These are old copies of online information that is not Emacs-specific.
* etc/CENSORSHIP, etc/GNU, etc/LINUX-GNU, etc/THE-GNU-PROJECT, etc/WHY-FREE:
Replace contents with pointers to www.gnu.org or emacs.info, mark obsolete.
* src/callproc.c (init_callproc): In etc, look for NEWS rather than GNU.
* lisp/startup.el (fancy-startup-text):
* lisp/help.el (describe-gnu-project): Visit online info about GNU project.
* doc/emacs/help.texi (Help Files): Update C-h g description.
* doc/misc/efaq.texi (Informational files for Emacs): Do not mention etc/GNU.
* admin/notes/copyright: Remove references to these files.
* etc/MACHINES, etc/NEWS.19: Replace references to these files.
etc/FTP, ORDERS
- trivial (at time of writing), no license needed
-etc/GNU, INTERVIEW, LINUX-GNU, MOTIVATION, SERVICE, THE-GNU-PROJECT,
-WHY-FREE
- rms: "These are statements of opinion or testimony. Their licenses
- should permit verbatim copying only. Please don't change the
- licenses that they have. They are distributed with Emacs but they
- are not part of Emacs."
-
etc/HELLO
standard notices. Just a note that although the file itself is not
really copyrightable, in the wider context of it being part of
+2014-03-22 Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
+
+ * help.texi (Help Files): Update C-h g description.
+
2014-03-16 Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru>
* programs.texi (Matching): Update the missed spot. (Bug#17008)
@item C-h C-f
Display the Emacs frequently-answered-questions list (@code{view-emacs-FAQ}).
@item C-h g
-Display information about the GNU Project (@code{describe-gnu-project}).
+Visit a @uref{http://www.gnu.org} page with information about the GNU
+Project (@code{describe-gnu-project}).
@item C-h C-m
Display information about ordering printed copies of Emacs manuals
(@code{view-order-manuals}).
+2014-03-22 Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
+
+ * efaq.texi (Informational files for Emacs): Do not mention etc/GNU.
+
2014-03-21 Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
* ede.texi (ede-linux):
@item DISTRIB
Emacs Availability Information
-@item GNU
-The GNU Manifesto
-
@item MACHINES
Status of Emacs on Various Machines and Systems
- Censoring my Software
- Richard Stallman
- [From Datamation, 1 March 1996]
-
-
-Last summer, a few clever legislators proposed a bill to "prohibit
-pornography" on the Internet. Last fall, right-wing Christians made
-this cause their own. Last week, President Clinton signed the bill,
-and we lost the freedom of the press for the public library of the
-future. This week, I'm censoring GNU Emacs.
-
-No, GNU Emacs does not contain pornography. It is a software package,
-an award-winning extensible and programmable text editor. But the law
-that was passed applies to far more than pornography. It prohibits
-"indecent" speech, which can include anything from famous poems, to
-masterpieces hanging in the Louvre, to advice about safe sex...to
-software.
-
-Naturally, there was a lot of opposition to this bill. Not only from
-people who use the Internet, and people who appreciate erotica, but
-from everyone who cares about freedom of the press.
-
-But every time we tried to tell the public what was at stake, the
-forces of censorship responded with a lie: they told the public that
-the issue was simply pornography. By embedding this lie as a
-presupposition in their statements about the issue, they succeeded in
-misinforming the public. So here I am, censoring my software.
-
-You see, Emacs contains a version of the famous "doctor program",
-a.k.a. Eliza, originally developed by Professor Weizenbaum at MIT.
-This is the program that imitates a Rogerian psychotherapist. The
-user talks to the program, and the program responds--by playing back
-the user's own statements, and by recognizing a long list of
-particular words.
-
-The Emacs doctor program was set up to recognize many common curse
-words, and respond with an appropriately cute message such as, "Would
-you please watch your tongue?" or "Let's not be vulgar." In order to
-do this, it had to have a list of curse words. That means the source
-code for the program was indecent.
-
-Because of the censorship law, I had to remove this feature. (I
-replaced it with a message announcing that the program has been
-censored for your protection.) The new version of the doctor doesn't
-recognize the indecent words. If you curse at it, it curses right
-back to you--for lack of knowing better.
-
-Now that people are facing the threat of two years in prison for
-indecent network postings, it would be helpful if they could access
-precise rules via the Internet for how to avoid imprisonment.
-However, this is impossible. The rules would have to mention the
-forbidden words, so posting them on the Internet would be against the
-rules.
-
-Of course, I'm making an assumption about just what "indecent" means.
-I have to do this, because nobody knows for sure. The most obvious
-possible meaning is the meaning it has for television, so I'm using
-that as a tentative assumption. However, there is a good chance that
-our courts will reject that interpretation of the law as
-unconstitutional.
-
-We can hope that the courts will recognize the Internet as a medium of
-publication like books and magazines. If they do, they will entirely
-reject any law prohibiting "indecent" publications on the Internet.
-
-What really worries me is that the courts might take a muddled
-in-between escape route--by choosing another interpretation of
-"indecent", one that permits the doctor program or a statement of the
-decency rules, but prohibits some of the books that children can
-browse through in the public library and the bookstore. Over the
-years, as the Internet replaces the public library and the bookstore,
-some of our freedom of the press will be lost.
-
-Just a few weeks ago, another country imposed censorship on the
-Internet. That was China. We don't think well of China in this
-country--its government doesn't respect basic freedoms. But how well
-does our government respect them? And do you care enough to preserve
-them here?
-
-If you care, stay in touch with the Voters Telecommunications Watch.
-Look in their Web site http://www.vtw.org/ for background information
-and political action recommendations. Censorship won in February, but
-we can beat it in November.
-
-Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman
-Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium
-provided this notice is preserved.
+Censoring my Software
+
+Note added March 2014:
+
+This file is obsolete and will be removed in future.
+Please update any references to use
+
+<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/censoring-emacs.html>
+2014-03-22 Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
+
+ * CENSORSHIP, GNU, LINUX-GNU, THE-GNU-PROJECT, WHY-FREE: Replace
+ contents with pointers to www.gnu.org or emacs.info, mark obsolete.
+
2014-03-14 Rüdiger Sonderfeld <ruediger@c-plusplus.de>
* tutorials/TUTORIAL.de: Adapt to recent changes in TUTORIAL.
-Copyright (C) 1985, 1993, 2001-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
-
- Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
-of this document, in any medium, provided that the copyright notice and
-permission notice are preserved, and that the distributor grants the
-recipient permission for further redistribution as permitted by this
-notice.
-
- Modified versions may not be made.
-
-The GNU Manifesto
-*****************
-
- The GNU Manifesto which appears below was written by Richard
- Stallman at the beginning of the GNU project, to ask for
- participation and support. For the first few years, it was
- updated in minor ways to account for developments, but now it
- seems best to leave it unchanged as most people have seen it.
-
- Since that time, we have learned about certain common
- misunderstandings that different wording could help avoid.
- Footnotes added in 1993 help clarify these points.
-
- For up-to-date information about the available GNU software,
- please see www.gnu.org. For software tasks to work on, see
- http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/tasklist. For other ways
- to contribute, see http://www.gnu.org/help.
-
-What's GNU? Gnu's Not Unix!
-============================
-
- GNU, which stands for Gnu's Not Unix, is the name for the complete
-Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so that I can give it
-away free to everyone who can use it.(1) Several other volunteers are
-helping me. Contributions of time, money, programs and equipment are
-greatly needed.
-
- So far we have an Emacs text editor with Lisp for writing editor
-commands, a source level debugger, a yacc-compatible parser generator,
-a linker, and around 35 utilities. A shell (command interpreter) is
-nearly completed. A new portable optimizing C compiler has compiled
-itself and may be released this year. An initial kernel exists but
-many more features are needed to emulate Unix. When the kernel and
-compiler are finished, it will be possible to distribute a GNU system
-suitable for program development. We will use TeX as our text
-formatter, but an nroff is being worked on. We will use the free,
-portable X window system as well. After this we will add a portable
-Common Lisp, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of other
-things, plus on-line documentation. We hope to supply, eventually,
-everything useful that normally comes with a Unix system, and more.
-
- GNU will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical to
-Unix. We will make all improvements that are convenient, based on our
-experience with other operating systems. In particular, we plan to
-have longer file names, file version numbers, a crashproof file system,
-file name completion perhaps, terminal-independent display support, and
-perhaps eventually a Lisp-based window system through which several
-Lisp programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen. Both C
-and Lisp will be available as system programming languages. We will
-try to support UUCP, MIT Chaosnet, and Internet protocols for
-communication.
-
- GNU is aimed initially at machines in the 68000/16000 class with
-virtual memory, because they are the easiest machines to make it run
-on. The extra effort to make it run on smaller machines will be left
-to someone who wants to use it on them.
-
- To avoid horrible confusion, please pronounce the `G' in the word
-`GNU' when it is the name of this project.
-
-Why I Must Write GNU
-====================
-
- I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I
-must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to
-divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share
-with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this
-way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a
-software license agreement. For years I worked within the Artificial
-Intelligence Lab to resist such tendencies and other inhospitalities,
-but eventually they had gone too far: I could not remain in an
-institution where such things are done for me against my will.
