| 1 | Copyright (C) 1985, 1993, 2001-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc. |
| 2 | |
| 3 | Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies |
| 4 | of this document, in any medium, provided that the copyright notice and |
| 5 | permission notice are preserved, and that the distributor grants the |
| 6 | recipient permission for further redistribution as permitted by this |
| 7 | notice. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | Modified versions may not be made. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | The GNU Manifesto |
| 12 | ***************** |
| 13 | |
| 14 | The GNU Manifesto which appears below was written by Richard |
| 15 | Stallman at the beginning of the GNU project, to ask for |
| 16 | participation and support. For the first few years, it was |
| 17 | updated in minor ways to account for developments, but now it |
| 18 | seems best to leave it unchanged as most people have seen it. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | Since that time, we have learned about certain common |
| 21 | misunderstandings that different wording could help avoid. |
| 22 | Footnotes added in 1993 help clarify these points. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | For up-to-date information about the available GNU software, |
| 25 | please see www.gnu.org. For software tasks to work on, see |
| 26 | http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/tasklist. For other ways |
| 27 | to contribute, see http://www.gnu.org/help. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | What's GNU? Gnu's Not Unix! |
| 30 | ============================ |
| 31 | |
| 32 | GNU, which stands for Gnu's Not Unix, is the name for the complete |
| 33 | Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so that I can give it |
| 34 | away free to everyone who can use it.(1) Several other volunteers are |
| 35 | helping me. Contributions of time, money, programs and equipment are |
| 36 | greatly needed. |
| 37 | |
| 38 | So far we have an Emacs text editor with Lisp for writing editor |
| 39 | commands, a source level debugger, a yacc-compatible parser generator, |
| 40 | a linker, and around 35 utilities. A shell (command interpreter) is |
| 41 | nearly completed. A new portable optimizing C compiler has compiled |
| 42 | itself and may be released this year. An initial kernel exists but |
| 43 | many more features are needed to emulate Unix. When the kernel and |
| 44 | compiler are finished, it will be possible to distribute a GNU system |
| 45 | suitable for program development. We will use TeX as our text |
| 46 | formatter, but an nroff is being worked on. We will use the free, |
| 47 | portable X window system as well. After this we will add a portable |
| 48 | Common Lisp, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of other |
| 49 | things, plus on-line documentation. We hope to supply, eventually, |
| 50 | everything useful that normally comes with a Unix system, and more. |
| 51 | |
| 52 | GNU will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical to |
| 53 | Unix. We will make all improvements that are convenient, based on our |
| 54 | experience with other operating systems. In particular, we plan to |
| 55 | have longer file names, file version numbers, a crashproof file system, |
| 56 | file name completion perhaps, terminal-independent display support, and |
| 57 | perhaps eventually a Lisp-based window system through which several |
| 58 | Lisp programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen. Both C |
| 59 | and Lisp will be available as system programming languages. We will |
| 60 | try to support UUCP, MIT Chaosnet, and Internet protocols for |
| 61 | communication. |
| 62 | |
| 63 | GNU is aimed initially at machines in the 68000/16000 class with |
| 64 | virtual memory, because they are the easiest machines to make it run |
| 65 | on. The extra effort to make it run on smaller machines will be left |
| 66 | to someone who wants to use it on them. |
| 67 | |
| 68 | To avoid horrible confusion, please pronounce the `G' in the word |
| 69 | `GNU' when it is the name of this project. |
| 70 | |
| 71 | Why I Must Write GNU |
| 72 | ==================== |
| 73 | |
| 74 | I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I |
| 75 | must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to |
| 76 | divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share |
| 77 | with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this |
| 78 | way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a |
| 79 | software license agreement. For years I worked within the Artificial |
| 80 | Intelligence Lab to resist such tendencies and other inhospitalities, |
| 81 | but eventually they had gone too far: I could not remain in an |
| 82 | institution where such things are done for me against my will. |
| 83 | |
| 84 | So that I can continue to use computers without dishonor, I have |
| 85 | decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I |
| 86 | will be able to get along without any software that is not free. I |
| 87 | have resigned from the AI lab to deny MIT any legal excuse to prevent |
| 88 | me from giving GNU away. |
| 89 | |
| 90 | Why GNU Will Be Compatible with Unix |
