking even less about freedom and principle can be disastrous; it |
| 870 | makes the previous imbalance between outreach and civics education |
| 871 | even worse. |
| 872 | |
| 873 | "Free software" and "open source" describe the same category of |
| 874 | software, more or less, but say different things about the software, |
| 875 | and about values. The GNU Project continues to use the term "free |
| 876 | software", to express the idea that freedom, not just technology, is |
| 877 | important. |
| 878 | |
| 879 | Try! |
| 880 | |
| 881 | Yoda's philosophy ("There is no `try'") sounds neat, but it doesn't |
| 882 | work for me. I have done most of my work while anxious about whether I |
| 883 | could do the job, and unsure that it would be enough to achieve the |
| 884 | goal if I did. But I tried anyway, because there was no one but me |
| 885 | between the enemy and my city. Surprising myself, I have sometimes |
| 886 | succeeded. |
| 887 | |
| 888 | Sometimes I failed; some of my cities have fallen. Then I found |
| 889 | another threatened city, and got ready for another battle. Over time, |
| 890 | I've learned to look for threats and put myself between them and my |
| 891 | city, calling on other hackers to come and join me. |
| 892 | |
| 893 | Nowadays, often I'm not the only one. It is a relief and a joy when I |
| 894 | see a regiment of hackers digging in to hold the line, and I realize, |
| 895 | this city may survive--for now. But the dangers are greater each year, |
| 896 | and now Microsoft has explicitly targeted our community. We can't take |
| 897 | the future of freedom for granted. Don't take it for granted! If you |
| 898 | want to keep your freedom, you must be prepared to defend it. |
| 899 | |
| 900 | Copyright (C) 1998 Richard Stallman |
| 901 | |
| 902 | Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted |
| 903 | in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. |