-
- So that I can continue to use computers without dishonor, I have
-decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I
-will be able to get along without any software that is not free. I
-have resigned from the AI lab to deny MIT any legal excuse to prevent
-me from giving GNU away.
-
-Why GNU Will Be Compatible with Unix
-====================================
-
- Unix is not my ideal system, but it is not too bad. The essential
-features of Unix seem to be good ones, and I think I can fill in what
-Unix lacks without spoiling them. And a system compatible with Unix
-would be convenient for many other people to adopt.
-
-How GNU Will Be Available
-=========================
-
- GNU is not in the public domain. Everyone will be permitted to
-modify and redistribute GNU, but no distributor will be allowed to
-restrict its further redistribution. That is to say, proprietary
-modifications will not be allowed. I want to make sure that all
-versions of GNU remain free.
-
-Why Many Other Programmers Want to Help
-=======================================
-
- I have found many other programmers who are excited about GNU and
-want to help.
-
- Many programmers are unhappy about the commercialization of system
-software. It may enable them to make more money, but it requires them
-to feel in conflict with other programmers in general rather than feel
-as comrades. The fundamental act of friendship among programmers is the
-sharing of programs; marketing arrangements now typically used
-essentially forbid programmers to treat others as friends. The
-purchaser of software must choose between friendship and obeying the
-law. Naturally, many decide that friendship is more important. But
-those who believe in law often do not feel at ease with either choice.
-They become cynical and think that programming is just a way of making
-money.
-
- By working on and using GNU rather than proprietary programs, we can
-be hospitable to everyone and obey the law. In addition, GNU serves as
-an example to inspire and a banner to rally others to join us in
-sharing. This can give us a feeling of harmony which is impossible if
-we use software that is not free. For about half the programmers I
-talk to, this is an important happiness that money cannot replace.
-
-How You Can Contribute
-======================
-
- I am asking computer manufacturers for donations of machines and
-money. I'm asking individuals for donations of programs and work.
-
- One consequence you can expect if you donate machines is that GNU
-will run on them at an early date. The machines should be complete,
-ready to use systems, approved for use in a residential area, and not
-in need of sophisticated cooling or power.
-
- I have found very many programmers eager to contribute part-time
-work for GNU. For most projects, such part-time distributed work would
-be very hard to coordinate; the independently-written parts would not
-work together. But for the particular task of replacing Unix, this
-problem is absent. A complete Unix system contains hundreds of utility
-programs, each of which is documented separately. Most interface
-specifications are fixed by Unix compatibility. If each contributor
-can write a compatible replacement for a single Unix utility, and make
-it work properly in place of the original on a Unix system, then these
-utilities will work right when put together. Even allowing for Murphy
-to create a few unexpected problems, assembling these components will
-be a feasible task. (The kernel will require closer communication and
-will be worked on by a small, tight group.)
-
- If I get donations of money, I may be able to hire a few people full
-or part time. The salary won't be high by programmers' standards, but
-I'm looking for people for whom building community spirit is as
-important as making money. I view this as a way of enabling dedicated
-people to devote their full energies to working on GNU by sparing them
-the need to make a living in another way.
-
-Why All Computer Users Will Benefit
-===================================
-
- Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system
-software free, just like air.(2)
-
- This means much more than just saving everyone the price of a Unix
-license. It means that much wasteful duplication of system programming
-effort will be avoided. This effort can go instead into advancing the
-state of the art.
-
- Complete system sources will be available to everyone. As a result,
-a user who needs changes in the system will always be free to make them
-himself, or hire any available programmer or company to make them for
-him. Users will no longer be at the mercy of one programmer or company
-which owns the sources and is in sole position to make changes.
-
- Schools will be able to provide a much more educational environment
-by encouraging all students to study and improve the system code.
-Harvard's computer lab used to have the policy that no program could be
-installed on the system if its sources were not on public display, and
-upheld it by actually refusing to install certain programs. I was very
-much inspired by this.
-
- Finally, the overhead of considering who owns the system software
-and what one is or is not entitled to do with it will be lifted.
-
- Arrangements to make people pay for using a program, including
-licensing of copies, always incur a tremendous cost to society through
-the cumbersome mechanisms necessary to figure out how much (that is,
-which programs) a person must pay for. And only a police state can
-force everyone to obey them. Consider a space station where air must
-be manufactured at great cost: charging each breather per liter of air
-may be fair, but wearing the metered gas mask all day and all night is
-intolerable even if everyone can afford to pay the air bill. And the
-TV cameras everywhere to see if you ever take the mask off are
-outrageous. It's better to support the air plant with a head tax and
-chuck the masks.
-
- Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as
-breathing, and as productive. It ought to be as free.
-
-Some Easily Rebutted Objections to GNU's Goals
-==============================================
-
- "Nobody will use it if it is free, because that means they can't
- rely on any support."
-
- "You have to charge for the program to pay for providing the
- support."
-
- If people would rather pay for GNU plus service than get GNU free
-without service, a company to provide just service to people who have
-obtained GNU free ought to be profitable.(3)
-
- We must distinguish between support in the form of real programming
-work and mere handholding. The former is something one cannot rely on
-from a software vendor. If your problem is not shared by enough
-people, the vendor will tell you to get lost.
-
- If your business needs to be able to rely on support, the only way
-is to have all the necessary sources and tools. Then you can hire any
-available person to fix your problem; you are not at the mercy of any
-individual. With Unix, the price of sources puts this out of
-consideration for most businesses. With GNU this will be easy. It is
-still possible for there to be no available competent person, but this
-problem cannot be blamed on distribution arrangements. GNU does not
-eliminate all the world's problems, only some of them.
-
- Meanwhile, the users who know nothing about computers need
-handholding: doing things for them which they could easily do
-themselves but don't know how.
-
- Such services could be provided by companies that sell just
-hand-holding and repair service. If it is true that users would rather
-spend money and get a product with service, they will also be willing
-to buy the service having got the product free. The service companies
-will compete in quality and price; users will not be tied to any
-particular one. Meanwhile, those of us who don't need the service
-should be able to use the program without paying for the service.
-
- "You cannot reach many people without advertising, and you must
- charge for the program to support that."
-
- "It's no use advertising a program people can get free."
-
- There are various forms of free or very cheap publicity that can be
-used to inform numbers of computer users about something like GNU. But
-it may be true that one can reach more microcomputer users with
-advertising. If this is really so, a business which advertises the
-service of copying and mailing GNU for a fee ought to be successful
-enough to pay for its advertising and more. This way, only the users
-who benefit from the advertising pay for it.
-
- On the other hand, if many people get GNU from their friends, and
-such companies don't succeed, this will show that advertising was not
-really necessary to spread GNU. Why is it that free market advocates
-don't want to let the free market decide this?(4)
-
- "My company needs a proprietary operating system to get a
- competitive edge."
-
- GNU will remove operating system software from the realm of
-competition. You will not be able to get an edge in this area, but
-neither will your competitors be able to get an edge over you. You and
-they will compete in other areas, while benefiting mutually in this
-one. If your business is selling an operating system, you will not
-like GNU, but that's tough on you. If your business is something else,
-GNU can save you from being pushed into the expensive business of
-selling operating systems.
-
- I would like to see GNU development supported by gifts from many
-manufacturers and users, reducing the cost to each.(5)
-
- "Don't programmers deserve a reward for their creativity?"
-
- If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution.
-Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society
-is free to use the results. If programmers deserve to be rewarded for
-creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be
-punished if they restrict the use of these programs.
-
- "Shouldn't a programmer be able to ask for a reward for his
- creativity?"
-
- There is nothing wrong with wanting pay for work, or seeking to
-maximize one's income, as long as one does not use means that are
-destructive. But the means customary in the field of software today
-are based on destruction.
-
- Extracting money from users of a program by restricting their use of
-it is destructive because the restrictions reduce the amount and the
-ways that the program can be used. This reduces the amount of wealth
-that humanity derives from the program. When there is a deliberate
-choice to restrict, the harmful consequences are deliberate destruction.
-
- The reason a good citizen does not use such destructive means to
-become wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become
-poorer from the mutual destructiveness. This is Kantian ethics; or,
-the Golden Rule. Since I do not like the consequences that result if
-everyone hoards information, I am required to consider it wrong for one
-to do so. Specifically, the desire to be rewarded for one's creativity
-does not justify depriving the world in general of all or part of that
-creativity.
-
- "Won't programmers starve?"
-
- I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us
-cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making
-faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives
-standing on the street making faces, and starving. We do something
-else.
-
- But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner's
-implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers
-cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.
-
- The real reason programmers will not starve is that it will still be
-possible for them to get paid for programming; just not paid as much as
-now.
-
- Restricting copying is not the only basis for business in software.
-It is the most common basis because it brings in the most money. If it
-were prohibited, or rejected by the customer, software business would
-move to other bases of organization which are now used less often.
-There are always numerous ways to organize any kind of business.
-
- Probably programming will not be as lucrative on the new basis as it
-is now. But that is not an argument against the change. It is not
-considered an injustice that sales clerks make the salaries that they
-now do. If programmers made the same, that would not be an injustice
-either. (In practice they would still make considerably more than
-that.)