| 91 | ==================================== |
| 92 | |
| 93 | Unix is not my ideal system, but it is not too bad. The essential |
| 94 | features of Unix seem to be good ones, and I think I can fill in what |
| 95 | Unix lacks without spoiling them. And a system compatible with Unix |
| 96 | would be convenient for many other people to adopt. |
| 97 | |
| 98 | How GNU Will Be Available |
| 99 | ========================= |
| 100 | |
| 101 | GNU is not in the public domain. Everyone will be permitted to |
| 102 | modify and redistribute GNU, but no distributor will be allowed to |
| 103 | restrict its further redistribution. That is to say, proprietary |
| 104 | modifications will not be allowed. I want to make sure that all |
| 105 | versions of GNU remain free. |
| 106 | |
| 107 | Why Many Other Programmers Want to Help |
| 108 | ======================================= |
| 109 | |
| 110 | I have found many other programmers who are excited about GNU and |
| 111 | want to help. |
| 112 | |
| 113 | Many programmers are unhappy about the commercialization of system |
| 114 | software. It may enable them to make more money, but it requires them |
| 115 | to feel in conflict with other programmers in general rather than feel |
| 116 | as comrades. The fundamental act of friendship among programmers is the |
| 117 | sharing of programs; marketing arrangements now typically used |
| 118 | essentially forbid programmers to treat others as friends. The |
| 119 | purchaser of software must choose between friendship and obeying the |
| 120 | law. Naturally, many decide that friendship is more important. But |
| 121 | those who believe in law often do not feel at ease with either choice. |
| 122 | They become cynical and think that programming is just a way of making |
| 123 | money. |
| 124 | |
| 125 | By working on and using GNU rather than proprietary programs, we can |
| 126 | be hospitable to everyone and obey the law. In addition, GNU serves as |
| 127 | an example to inspire and a banner to rally others to join us in |
| 128 | sharing. This can give us a feeling of harmony which is impossible if |
| 129 | we use software that is not free. For about half the programmers I |
| 130 | talk to, this is an important happiness that money cannot replace. |
| 131 | |
| 132 | How You Can Contribute |
| 133 | ====================== |
| 134 | |
| 135 | I am asking computer manufacturers for donations of machines and |
| 136 | money. I'm asking individuals for donations of programs and work. |
| 137 | |
| 138 | One consequence you can expect if you donate machines is that GNU |
| 139 | will run on them at an early date. The machines should be complete, |
| 140 | ready to use systems, approved for use in a residential area, and not |
| 141 | in need of sophisticated cooling or power. |
| 142 | |
| 143 | I have found very many programmers eager to contribute part-time |
| 144 | work for GNU. For most projects, such part-time distributed work would |
| 145 | be very hard to coordinate; the independently-written parts would not |
| 146 | work together. But for the particular task of replacing Unix, this |
| 147 | problem is absent. A complete Unix system contains hundreds of utility |
| 148 | programs, each of which is documented separately. Most interface |
| 149 | specifications are fixed by Unix compatibility. If each contributor |
| 150 | can write a compatible replacement for a single Unix utility, and make |
| 151 | it work properly in place of the original on a Unix system, then these |
| 152 | utilities will work right when put together. Even allowing for Murphy |
| 153 | to create a few unexpected problems, assembling these components will |
| 154 | be a feasible task. (The kernel will require closer communication and |
| 155 | will be worked on by a small, tight group.) |
| 156 | |
| 157 | If I get donations of money, I may be able to hire a few people full |
| 158 | or part time. The salary won't be high by programmers' standards, but |
| 159 | I'm looking for people for whom building community spirit is as |
| 160 | important as making money. I view this as a way of enabling dedicated |
| 161 | people to devote their full energies to working on GNU by sparing them |
| 162 | the need to make a living in another way. |
| 163 | |
| 164 | Why All Computer Users Will Benefit |
| 165 | =================================== |
| 166 | |
| 167 | Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system |
| 168 | software free, just like air.(2) |
| 169 | |
| 170 | This means much more than just saving everyone the price of a Unix |
| 171 | license. It means that much wasteful duplication of system programming |
| 172 | effort will be avoided. This effort can go instead into advancing the |
| 173 | state of the art. |
| 174 | |
| 175 | Complete system sources will be available to everyone. As a result, |
| 176 | a user who needs changes in the system will always be free to make them |
| 177 | himself, or hire any available programmer or company to make them for |
| 178 | him. Users will no longer be at the mercy of one programmer or company |
| 179 | which owns the sources and is in sole position to make changes. |
| 180 | |
| 181 | Schools will be able to provide a much more educational environment |