-
- "Don't people have a right to control how their creativity is
- used?"
-
- "Control over the use of one's ideas" really constitutes control over
-other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more
-difficult.
-
- People who have studied the issue of intellectual property rights(6)
-carefully (such as lawyers) say that there is no intrinsic right to
-intellectual property. The kinds of supposed intellectual property
-rights that the government recognizes were created by specific acts of
-legislation for specific purposes.
-
- For example, the patent system was established to encourage
-inventors to disclose the details of their inventions. Its purpose was
-to help society rather than to help inventors. At the time, the life
-span of 17 years for a patent was short compared with the rate of
-advance of the state of the art. Since patents are an issue only among
-manufacturers, for whom the cost and effort of a license agreement are
-small compared with setting up production, the patents often do not do
-much harm. They do not obstruct most individuals who use patented
-products.
-
- The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors
-frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This
-practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have
-survived even in part. The copyright system was created expressly for
-the purpose of encouraging authorship. In the domain for which it was
-invented--books, which could be copied economically only on a printing
-press--it did little harm, and did not obstruct most of the individuals
-who read the books.
-
- All intellectual property rights are just licenses granted by society
-because it was thought, rightly or wrongly, that society as a whole
-would benefit by granting them. But in any particular situation, we
-have to ask: are we really better off granting such license? What kind
-of act are we licensing a person to do?
-
- The case of programs today is very different from that of books a
-hundred years ago. The fact that the easiest way to copy a program is
-from one neighbor to another, the fact that a program has both source
-code and object code which are distinct, and the fact that a program is
-used rather than read and enjoyed, combine to create a situation in
-which a person who enforces a copyright is harming society as a whole
-both materially and spiritually; in which a person should not do so
-regardless of whether the law enables him to.
-
- "Competition makes things get done better."
-
- The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we
-encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this
-way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it
-always works this way. If the runners forget why the reward is offered
-and become intent on winning, no matter how, they may find other
-strategies--such as, attacking other runners. If the runners get into
-a fist fight, they will all finish late.
-
- Proprietary and secret software is the moral equivalent of runners
-in a fist fight. Sad to say, the only referee we've got does not seem
-to object to fights; he just regulates them ("For every ten yards you
-run, you can fire one shot"). He really ought to break them up, and
-penalize runners for even trying to fight.
-
- "Won't everyone stop programming without a monetary incentive?"
-
- Actually, many people will program with absolutely no monetary
-incentive. Programming has an irresistible fascination for some
-people, usually the people who are best at it. There is no shortage of
-professional musicians who keep at it even though they have no hope of
-making a living that way.
-
- But really this question, though commonly asked, is not appropriate
-to the situation. Pay for programmers will not disappear, only become
-less. So the right question is, will anyone program with a reduced
-monetary incentive? My experience shows that they will.
-
- For more than ten years, many of the world's best programmers worked
-at the Artificial Intelligence Lab for far less money than they could
-have had anywhere else. They got many kinds of non-monetary rewards:
-fame and appreciation, for example. And creativity is also fun, a
-reward in itself.
-
- Then most of them left when offered a chance to do the same
-interesting work for a lot of money.
-
- What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other
-than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they
-will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly
-in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly
-if the high-paying ones are banned.
-
- "We need the programmers desperately. If they demand that we stop
- helping our neighbors, we have to obey."
-
- You're never so desperate that you have to obey this sort of demand.
-Remember: millions for defense, but not a cent for tribute!
-
- "Programmers need to make a living somehow."
-
- In the short run, this is true. However, there are plenty of ways
-that programmers could make a living without selling the right to use a
-program. This way is customary now because it brings programmers and
-businessmen the most money, not because it is the only way to make a
-living. It is easy to find other ways if you want to find them. Here
-are a number of examples.
-
- A manufacturer introducing a new computer will pay for the porting of
-operating systems onto the new hardware.
-
- The sale of teaching, hand-holding and maintenance services could
-also employ programmers.
-
- People with new ideas could distribute programs as freeware(7), asking
-for donations from satisfied users, or selling hand-holding services.
-I have met people who are already working this way successfully.
-
- Users with related needs can form users' groups, and pay dues. A
-group would contract with programming companies to write programs that
-the group's members would like to use.
-
- All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax:
-
- Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the
- price as a software tax. The government gives this to an agency
- like the NSF to spend on software development.
-
- But if the computer buyer makes a donation to software development
- himself, he can take a credit against the tax. He can donate to
- the project of his own choosing--often, chosen because he hopes to
- use the results when it is done. He can take a credit for any
- amount of donation up to the total tax he had to pay.
-
- The total tax rate could be decided by a vote of the payers of the
- tax, weighted according to the amount they will be taxed on.
-
- The consequences:
-
- * The computer-using community supports software development.
-
- * This community decides what level of support is needed.
-
- * Users who care which projects their share is spent on can
- choose this for themselves.
-
- In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the
-post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to
-make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities
-that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten
-hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling,
-robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be
-able to make a living from programming.
-
- We have already greatly reduced the amount of work that the whole
-society must do for its actual productivity, but only a little of this
-has translated itself into leisure for workers because much
-nonproductive activity is required to accompany productive activity.
-The main causes of this are bureaucracy and isometric struggles against
-competition. Free software will greatly reduce these drains in the
-area of software production. We must do this, in order for technical
-gains in productivity to translate into less work for us.
-
- ---------- Footnotes ----------
-
- (1) The wording here was careless. The intention was that nobody
-would have to pay for *permission* to use the GNU system. But the
-words don't make this clear, and people often interpret them as saying
-that copies of GNU should always be distributed at little or no charge.
-That was never the intent; later on, the manifesto mentions the
-possibility of companies providing the service of distribution for a
-profit. Subsequently I have learned to distinguish carefully between
-"free" in the sense of freedom and "free" in the sense of price. Free
-software is software that users have the freedom to distribute and
-change. Some users may obtain copies at no charge, while others pay to
-obtain copies--and if the funds help support improving the software, so
-much the better. The important thing is that everyone who has a copy
-has the freedom to cooperate with others in using it.
-
- (2) This is another place I failed to distinguish carefully between
-the two different meanings of "free". The statement as it stands is
-not false--you can get copies of GNU software at no charge, from your
-friends or over the net. But it does suggest the wrong idea.
-
- (3) Several such companies now exist.
-
- (4) The Free Software Foundation raised most of its funds for 10
-years from a distribution service, although it is a charity rather
-than a company.
-
- (5) A group of computer companies pooled funds around 1991 to
-support maintenance of the GNU C Compiler.
-
- (6) In the 80s I had not yet realized how confusing it was to speak
-of "the issue" of "intellectual property". That term is obviously
-biased; more subtle is the fact that it lumps together various
-disparate laws which raise very different issues. Nowadays I urge
-people to reject the term "intellectual property" entirely, lest it
-lead others to suppose that those laws form one coherent issue. The way to be
-clear is to discuss patents, copyrights, and trademarks separately.
-See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml for more explanation
-of how this term spreads confusion and bias.
-
- (7) Subsequently we have learned to distinguish between "free
-software" and "freeware". The term "freeware" means software you are
-free to redistribute, but usually you are not free to study and change
-the source code, so most of it is not free software. See
-http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html for more
-explanation.
+The GNU Manifesto
+
+Note added March 2014:
+
+This file is obsolete and will be removed in future.
+Please update any references to use
+ info node `(emacs)Manifesto'
+instead.
- Linux and the GNU system
-
-The GNU project started in 1984 with the goal of developing a complete
-free Unix-like operating system: GNU. "Free" refers to freedom, not
-price; it means you are free to run, copy, distribute, study, change,
-and improve the software.
-
-A Unix-like system consists of many different programs. We found some
-components already available as free software--for example, X Windows
-and TeX. We obtained other components by helping to convince their
-developers to make them free--for example, the Berkeley network
-utilities. This left many missing components that we had to write in
-order to produce GNU--for example, GNU Emacs, the GNU C compiler, the
-GNU C library, Bash, and Ghostscript. The GNU system consists of all
-these components together.
-
-The GNU project is not just about developing and distributing some
-useful free software. The heart of the GNU project is an idea: that
-software should be free, that software users should have freedom to
-participate in a community. To run your computer, you need an
-operating system; if it is not free, your freedom has been denied. To
-have freedom, you need a free operating system. We therefore set out
-to write one.
-
-In the long run, though, we cannot expect to keep the free operating
-system free unless the users are aware of the freedom it gives them,
-and value that freedom. People who do not appreciate their freedom
-will not keep it long. If we want to make freedom last, we need to
-spread awareness of the freedoms they have in free software.
-
-The GNU project's method is that free software and the idea of users'
-freedom support each other. We develop GNU software, and as people
-encounter GNU programs or the GNU system and start to use them, they
-also think about the GNU idea. The software shows that the idea can
-work in practice. Some of these people come to agree with the idea,
-and then they are more likely to write additional free software.
-Thus, the software embodies the idea, spreads the idea, and grows from
-the idea.
-
-Early on in the development of GNU, various parts of it became popular
-even though users needed proprietary systems to run them on. Porting
-the system to many systems and maintaining them required a lot of
-work. After that work, most GNU software is easily configured for a
-variety of different platforms.
-
-By 1991, we had found or written all of the essential major components
-of the system except the kernel, which we were writing. (This kernel
-consists of the Mach microkernel plus the GNU HURD. The first test
-release was made in 1996. Now, in 2002, it is running well, and
-Hurd-based GNU systems are starting to be used.)
-
-That was the situation when Linux came into being. Linux is a kernel,
-like the kernel of Unix; it was written by Linus Torvalds, who
-released it under the GNU General Public License. He did not write
-this kernel for GNU, but it fit into the gap in GNU. The combination
-of GNU and Linux included all the major essential components of a
-Unix-compatible operating system. Other people, with some work made
-the combination into a usable system. The principal use of Linux, the
-kernel, is as part of this combination.
-
-The popularity of the GNU/Linux combination is success, in the sense
-of popularity, for GNU. Ironically, the popularity of GNU/Linux
-undermines our method of communicating the ideas of GNU to people who
-use GNU.
-
-When GNU programs were only usable individually on top of another
-operating system, installing and using them meant knowing and
-appreciating these programs, and thus being aware of GNU, which led
-people to think about the philosophical base of GNU. Now users can
-install a unified operating system which is basically GNU, but they
-usually think these are "Linux systems". At first impression, a
-"Linux system" sounds like something completely distinct from the "GNU
-system," and that is what most users think.
-
-This leads many users to identify themselves as a separate community
-of "Linux users", distinct from the GNU user community. They use more
-than just some GNU programs, they use almost all of the GNU system,
-but they don't think of themselves as GNU users. Often they never
-hear about the GNU idea; if they do, they may not think it relates to
-them.
-
-Most introductions to the "Linux system" acknowledge that GNU software
-components play a role in it, but they don't say that the system as a
-whole is a modified version of the GNU system that the GNU project has
-been developing and compiling since Linus Torvalds was in junior high
-school. They don't say that the main reason this free operating
-exists is that the GNU Project worked persistently to achieve its goal
-of freedom.
-
-As a result, most users don't know these things. They believe that
-the "Linux system" was developed by Linus Torvalds "just for fun", and
-that their freedom is a matter of good fortune rather than the
-dedicated pursuit of freedom. This creates a danger that they will
-leave the survival of free software to fortune as well.
-
-Since human beings tend to correct their first impressions less than
-called for by additional information they learn later, these users
-will tend to continue to underestimate their connection to GNU even if
-they do learn the facts.
-
-When we began trying to support the GNU/Linux system, we found this
-widespread misinformation led to a practical problem--it hampered
-cooperation on software maintenance. Normally when users change a GNU
-program to make it work better on a particular system, they send the
-change to the maintainer of that program; then they work with the
-maintainer, explaining the change, arguing for it, and sometimes
-rewriting it for the sake of the overall coherence and maintainability
-of the package, to get the patch installed. But people who thought of
-themselves as "Linux users" showed a tendency to release a forked
-"Linux-only" version of the GNU program and consider the job done. In
-some cases we had to redo their work in order to make GNU programs run
-as released in GNU/Linux systems.
-
-How should the GNU project encourage its users to cooperate? How
-should we spread the idea that freedom for computer users is
-important?
-
-We must continue to talk about the freedom to share and change
-software--and to teach other users to value these freedoms. If we
-value having a free operating system, it makes sense to think about
-preserving those freedoms for the long term. If we value having a
-variety of free software, it makes sense to think about encouraging
-others to write free software, instead of proprietary software.
-
-However, it is not enough just to talk about freedom; we must also
-make sure people know the reasons it is worth listening to what we
-say.
-
-Long explanations such as our philosophical articles are one way of
-informing the public, but you may not want to spend so much time on
-the matter. The most effective way you can help with a small amount
-of work is simply by using the terms "Linux-based GNU system" or
-"GNU/Linux system", instead of "Linux system," when you write about or
-mention such a system. Seeing these terms will show many people the
-reason to pay attention to our philosophical articles.
-
-The system as a whole is more GNU than Linux; the name "GNU/Linux" is
-fair. When you are choosing the name of a distribution or a user
-group, a name with "GNU/Linux" will reflect both roots of the combined
-system, and will bring users into connection with both--including the
-spirit of freedom and community that is the basis and purpose of GNU.
-
-
-Copyright 1996, 2002 Richard Stallman
-Verbatim copying and redistribution is permitted
-without royalty as long as this notice is preserved.
-
+Linux and the GNU system
+
+Note added March 2014:
+
+This file is obsolete and will be removed in future.
+Please update any references to use
+
+<http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html>
The GNU project wants users of GNU/Linux systems to be aware of how
these systems relate to the GNU project, because that will help
spread the GNU idea that software should be free--and thus encourage
- people to write more free software. See the file LINUX-GNU in this
- directory for more explanation.
+ people to write more free software. For more information, see
+ <http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html>.
*** 64-bit GNU/Linux
It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
than `system-type'.
-See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
+See <http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html> for more about this.
** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
- The GNU Project
-
- by Richard Stallman
-
- originally published in the book "Open Sources"
-
- The first software-sharing community
-
- When I started working at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1971,
- I became part of a software-sharing community that had existed for many
- years. Sharing of software was not limited to our particular community;
- it is as old as computers, just as sharing of recipes is as old as
- cooking. But we did it more than most.
-
- The AI Lab used a timesharing operating system called ITS (the
- Incompatible Timesharing System) that the lab's staff hackers (1) had
- designed and written in assembler language for the Digital PDP-10, one
- of the large computers of the era. As a member of this community, an AI
- lab staff system hacker, my job was to improve this system.
-
- We did not call our software "free software", because that term did not
- yet exist; but that is what it was. Whenever people from another
- university or a company wanted to port and use a program, we gladly let
- them. If you saw someone using an unfamiliar and interesting program,
- you could always ask to see the source code, so that you could read it,
- change it, or cannibalize parts of it to make a new program.
-
- (1) The use of "hacker" to mean "security breaker" is a confusion on
- the part of the mass media. We hackers refuse to recognize that
- meaning, and continue using the word to mean, "Someone who loves to
- program and enjoys being clever about it."
-
- The collapse of the community
-
- The situation changed drastically in the early 1980s when Digital
- discontinued the PDP-10 series. Its architecture, elegant and powerful
- in the 60s, could not extend naturally to the larger address spaces
- that were becoming feasible in the 80s. This meant that nearly all of
- the programs composing ITS were obsolete.
-
- The AI lab hacker community had already collapsed, not long before. In
- 1981, the spin-off company Symbolics had hired away nearly all of the
- hackers from the AI lab, and the depopulated community was unable to
- maintain itself. (The book Hackers, by Steve Levy, describes these
- events, as well as giving a clear picture of this community in its
- prime.) When the AI lab bought a new PDP-10 in 1982, its administrators
- decided to use Digital's non-free timesharing system instead of ITS.
-
- The modern computers of the era, such as the VAX or the 68020, had
- their own operating systems, but none of them were free software: you
- had to sign a nondisclosure agreement even to get an executable copy.
-
- This meant that the first step in using a computer was to promise not
- to help your neighbor. A cooperating community was forbidden. The rule
- made by the owners of proprietary software was, "If you share with your
- neighbor, you are a pirate. If you want any changes, beg us to make
- them."
-
- The idea that the proprietary-software social system--the system that
- says you are not allowed to share or change software--is antisocial,
- that it is unethical, that it is simply wrong, may come as a surprise
- to some readers. But what else could we say about a system based on
- dividing the public and keeping users helpless? Readers who find the
- idea surprising may have taken proprietary-software social system as
- given, or judged it on the terms suggested by proprietary software
- businesses. Software publishers have worked long and hard to convince
- people that there is only one way to look at the issue.
-
- When software publishers talk about "enforcing" their "rights" or
- "stopping piracy", what they actually *say* is secondary. The real
- message of these statements is in the unstated assumptions they take
- for granted; the public is supposed to accept them uncritically. So
- let's examine them.
-
- One assumption is that software companies have an unquestionable
- natural right to own software and thus have power over all its users.
- (If this were a natural right, then no matter how much harm it does to
- the public, we could not object.) Interestingly, the US Constitution
- and legal tradition reject this view; copyright is not a natural right,
- but an artificial government-imposed monopoly that limits the users'
- natural right to copy.
-
- Another unstated assumption is that the only important thing about
- software is what jobs it allows you to do--that we computer users
- should not care what kind of society we are allowed to have.
-
- A third assumption is that we would have no usable software (or would
- never have a program to do this or that particular job) if we did not
- offer a company power over the users of the program. This assumption
- may have seemed plausible, before the free software movement
- demonstrated that we can make plenty of useful software without putting
- chains on it.
-
- If we decline to accept these assumptions, and judge these issues based
- on ordinary common-sense morality while placing the users first, we
- arrive at very different conclusions. Computer users should be free to
- modify programs to fit their needs, and free to share software, because
- helping other people is the basis of society.