| 182 | by encouraging all students to study and improve the system code. |
| 183 | Harvard's computer lab used to have the policy that no program could be |
| 184 | installed on the system if its sources were not on public display, and |
| 185 | upheld it by actually refusing to install certain programs. I was very |
| 186 | much inspired by this. |
| 187 | |
| 188 | Finally, the overhead of considering who owns the system software |
| 189 | and what one is or is not entitled to do with it will be lifted. |
| 190 | |
| 191 | Arrangements to make people pay for using a program, including |
| 192 | licensing of copies, always incur a tremendous cost to society through |
| 193 | the cumbersome mechanisms necessary to figure out how much (that is, |
| 194 | which programs) a person must pay for. And only a police state can |
| 195 | force everyone to obey them. Consider a space station where air must |
| 196 | be manufactured at great cost: charging each breather per liter of air |
| 197 | may be fair, but wearing the metered gas mask all day and all night is |
| 198 | intolerable even if everyone can afford to pay the air bill. And the |
| 199 | TV cameras everywhere to see if you ever take the mask off are |
| 200 | outrageous. It's better to support the air plant with a head tax and |
| 201 | chuck the masks. |
| 202 | |
| 203 | Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as |
| 204 | breathing, and as productive. It ought to be as free. |
| 205 | |
| 206 | Some Easily Rebutted Objections to GNU's Goals |
| 207 | ============================================== |
| 208 | |
| 209 | "Nobody will use it if it is free, because that means they can't |
| 210 | rely on any support." |
| 211 | |
| 212 | "You have to charge for the program to pay for providing the |
| 213 | support." |
| 214 | |
| 215 | If people would rather pay for GNU plus service than get GNU free |
| 216 | without service, a company to provide just service to people who have |
| 217 | obtained GNU free ought to be profitable.(3) |
| 218 | |
| 219 | We must distinguish between support in the form of real programming |
| 220 | work and mere handholding. The former is something one cannot rely on |
| 221 | from a software vendor. If your problem is not shared by enough |
| 222 | people, the vendor will tell you to get lost. |
| 223 | |
| 224 | If your business needs to be able to rely on support, the only way |
| 225 | is to have all the necessary sources and tools. Then you can hire any |
| 226 | available person to fix your problem; you are not at the mercy of any |
| 227 | individual. With Unix, the price of sources puts this out of |
| 228 | consideration for most businesses. With GNU this will be easy. It is |
| 229 | still possible for there to be no available competent person, but this |
| 230 | problem cannot be blamed on distribution arrangements. GNU does not |
| 231 | eliminate all the world's problems, only some of them. |
| 232 | |
| 233 | Meanwhile, the users who know nothing about computers need |
| 234 | handholding: doing things for them which they could easily do |
| 235 | themselves but don't know how. |
| 236 | |
| 237 | Such services could be provided by companies that sell just |
| 238 | hand-holding and repair service. If it is true that users would rather |
| 239 | spend money and get a product with service, they will also be willing |
| 240 | to buy the service having got the product free. The service companies |
| 241 | will compete in quality and price; users will not be tied to any |
| 242 | particular one. Meanwhile, those of us who don't need the service |
| 243 | should be able to use the program without paying for the service. |
| 244 | |
| 245 | "You cannot reach many people without advertising, and you must |
| 246 | charge for the program to support that." |
| 247 | |
| 248 | "It's no use advertising a program people can get free." |
| 249 | |
| 250 | There are various forms of free or very cheap publicity that can be |
| 251 | used to inform numbers of computer users about something like GNU. But |
| 252 | it may be true that one can reach more microcomputer users with |
| 253 | advertising. If this is really so, a business which advertises the |
| 254 | service of copying and mailing GNU for a fee ought to be successful |
| 255 | enough to pay for its advertising and more. This way, only the users |
| 256 | who benefit from the advertising pay for it. |
| 257 | |
| 258 | On the other hand, if many people get GNU from their friends, and |
| 259 | such companies don't succeed, this will show that advertising was not |
| 260 | really necessary to spread GNU. Why is it that free market advocates |
| 261 | don't want to let the free market decide this?(4) |
| 262 | |
| 263 | "My company needs a proprietary operating system to get a |
| 264 | competitive edge." |
| 265 | |
| 266 | GNU will remove operating system software from the realm of |
| 267 | competition. You will not be able to get an edge in this area, but |
| 268 | neither will your competitors be able to get an edge over you. You and |
| 269 | they will compete in other areas, while benefiting mutually in this |
| 270 | one. If your business is selling an operating system, you will not |