-
- There is no room here for an extensive statement of the reasoning
- behind this conclusion, so I refer the reader to the web page,
- http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html.
-
- A stark moral choice.
-
- With my community gone, to continue as before was impossible. Instead,
- I faced a stark moral choice.
-
- The easy choice was to join the proprietary software world, signing
- nondisclosure agreements and promising not to help my fellow hacker.
- Most likely I would also be developing software that was released under
- nondisclosure agreements, thus adding to the pressure on other people
- to betray their fellows too.
-
- I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing
- code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on
- years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life
- making the world a worse place.
-
- I had already experienced being on the receiving end of a nondisclosure
- agreement, when someone refused to give me and the MIT AI lab the
- source code for the control program for our printer. (The lack of
- certain features in this program made use of the printer extremely
- frustrating.) So I could not tell myself that nondisclosure agreements
- were innocent. I was very angry when he refused to share with us; I
- could not turn around and do the same thing to everyone else.
-
- Another choice, straightforward but unpleasant, was to leave the
- computer field. That way my skills would not be misused, but they would
- still be wasted. I would not be culpable for dividing and restricting
- computer users, but it would happen nonetheless.
-
- So I looked for a way that a programmer could do something for the
- good. I asked myself, was there a program or programs that I could
- write, so as to make a community possible once again?
-
- The answer was clear: what was needed first was an operating system.
- That is the crucial software for starting to use a computer. With an
- operating system, you can do many things; without one, you cannot run
- the computer at all. With a free operating system, we could again have
- a community of cooperating hackers--and invite anyone to join. And
- anyone would be able to use a computer without starting out by
- conspiring to deprive his or her friends.
-
- As an operating system developer, I had the right skills for this job.
- So even though I could not take success for granted, I realized that I
- was elected to do the job. I chose to make the system compatible with
- Unix so that it would be portable, and so that Unix users could easily
- switch to it. The name GNU was chosen following a hacker tradition, as
- a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix."
-
- An operating system does not mean just a kernel, barely enough to run
- other programs. In the 1970s, every operating system worthy of the name
- included command processors, assemblers, compilers, interpreters,
- debuggers, text editors, mailers, and much more. ITS had them, Multics
- had them, VMS had them, and Unix had them. The GNU operating system
- would include them too.
-
- Later I heard these words, attributed to Hillel (1):
-
- If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
- If I am only for myself, what am I?
- If not now, when?
-
- The decision to start the GNU project was based on a similar spirit.
-
- (1) As an Atheist, I don't follow any religious leaders, but I
- sometimes find I admire something one of them has said.
-
- Free as in freedom
-
- The term "free software" is sometimes misunderstood--it has nothing to
- do with price. It is about freedom. Here, therefore, is the definition
- of free software: a program is free software, for you, a particular
- user, if:
- * You have the freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
- * You have the freedom to modify the program to suit your needs. (To
- make this freedom effective in practice, you must have access to
- the source code, since making changes in a program without having
- the source code is exceedingly difficult.)
- * You have the freedom to redistribute copies, either gratis or for a
- fee.
- * You have the freedom to distribute modified versions of the
- program, so that the community can benefit from your improvements.
-
- Since "free" refers to freedom, not to price, there is no contradiction
- between selling copies and free software. In fact, the freedom to sell
- copies is crucial: collections of free software sold on CD-ROMs are
- important for the community, and selling them is an important way to
- raise funds for free software development. Therefore, a program which
- people are not free to include on these collections is not free
- software.
-
- Because of the ambiguity of "free", people have long looked for
- alternatives, but no one has found a suitable alternative. The English
- Language has more words and nuances than any other, but it lacks a
- simple, unambiguous, word that means "free", as in
- freedom--"unfettered" being the word that comes closest in meaning.
- Such alternatives as "liberated", "freedom", and "open" have either the
- wrong meaning or some other disadvantage.
-
- GNU software and the GNU system
-
- Developing a whole system is a very large project. To bring it into
- reach, I decided to adapt and use existing pieces of free software
- wherever that was possible. For example, I decided at the very
- beginning to use TeX as the principal text formatter; a few years
- later, I decided to use the X Window System rather than writing another
- window system for GNU.
-
- Because of this decision, the GNU system is not the same as the
- collection of all GNU software. The GNU system includes programs that
- are not GNU software, programs that were developed by other people and
- projects for their own purposes, but which we can use because they are
- free software.
-
- Commencing the project
-
- In January 1984 I quit my job at MIT and began writing GNU software.
- Leaving MIT was necessary so that MIT would not be able to interfere
- with distributing GNU as free software. If I had remained on the staff,
- MIT could have claimed to own the work, and could have imposed their
- own distribution terms, or even turned the work into a proprietary
- software package. I had no intention of doing a large amount of work
- only to see it become useless for its intended purpose: creating a new
- software-sharing community.
-
- However, Professor Winston, then the head of the MIT AI Lab, kindly
- invited me to keep using the lab's facilities.
-
- The first steps
-
- Shortly before beginning the GNU project, I heard about the Free
- University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for "free"
- is written with a V.) This was a compiler designed to handle multiple
- languages, including C and Pascal, and to support multiple target
- machines. I wrote to its author asking if GNU could use it.
-
- He responded derisively, stating that the university was free but the
- compiler was not. I therefore decided that my first program for the GNU
- project would be a multi-language, multi-platform compiler.
-
- Hoping to avoid the need to write the whole compiler myself, I obtained
- the source code for the Pastel compiler, which was a multi-platform
- compiler developed at Lawrence Livermore Lab. It supported, and was
- written in, an extended version of Pascal, designed to be a
- system-programming language. I added a C front end, and began porting
- it to the Motorola 68000 computer. But I had to give that up when I
- discovered that the compiler needed many megabytes of stack space, and
- the available 68000 Unix system would only allow 64k.
-
- I then realized that the Pastel compiler functioned by parsing the
- entire input file into a syntax tree, converting the whole syntax tree
- into a chain of "instructions", and then generating the whole output
- file, without ever freeing any storage. At this point, I concluded I
- would have to write a new compiler from scratch. That new compiler is
- now known as GCC; none of the Pastel compiler is used in it, but I
- managed to adapt and use the C front end that I had written. But that
- was some years later; first, I worked on GNU Emacs.
-
- GNU Emacs
-
- I began work on GNU Emacs in September 1984, and in early 1985 it was
- beginning to be usable. This enabled me to begin using Unix systems to
- do editing; having no interest in learning to use vi or ed, I had done
- my editing on other kinds of machines until then.
-
- At this point, people began wanting to use GNU Emacs, which raised the
- question of how to distribute it. Of course, I put it on the anonymous
- ftp server on the MIT computer that I used. (This computer,
- prep.ai.mit.edu, thus became the principal GNU ftp distribution site;
- when it was decommissioned a few years later, we transferred the name
- to our new ftp server.) But at that time, many of the interested people
- were not on the Internet and could not get a copy by ftp. So the
- question was, what would I say to them?
-
- I could have said, "Find a friend who is on the net and who will make a
- copy for you." Or I could have done what I did with the original PDP-10
- Emacs: tell them, "Mail me a tape and a SASE, and I will mail it back
- with Emacs on it." But I had no job, and I was looking for ways to make
- money from free software. So I announced that I would mail a tape to
- whoever wanted one, for a fee of $150. In this way, I started a free
- software distribution business, the precursor of the companies that
- today distribute entire Linux-based GNU systems.
-
- Is a program free for every user?
-
- If a program is free software when it leaves the hands of its author,
- this does not necessarily mean it will be free software for everyone
- who has a copy of it. For example, public domain software (software
- that is not copyrighted) is free software; but anyone can make a
- proprietary modified version of it. Likewise, many free programs are
- copyrighted but distributed under simple permissive licenses which
- allow proprietary modified versions.
-
- The paradigmatic example of this problem is the X Window System.
- Developed at MIT, and released as free software with a permissive
- license, it was soon adopted by various computer companies. They added
- X to their proprietary Unix systems, in binary form only, and covered
- by the same nondisclosure agreement. These copies of X were no more
- free software than Unix was.
-
- The developers of the X Window System did not consider this a
- problem--they expected and intended this to happen. Their goal was not
- freedom, just "success", defined as "having many users." They did not
- care whether these users had freedom, only that they should be
- numerous.
-
- This led to a paradoxical situation where two different ways of
- counting the amount of freedom gave different answers to the question,
- "Is this program free?" If you judged based on the freedom provided by
- the distribution terms of the MIT release, you would say that X was
- free software. But if you measured the freedom of the average user of
- X, you would have to say it was proprietary software. Most X users were
- running the proprietary versions that came with Unix systems, not the
- free version.
-
- Copyleft and the GNU GPL
-
- The goal of GNU was to give users freedom, not just to be popular. So
- we needed to use distribution terms that would prevent GNU software
- from being turned into proprietary software. The method we use is
- called "copyleft".(1)
-
- Copyleft uses copyright law, but flips it over to serve the opposite of
- its usual purpose: instead of a means of privatizing software, it
- becomes a means of keeping software free.
-
- The central idea of copyleft is that we give everyone permission to run
- the program, copy the program, modify the program, and distribute
- modified versions--but not permission to add restrictions of their own.
- Thus, the crucial freedoms that define "free software" are guaranteed
- to everyone who has a copy; they become inalienable rights.
-
- For an effective copyleft, modified versions must also be free. This
- ensures that work based on ours becomes available to our community if
- it is published. When programmers who have jobs as programmers
- volunteer to improve GNU software, it is copyleft that prevents their
- employers from saying, "You can't share those changes, because we are
- going to use them to make our proprietary version of the program."
-
- The requirement that changes must be free is essential if we want to
- ensure freedom for every user of the program. The companies that
- privatized the X Window System usually made some changes to port it to
- their systems and hardware. These changes were small compared with the
- great extent of X, but they were not trivial. If making changes were an
- excuse to deny the users freedom, it would be easy for anyone to take
- advantage of the excuse.
-
- A related issue concerns combining a free program with non-free code.
- Such a combination would inevitably be non-free; whichever freedoms are
- lacking for the non-free part would be lacking for the whole as well.
- To permit such combinations would open a hole big enough to sink a
- ship. Therefore, a crucial requirement for copyleft is to plug this
- hole: anything added to or combined with a copylefted program must be
- such that the larger combined version is also free and copylefted.
-
- The specific implementation of copyleft that we use for most GNU
- software is the GNU General Public License, or GNU GPL for short. We
- have other kinds of copyleft that are used in specific circumstances.
- GNU manuals are copylefted also, but use a much simpler kind of
- copyleft, because the complexity of the GNU GPL is not necessary for
- manuals.(2)
-
- (1) In 1984 or 1985, Don Hopkins (a very imaginative fellow) mailed me
- a letter. On the envelope he had written several amusing sayings,
- including this one: "Copyleft--all rights reversed." I used the word
- "copyleft" to name the distribution concept I was developing at the
- time.
-
- (2) We now use the GNU Free Documentation License for documentation.
-
- The Free Software Foundation
-
- As interest in using Emacs was growing, other people became involved in
- the GNU project, and we decided that it was time to seek funding once
- again. So in 1985 we created the Free Software Foundation, a tax-exempt
- charity for free software development. The FSF also took over the Emacs
- tape distribution business; later it extended this by adding other free
- software (both GNU and non-GNU) to the tape, and by selling free
- manuals as well.
-
- The FSF accepts donations, but most of its income has always come from
- sales--of copies of free software, and of other related services. Today
- it sells CD-ROMs of source code, CD-ROMs with binaries, nicely printed
- manuals (all with freedom to redistribute and modify), and Deluxe
- Distributions (where we build the whole collection of software for your
- choice of platform).
-
- Free Software Foundation employees have written and maintained a number
- of GNU software packages. Two notable ones are the C library and the
- shell. The GNU C library is what every program running on a GNU/Linux
- system uses to communicate with Linux. It was developed by a member of
- the Free Software Foundation staff, Roland McGrath. The shell used on
- most GNU/Linux systems is BASH, the Bourne Again Shell(1), which was
- developed by FSF employee Brian Fox.
-
- We funded development of these programs because the GNU project was not
- just about tools or a development environment. Our goal was a complete
- operating system, and these programs were needed for that goal.
-
- (1) "Bourne again Shell" is a joke on the name ``Bourne Shell'', which
- was the usual shell on Unix.
-
- Free software support
-
- The free software philosophy rejects a specific widespread business
- practice, but it is not against business. When businesses respect the
- users' freedom, we wish them success.
-
- Selling copies of Emacs demonstrates one kind of free software
- business. When the FSF took over that business, I needed another way to
- make a living. I found it in selling services relating to the free
- software I had developed. This included teaching, for subjects such as
- how to program GNU Emacs and how to customize GCC, and software
- development, mostly porting GCC to new platforms.
-
- Today each of these kinds of free software business is practiced by a
- number of corporations. Some distribute free software collections on
- CD-ROM; others sell support at levels ranging from answering user
- questions, to fixing bugs, to adding major new features. We are even
- beginning to see free software companies based on launching new free
- software products.
-
- Watch out, though--a number of companies that associate themselves with
- the term "open source" actually base their business on non-free
- software that works with free software. These are not free software
- companies, they are proprietary software companies whose products tempt
- users away from freedom. They call these "value added", which reflects
- the values they would like us to adopt: convenience above freedom. If
- we value freedom more, we should call them "freedom subtracted"
- products.
-
- Technical goals
-
- The principal goal of GNU was to be free software. Even if GNU had no
- technical advantage over Unix, it would have a social advantage,
- allowing users to cooperate, and an ethical advantage, respecting the
- user's freedom.
-
- But it was natural to apply the known standards of good practice to the
- work--for example, dynamically allocating data structures to avoid
- arbitrary fixed size limits, and handling all the possible 8-bit codes
- wherever that made sense.
-
- In addition, we rejected the Unix focus on small memory size, by
- deciding not to support 16-bit machines (it was clear that 32-bit
- machines would be the norm by the time the GNU system was finished),
- and to make no effort to reduce memory usage unless it exceeded a
- megabyte. In programs for which handling very large files was not
- crucial, we encouraged programmers to read an entire input file into
- core, then scan its contents without having to worry about I/O.
-
- These decisions enabled many GNU programs to surpass their Unix
- counterparts in reliability and speed.
-
- Donated computers
-
- As the GNU project's reputation grew, people began offering to donate
- machines running UNIX to the project. These were very useful, because
- the easiest way to develop components of GNU was to do it on a UNIX
- system, and replace the components of that system one by one. But they
- raised an ethical issue: whether it was right for us to have a copy of
- UNIX at all.
-
- UNIX was (and is) proprietary software, and the GNU project's
- philosophy said that we should not use proprietary software. But,
- applying the same reasoning that leads to the conclusion that violence
- in self defense is justified, I concluded that it was legitimate to use
- a proprietary package when that was crucial for developing a free
- replacement that would help others stop using the proprietary package.
-
- But, even if this was a justifiable evil, it was still an evil. Today
- we no longer have any copies of Unix, because we have replaced them
- with free operating systems. If we could not replace a machine's
- operating system with a free one, we replaced the machine instead.
-
- The GNU Task List
-
- As the GNU project proceeded, and increasing numbers of system
- components were found or developed, eventually it became useful to make
- a list of the remaining gaps. We used it to recruit developers to write
- the missing pieces. This list became known as the GNU task list. In
- addition to missing Unix components, we listed added various other
- useful software and documentation projects that, we thought, a truly
- complete system ought to have.
-
- Today, hardly any Unix components are left in the GNU task list--those
- jobs have been done, aside from a few inessential ones. But the list is
- full of projects that some might call "applications". Any program that
- appeals to more than a narrow class of users would be a useful thing to
- add to an operating system.
-
- Even games are included in the task list--and have been since the
- beginning. Unix included games, so naturally GNU should too. But
- compatibility was not an issue for games, so we did not follow the list
- of games that Unix had. Instead, we listed a spectrum of different
- kinds of games that users might like.
-
- The GNU Library GPL
-
- The GNU C library uses a special kind of copyleft called the GNU
- Library General Public License(1), which gives permission to link
- proprietary software with the library. Why make this exception?
-
- It is not a matter of principle; there is no principle that says
- proprietary software products are entitled to include our code. (Why
- contribute to a project predicated on refusing to share with us?) Using
- the LGPL for the C library, or for any library, is a matter of
- strategy.
-
- The C library does a generic job; every proprietary system or compiler
- comes with a C library. Therefore, to make our C library available only
- to free software would not have given free software any advantage--it
- would only have discouraged use of our library.
-
- One system is an exception to this: on the GNU system (and this
- includes GNU/Linux), the GNU C library is the only C library. So the
- distribution terms of the GNU C library determine whether it is
- possible to compile a proprietary program for the GNU system. There is
- no ethical reason to allow proprietary applications on the GNU system,
- but strategically it seems that disallowing them would do more to
- discourage use of the GNU system than to encourage development of free
- applications.
-
- That is why using the Library GPL is a good strategy for the C library.
- For other libraries, the strategic decision needs to be considered on a
- case-by-case basis. When a library does a special job that can help
- write certain kinds of programs, then releasing it under the GPL,
- limiting it to free programs only, is a way of helping other free
- software developers, giving them an advantage against proprietary
- software.
-
- Consider GNU Readline, a library that was developed to provide
- command-line editing for BASH. Readline is released under the ordinary
- GNU GPL, not the Library GPL. This probably does reduce the amount
- Readline is used, but that is no loss for us. Meanwhile, at least one
- useful application has been made free software specifically so it could
- use Readline, and that is a real gain for the community.
-
- Proprietary software developers have the advantages money provides;
- free software developers need to make advantages for each other. I hope
- some day we will have a large collection of GPL-covered libraries that
- have no parallel available to proprietary software, providing useful
- modules to serve as building blocks in new free software, and adding up
- to a major advantage for further free software development.
-
- (1) This license is now called the GNU Lesser General Public License,
- to avoid giving the idea that all libraries ought to use it.
- See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html.
-
- Scratching an itch?