| 271 | like GNU, but that's tough on you. If your business is something else, |
| 272 | GNU can save you from being pushed into the expensive business of |
| 273 | selling operating systems. |
| 274 | |
| 275 | I would like to see GNU development supported by gifts from many |
| 276 | manufacturers and users, reducing the cost to each.(5) |
| 277 | |
| 278 | "Don't programmers deserve a reward for their creativity?" |
| 279 | |
| 280 | If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution. |
| 281 | Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society |
| 282 | is free to use the results. If programmers deserve to be rewarded for |
| 283 | creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be |
| 284 | punished if they restrict the use of these programs. |
| 285 | |
| 286 | "Shouldn't a programmer be able to ask for a reward for his |
| 287 | creativity?" |
| 288 | |
| 289 | There is nothing wrong with wanting pay for work, or seeking to |
| 290 | maximize one's income, as long as one does not use means that are |
| 291 | destructive. But the means customary in the field of software today |
| 292 | are based on destruction. |
| 293 | |
| 294 | Extracting money from users of a program by restricting their use of |
| 295 | it is destructive because the restrictions reduce the amount and the |
| 296 | ways that the program can be used. This reduces the amount of wealth |
| 297 | that humanity derives from the program. When there is a deliberate |
| 298 | choice to restrict, the harmful consequences are deliberate destruction. |
| 299 | |
| 300 | The reason a good citizen does not use such destructive means to |
| 301 | become wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become |
| 302 | poorer from the mutual destructiveness. This is Kantian ethics; or, |
| 303 | the Golden Rule. Since I do not like the consequences that result if |
| 304 | everyone hoards information, I am required to consider it wrong for one |
| 305 | to do so. Specifically, the desire to be rewarded for one's creativity |
| 306 | does not justify depriving the world in general of all or part of that |
| 307 | creativity. |
| 308 | |
| 309 | "Won't programmers starve?" |
| 310 | |
| 311 | I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us |
| 312 | cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making |
| 313 | faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives |
| 314 | standing on the street making faces, and starving. We do something |
| 315 | else. |
| 316 | |
| 317 | But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner's |
| 318 | implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers |
| 319 | cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing. |
| 320 | |
| 321 | The real reason programmers will not starve is that it will still be |
| 322 | possible for them to get paid for programming; just not paid as much as |
| 323 | now. |
| 324 | |
| 325 | Restricting copying is not the only basis for business in software. |
| 326 | It is the most common basis because it brings in the most money. If it |
| 327 | were prohibited, or rejected by the customer, software business would |
| 328 | move to other bases of organization which are now used less often. |
| 329 | There are always numerous ways to organize any kind of business. |
| 330 | |
| 331 | Probably programming will not be as lucrative on the new basis as it |
| 332 | is now. But that is not an argument against the change. It is not |
| 333 | considered an injustice that sales clerks make the salaries that they |
| 334 | now do. If programmers made the same, that would not be an injustice |
| 335 | either. (In practice they would still make considerably more than |
| 336 | that.) |
| 337 | |
| 338 | "Don't people have a right to control how their creativity is |
| 339 | used?" |
| 340 | |
| 341 | "Control over the use of one's ideas" really constitutes control over |
| 342 | other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more |
| 343 | difficult. |
| 344 | |
| 345 | People who have studied the issue of intellectual property rights(6) |
| 346 | carefully (such as lawyers) say that there is no intrinsic right to |
| 347 | intellectual property. The kinds of supposed intellectual property |
| 348 | rights that the government recognizes were created by specific acts of |
| 349 | legislation for specific purposes. |
| 350 | |
| 351 | For example, the patent system was established to encourage |
| 352 | inventors to disclose the details of their inventions. Its purpose was |
| 353 | to help society rather than to help inventors. At the time, the life |
| 354 | span of 17 years for a patent was short compared with the rate of |
| 355 | advance of the state of the art. Since patents are an issue only among |
| 356 | manufacturers, for whom the cost and effort of a license agreement are |
| 357 | small compared with setting up production, the patents often do not do |
| 358 | much harm. They do not obstruct most individuals who use patented |
| 359 | products. |
| 360 | |
| 361 | The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors |
| 362 | frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This |
| 363 | practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have |