-
- Eric Raymond says that "Every good work of software starts by
- scratching a developer's personal itch." Maybe that happens sometimes,
- but many essential pieces of GNU software were developed in order to
- have a complete free operating system. They come from a vision and a
- plan, not from impulse.
-
- For example, we developed the GNU C library because a Unix-like system
- needs a C library, the Bourne-Again Shell (bash) because a Unix-like
- system needs a shell, and GNU tar because a Unix-like system needs a
- tar program. The same is true for my own programs--the GNU C compiler,
- GNU Emacs, GDB and GNU Make.
-
- Some GNU programs were developed to cope with specific threats to our
- freedom. Thus, we developed gzip to replace the Compress program, which
- had been lost to the community because of the LZW patents. We found
- people to develop LessTif, and more recently started GNOME and Harmony,
- to address the problems caused by certain proprietary libraries (see
- below). We are developing the GNU Privacy Guard to replace popular
- non-free encryption software, because users should not have to choose
- between privacy and freedom.
-
- Of course, the people writing these programs became interested in the
- work, and many features were added to them by various people for the
- sake of their own needs and interests. But that is not why the programs
- exist.
-
- Unexpected developments
-
- At the beginning of the GNU project, I imagined that we would develop
- the whole GNU system, then release it as a whole. That is not how it
- happened.
-
- Since each component of the GNU system was implemented on a Unix
- system, each component could run on Unix systems, long before a
- complete GNU system existed. Some of these programs became popular, and
- users began extending them and porting them---to the various
- incompatible versions of Unix, and sometimes to other systems as well.
-
- The process made these programs much more powerful, and attracted both
- funds and contributors to the GNU project. But it probably also delayed
- completion of a minimal working system by several years, as GNU
- developers' time was put into maintaining these ports and adding
- features to the existing components, rather than moving on to write one
- missing component after another.
-
- The GNU Hurd
-
- By 1990, the GNU system was almost complete; the only major missing
- component was the kernel. We had decided to implement our kernel as a
- collection of server processes running on top of Mach. Mach is a
- microkernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University and then at the
- University of Utah; the GNU HURD is a collection of servers (or ``herd
- of gnus'') that run on top of Mach, and do the various jobs of the Unix
- kernel. The start of development was delayed as we waited for Mach to
- be released as free software, as had been promised.
-
- One reason for choosing this design was to avoid what seemed to be the
- hardest part of the job: debugging a kernel program without a
- source-level debugger to do it with. This part of the job had been done
- already, in Mach, and we expected to debug the HURD servers as user
- programs, with GDB. But it took a long time to make that possible, and
- the multi-threaded servers that send messages to each other have turned
- out to be very hard to debug. Making the HURD work solidly has
- stretched on for many years.
-
- Alix
-
- The GNU kernel was not originally supposed to be called the HURD. Its
- original name was Alix--named after the woman who was my sweetheart at
- the time. She, a Unix system administrator, had pointed out how her
- name would fit a common naming pattern for Unix system versions; as a
- joke, she told her friends, "Someone should name a kernel after me." I
- said nothing, but decided to surprise her with a kernel named Alix.
-
- It did not stay that way. Michael Bushnell (now Thomas), the main
- developer of the kernel, preferred the name HURD, and redefined Alix to
- refer to a certain part of the kernel--the part that would trap system
- calls and handle them by sending messages to HURD servers.
-
- Ultimately, Alix and I broke up, and she changed her name;
- independently, the HURD design was changed so that the C library would
- send messages directly to servers, and this made the Alix component
- disappear from the design.
-
- But before these things happened, a friend of hers came across the name
- Alix in the HURD source code, and mentioned the name to her. So the
- name did its job.
-
- Linux and GNU/Linux
-
- The GNU Hurd is not ready for production use. Fortunately, another
- kernel is available. In 1991, Linus Torvalds developed a
- Unix-compatible kernel and called it Linux. Around 1992, combining
- Linux with the not-quite-complete GNU system resulted in a complete
- free operating system. (Combining them was a substantial job in itself,
- of course.) It is due to Linux that we can actually run a version of
- the GNU system today.
-
- We call this system version GNU/Linux, to express its composition as a
- combination of the GNU system with Linux as the kernel.
-
- Challenges in our future
-
- We have proved our ability to develop a broad spectrum of free
- software. This does not mean we are invincible and unstoppable. Several
- challenges make the future of free software uncertain; meeting them
- will require steadfast effort and endurance, sometimes lasting for
- years. It will require the kind of determination that people display
- when they value their freedom and will not let anyone take it away.
-
- The following four sections discuss these challenges.
-
- Secret hardware
-
- Hardware manufacturers increasingly tend to keep hardware
- specifications secret. This makes it difficult to write free drivers so
- that Linux and XFree86 can support new hardware. We have complete free
- systems today, but we will not have them tomorrow if we cannot support
- tomorrow's computers.
-
- There are two ways to cope with this problem. Programmers can do
- reverse engineering to figure out how to support the hardware. The rest
- of us can choose the hardware that is supported by free software; as
- our numbers increase, secrecy of specifications will become a
- self-defeating policy.
-
- Reverse engineering is a big job; will we have programmers with
- sufficient determination to undertake it? Yes--if we have built up a
- strong feeling that free software is a matter of principle, and
- non-free drivers are intolerable. And will large numbers of us spend
- extra money, or even a little extra time, so we can use free drivers?
- Yes, if the determination to have freedom is widespread.
-
- Non-free libraries
-
- A non-free library that runs on free operating systems acts as a trap
- for free software developers. The library's attractive features are the
- bait; if you use the library, you fall into the trap, because your
- program cannot usefully be part of a free operating system. (Strictly
- speaking, we could include your program, but it won't run with the
- library missing.) Even worse, if a program that uses the proprietary
- library becomes popular, it can lure other unsuspecting programmers
- into the trap.
-
- The first instance of this problem was the Motif toolkit, back in the
- 80s. Although there were as yet no free operating systems, it was clear
- what problem Motif would cause for them later on. The GNU Project
- responded in two ways: by asking individual free software projects to
- support the free X toolkit widgets as well as Motif, and by asking for
- someone to write a free replacement for Motif. The job took many years;
- LessTif, developed by the Hungry Programmers, became powerful enough to
- support most Motif applications only in 1997.
-
- Between 1996 and 1998, another non-free GUI toolkit library, called Qt,
- was used in a substantial collection of free software, the desktop KDE.
-
- Free GNU/Linux systems were unable to use KDE, because we could not use
- the library. However, some commercial distributors of GNU/Linux systems
- who were not strict about sticking with free software added KDE to
- their systems--producing a system with more capabilities, but less
- freedom. The KDE group was actively encouraging more programmers to use
- Qt, and millions of new "Linux users" had never been exposed to the
- idea that there was a problem in this. The situation appeared grim.
-
- The free software community responded to the problem in two ways: GNOME
- and Harmony.
-
- GNOME, the GNU Network Object Model Environment, is GNU's desktop
- project. Started in 1997 by Miguel de Icaza, and developed with the
- support of Red Hat Software, GNOME set out to provide similar desktop
- facilities, but using free software exclusively. It has technical
- advantages as well, such as supporting a variety of languages, not just
- C++. But its main purpose was freedom: not to require the use of any
- non-free software.
-
- Harmony is a compatible replacement library, designed to make it
- possible to run KDE software without using Qt.
-
- In November 1998, the developers of Qt announced a change of license
- which, when carried out, should make Qt free software. There is no way
- to be sure, but I think that this was partly due to the community's
- firm response to the problem that Qt posed when it was non-free. (The
- new license is inconvenient and inequitable, so it remains desirable to
- avoid using Qt.)
-
- [Subsequent note: in September 2000, Qt was rereleased under the GNU
- GPL, which essentially solved this problem.]
-
- How will we respond to the next tempting non-free library? Will the
- whole community understand the need to stay out of the trap? Or will
- many of us give up freedom for convenience, and produce a major
- problem? Our future depends on our philosophy.
-
- Software patents
-
- The worst threat we face comes from software patents, which can put
- algorithms and features off limits to free software for up to twenty
- years. The LZW compression algorithm patents were applied for in 1983,
- and we still cannot release free software to produce proper compressed
- GIFs. In 1998, a free program to produce MP3 compressed audio was
- removed from distribution under threat of a patent suit.
-
- There are ways to cope with patents: we can search for evidence that a
- patent is invalid, and we can look for alternative ways to do a job.
- But each of these methods works only sometimes; when both fail, a
- patent may force all free software to lack some feature that users
- want. What will we do when this happens?
-
- Those of us who value free software for freedom's sake will stay with
- free software anyway. We will manage to get work done without the
- patented features. But those who value free software because they
- expect it to be technically superior are likely to call it a failure
- when a patent holds it back. Thus, while it is useful to talk about the
- practical effectiveness of the "cathedral" model of development (1),
- and the reliability and power of some free software, we must not stop
- there. We must talk about freedom and principle.
-
- (1) It would have been clearer to write `of the "bazaar" model', since
- that was the alternative that was new and initially controversial.