| 364 | survived even in part. The copyright system was created expressly for |
| 365 | the purpose of encouraging authorship. In the domain for which it was |
| 366 | invented--books, which could be copied economically only on a printing |
| 367 | press--it did little harm, and did not obstruct most of the individuals |
| 368 | who read the books. |
| 369 | |
| 370 | All intellectual property rights are just licenses granted by society |
| 371 | because it was thought, rightly or wrongly, that society as a whole |
| 372 | would benefit by granting them. But in any particular situation, we |
| 373 | have to ask: are we really better off granting such license? What kind |
| 374 | of act are we licensing a person to do? |
| 375 | |
| 376 | The case of programs today is very different from that of books a |
| 377 | hundred years ago. The fact that the easiest way to copy a program is |
| 378 | from one neighbor to another, the fact that a program has both source |
| 379 | code and object code which are distinct, and the fact that a program is |
| 380 | used rather than read and enjoyed, combine to create a situation in |
| 381 | which a person who enforces a copyright is harming society as a whole |
| 382 | both materially and spiritually; in which a person should not do so |
| 383 | regardless of whether the law enables him to. |
| 384 | |
| 385 | "Competition makes things get done better." |
| 386 | |
| 387 | The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we |
| 388 | encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this |
| 389 | way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it |
| 390 | always works this way. If the runners forget why the reward is offered |
| 391 | and become intent on winning, no matter how, they may find other |
| 392 | strategies--such as, attacking other runners. If the runners get into |
| 393 | a fist fight, they will all finish late. |
| 394 | |
| 395 | Proprietary and secret software is the moral equivalent of runners |
| 396 | in a fist fight. Sad to say, the only referee we've got does not seem |
| 397 | to object to fights; he just regulates them ("For every ten yards you |
| 398 | run, you can fire one shot"). He really ought to break them up, and |
| 399 | penalize runners for even trying to fight. |
| 400 | |
| 401 | "Won't everyone stop programming without a monetary incentive?" |
| 402 | |
| 403 | Actually, many people will program with absolutely no monetary |
| 404 | incentive. Programming has an irresistible fascination for some |
| 405 | people, usually the people who are best at it. There is no shortage of |
| 406 | professional musicians who keep at it even though they have no hope of |
| 407 | making a living that way. |
| 408 | |
| 409 | But really this question, though commonly asked, is not appropriate |
| 410 | to the situation. Pay for programmers will not disappear, only become |
| 411 | less. So the right question is, will anyone program with a reduced |
| 412 | monetary incentive? My experience shows that they will. |
| 413 | |
| 414 | For more than ten years, many of the world's best programmers worked |
| 415 | at the Artificial Intelligence Lab for far less money than they could |
| 416 | have had anywhere else. They got many kinds of non-monetary rewards: |
| 417 | fame and appreciation, for example. And creativity is also fun, a |
| 418 | reward in itself. |
| 419 | |
| 420 | Then most of them left when offered a chance to do the same |
| 421 | interesting work for a lot of money. |
| 422 | |
| 423 | What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other |
| 424 | than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they |
| 425 | will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly |
| 426 | in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly |
| 427 | if the high-paying ones are banned. |
| 428 | |
| 429 | "We need the programmers desperately. If they demand that we stop |
| 430 | helping our neighbors, we have to obey." |
| 431 | |
| 432 | You're never so desperate that you have to obey this sort of demand. |
| 433 | Remember: millions for defense, but not a cent for tribute! |
| 434 | |
| 435 | "Programmers need to make a living somehow." |
| 436 | |
| 437 | In the short run, this is true. However, there are plenty of ways |
| 438 | that programmers could make a living without selling the right to use a |
| 439 | program. This way is customary now because it brings programmers and |
| 440 | businessmen the most money, not because it is the only way to make a |
| 441 | living. It is easy to find other ways if you want to find them. Here |
| 442 | are a number of examples. |
| 443 | |
| 444 | A manufacturer introducing a new computer will pay for the porting of |
| 445 | operating systems onto the new hardware. |
| 446 | |
| 447 | The sale of teaching, hand-holding and maintenance services could |
| 448 | also employ programmers. |
| 449 | |
| 450 | People with new ideas could distribute programs as freeware(7), asking |
| 451 | for donations from satisfied users, or selling hand-holding services. |
| 452 | I have met people who are already working this way successfully. |
| 453 | |
| 454 | Users with related needs can form users' groups, and pay dues. A |
| 455 | group would contract with programming companies to write programs that |
| 456 | the group's members would like to use. |
| 457 | |
| 458 | All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax: |
| 459 | |
| 460 | Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the |
| 461 | price as a software tax. The government gives this to an agency |
| 462 | like the NSF to spend on software development. |
| 463 | |
| 464 | But if the computer buyer makes a donation to software development |
| 465 | himself, he can take a credit against the tax. He can donate to |
| 466 | the project of his own choosing--often, chosen because he hopes to |
| 467 | use the results when it is done. He can take a credit for any |
| 468 | amount of donation up to the total tax he had to pay. |
| 469 | |
| 470 | The total tax rate could be decided by a vote of the payers of the |
| 471 | tax, weighted according to the amount they will be taxed on. |
| 472 | |
| 473 | The consequences: |
| 474 | |
| 475 | * The computer-using community supports software development. |
| 476 | |
| 477 | * This community decides what level of support is needed. |
| 478 | |
| 479 | * Users who care which projects their share is spent on can |
| 480 | choose this for themselves. |
| 481 | |
| 482 | In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the |
| 483 | post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to |
| 484 | make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities |
| 485 | that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten |
| 486 | hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, |
| 487 | robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be |
| 488 | able to make a living from programming. |
| 489 | |
| 490 | We have already greatly reduced the amount of work that the whole |
| 491 | society must do for its actual productivity, but only a little of this |
| 492 | has translated itself into leisure for workers because much |
| 493 | nonproductive activity is required to accompany productive activity. |
| 494 | The main causes of this are bureaucracy and isometric struggles against |
| 495 | competition. Free software will greatly reduce these drains in the |
| 496 | area of software production. We must do this, in order for technical |
| 497 | gains in productivity to translate into less work for us. |
| 498 | |
| 499 | ---------- Footnotes ---------- |
| 500 | |
| 501 | (1) The wording here was careless. The intention was that nobody |
| 502 | would have to pay for *permission* to use the GNU system. But the |
| 503 | words don't make this clear, and people often interpret them as saying |
| 504 | that copies of GNU should always be distributed at little or no charge. |
| 505 | That was never the intent; later on, the manifesto mentions the |
| 506 | possibility of companies providing the service of distribution for a |
| 507 | profit. Subsequently I have learned to distinguish carefully between |
| 508 | "free" in the sense of freedom and "free" in the sense of price. Free |
| 509 | software is software that users have the freedom to distribute and |
| 510 | change. Some users may obtain copies at no charge, while others pay to |
| 511 | obtain copies--and if the funds help support improving the software, so |
| 512 | much the better. The important thing is that everyone who has a copy |
| 513 | has the freedom to cooperate with others in using it. |
| 514 | |
| 515 | (2) This is another place I failed to distinguish carefully between |
| 516 | the two different meanings of "free". The statement as it stands is |
| 517 | not false--you can get copies of GNU software at no charge, from your |
| 518 | friends or over the net. But it does suggest the wrong idea. |
| 519 | |
| 520 | (3) Several such companies now exist. |
| 521 | |
| 522 | (4) The Free Software Foundation raised most of its funds for 10 |
| 523 | years from a distribution service, although it is a charity rather |
| 524 | than a company. |
| 525 | |
| 526 | (5) A group of computer companies pooled funds around 1991 to |
| 527 | support maintenance of the GNU C Compiler. |
| 528 | |
| 529 | (6) In the 80s I had not yet realized how confusing it was to speak |
| 530 | of "the issue" of "intellectual property". That term is obviously |
| 531 | biased; more subtle is the fact that it lumps together various |
| 532 | disparate laws which raise very different issues. Nowadays I urge |
| 533 | people to reject the term "intellectual property" entirely, lest it |
| 534 | lead others to suppose that those laws form one coherent issue. The way to be |
| 535 | clear is to discuss patents, copyrights, and trademarks separately. |
| 536 | See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml for more explanation |
| 537 | of how this term spreads confusion and bias. |
| 538 | |
| 539 | (7) Subsequently we have learned to distinguish between "free |
| 540 | software" and "freeware". The term "freeware" means software you are |
| 541 | free to redistribute, but usually you are not free to study and change |
| 542 | the source code, so most of it is not free software. See |
| 543 | http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html for more |
| 544 | explanation. |