-
- Free documentation
-
- The biggest deficiency in our free operating systems is not in the
- software--it is the lack of good free manuals that we can include in
- our systems. Documentation is an essential part of any software
- package; when an important free software package does not come with a
- good free manual, that is a major gap. We have many such gaps today.
-
- Free documentation, like free software, is a matter of freedom, not
- price. The criterion for a free manual is pretty much the same as for
- free software: it is a matter of giving all users certain freedoms.
- Redistribution (including commercial sale) must be permitted, on-line
- and on paper, so that the manual can accompany every copy of the
- program.
-
- Permission for modification is crucial too. As a general rule, I don't
- believe that it is essential for people to have permission to modify
- all sorts of articles and books. For example, I don't think you or I
- are obliged to give permission to modify articles like this one, which
- describe our actions and our views.
-
- But there is a particular reason why the freedom to modify is crucial
- for documentation for free software. When people exercise their right
- to modify the software, and add or change its features, if they are
- conscientious they will change the manual too--so they can provide
- accurate and usable documentation with the modified program. A manual
- which does not allow programmers to be conscientious and finish the
- job, does not fill our community's needs.
-
- Some kinds of limits on how modifications are done pose no problem. For
- example, requirements to preserve the original author's copyright
- notice, the distribution terms, or the list of authors, are ok. It is
- also no problem to require modified versions to include notice that
- they were modified, even to have entire sections that may not be
- deleted or changed, as long as these sections deal with nontechnical
- topics. These kinds of restrictions are not a problem because they
- don't stop the conscientious programmer from adapting the manual to fit
- the modified program. In other words, they don't block the free
- software community from making full use of the manual.
-
- However, it must be possible to modify all the *technical* content of
- the manual, and then distribute the result in all the usual media,
- through all the usual channels; otherwise, the restrictions do obstruct
- the community, the manual is not free, and we need another manual.
-
- Will free software developers have the awareness and determination to
- produce a full spectrum of free manuals? Once again, our future depends
- on philosophy.
-
- We must talk about freedom
-
- Estimates today are that there are ten million users of GNU/Linux
- systems such as Debian GNU/Linux and Red Hat Linux. Free software has
- developed such practical advantages that users are flocking to it for
- purely practical reasons.
-
- The good consequences of this are evident: more interest in developing
- free software, more customers for free software businesses, and more
- ability to encourage companies to develop commercial free software
- instead of proprietary software products.
-
- But interest in the software is growing faster than awareness of the
- philosophy it is based on, and this leads to trouble. Our ability to
- meet the challenges and threats described above depends on the will to
- stand firm for freedom. To make sure our community has this will, we
- need to spread the idea to the new users as they come into the
- community.
-
- But we are failing to do so: the efforts to attract new users into our
- community are far outstripping the efforts to teach them the civics of
- our community. We need to do both, and we need to keep the two efforts
- in balance.
-
- "Open Source"
-
- Teaching new users about freedom became more difficult in 1998, when a
- part of the community decided to stop using the term "free software"
- and say "open source software" instead.
-
- Some who favored this term aimed to avoid the confusion of "free" with
- "gratis"--a valid goal. Others, however, aimed to set aside the spirit
- of principle that had motivated the free software movement and the GNU
- project, and to appeal instead to executives and business users, many
- of whom hold an ideology that places profit above freedom, above
- community, above principle. Thus, the rhetoric of "open source" focuses
- on the potential to make high quality, powerful software, but shuns the
- ideas of freedom, community, and principle.
-
- The "Linux" magazines are a clear example of this--they are filled with
- advertisements for proprietary software that works with GNU/Linux. When
- the next Motif or Qt appears, will these magazines warn programmers to
- stay away from it, or will they run ads for it?
-
- The support of business can contribute to the community in many ways;
- all else being equal, it is useful. But winning their support by
- speaking even less about freedom and principle can be disastrous; it
- makes the previous imbalance between outreach and civics education even
- worse.
-
- "Free software" and "open source" describe the same category of
- software, more or less, but say different things about the software,
- and about values. The GNU Project continues to use the term "free
- software", to express the idea that freedom, not just technology, is
- important.
-
- Try!
-
- Yoda's philosophy ("There is no `try'") sounds neat, but it doesn't
- work for me. I have done most of my work while anxious about whether I
- could do the job, and unsure that it would be enough to achieve the
- goal if I did. But I tried anyway, because there was no one but me
- between the enemy and my city. Surprising myself, I have sometimes
- succeeded.
-
- Sometimes I failed; some of my cities have fallen. Then I found another
- threatened city, and got ready for another battle. Over time, I've
- learned to look for threats and put myself between them and my city,
- calling on other hackers to come and join me.
-
- Nowadays, often I'm not the only one. It is a relief and a joy when I
- see a regiment of hackers digging in to hold the line, and I realize,
- this city may survive--for now. But the dangers are greater each year,
- and now Microsoft has explicitly targeted our community. We can't take
- the future of freedom for granted. Don't take it for granted! If you
- want to keep your freedom, you must be prepared to defend it.
-
- Copyright (C) 1998 Richard Stallman
-
- Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted
- in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
+The GNU Project
+
+Note added March 2014:
+
+This file is obsolete and will be removed in future.
+Please update any references to use
+
+<http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html>
- Why Software Should Not Have Owners
-
- by Richard Stallman
-
-Digital information technology contributes to the world by making it
-easier to copy and modify information. Computers promise to make this
-easier for all of us.
-
-Not everyone wants it to be easier. The system of copyright gives
-software programs "owners", most of whom aim to withhold software's
-potential benefit from the rest of the public. They would like to be
-the only ones who can copy and modify the software that we use.
-
-The copyright system grew up with printing--a technology for mass
-production copying. Copyright fit in well with this technology
-because it restricted only the mass producers of copies. It did not
-take freedom away from readers of books. An ordinary reader, who did
-not own a printing press, could copy books only with pen and ink, and
-few readers were sued for that.
-
-Digital technology is more flexible than the printing press: when
-information has digital form, you can easily copy it to share it with
-others. This very flexibility makes a bad fit with a system like
-copyright. That's the reason for the increasingly nasty and draconian
-measures now used to enforce software copyright. Consider these four
-practices of the Software Publishers Association (SPA):
-
-* Massive propaganda saying it is wrong to disobey the owners
-to help your friend.
-
-* Solicitation for stool pigeons to inform on their coworkers and
-colleagues.
-
-* Raids (with police help) on offices and schools, in which people are
-told they must prove they are innocent of illegal copying.
-
-* Prosecution (by the US government, at the SPA's request) of people
-such as MIT's David LaMacchia, not for copying software (he is not
-accused of copying any), but merely for leaving copying facilities
-unguarded and failing to censor their use.
-
-All four practices resemble those used in the former Soviet Union,
-where every copying machine had a guard to prevent forbidden copying,
-and where individuals had to copy information secretly and pass it
-from hand to hand as "samizdat". There is of course a difference: the
-motive for information control in the Soviet Union was political; in
-the US the motive is profit. But it is the actions that affect us,
-not the motive. Any attempt to block the sharing of information, no
-matter why, leads to the same methods and the same harshness.
-
-Owners make several kinds of arguments for giving them the power
-to control how we use information:
-
-* Name calling.
-
-Owners use smear words such as "piracy" and "theft", as well as expert
-terminology such as "intellectual property" and "damage", to suggest a
-certain line of thinking to the public--a simplistic analogy between
-programs and physical objects.
-
-Our ideas and intuitions about property for material objects are about
-whether it is right to *take an object away* from someone else. They
-don't directly apply to *making a copy* of something. But the owners
-ask us to apply them anyway.
-
-* Exaggeration.
-
-Owners say that they suffer "harm" or "economic loss" when users copy
-programs themselves. But the copying has no direct effect on the
-owner, and it harms no one. The owner can lose only if the person who
-made the copy would otherwise have paid for one from the owner.
-
-A little thought shows that most such people would not have bought
-copies. Yet the owners compute their "losses" as if each and every
-one would have bought a copy. That is exaggeration--to put it kindly.
-
-* The law.
-
-Owners often describe the current state of the law, and the harsh
-penalties they can threaten us with. Implicit in this approach is the
-suggestion that today's law reflects an unquestionable view of
-morality--yet at the same time, we are urged to regard these penalties
-as facts of nature that can't be blamed on anyone.
-
-This line of persuasion isn't designed to stand up to critical
-thinking; it's intended to reinforce a habitual mental pathway.
-
-It's elemental that laws don't decide right and wrong. Every American
-should know that, forty years ago, it was against the law in many
-states for a black person to sit in the front of a bus; but only
-racists would say sitting there was wrong.
-
-* Natural rights.
-
-Authors often claim a special connection with programs they have
-written, and go on to assert that, as a result, their desires and
-interests concerning the program simply outweigh those of anyone
-else--or even those of the whole rest of the world. (Typically
-companies, not authors, hold the copyrights on software, but we are
-expected to ignore this discrepancy.)
-
-To those who propose this as an ethical axiom--the author is more
-important than you--I can only say that I, a notable software author
-myself, call it bunk.
-
-But people in general are only likely to feel any sympathy with the
-natural rights claims for two reasons.
-
-One reason is an overstretched analogy with material objects. When I
-cook spaghetti, I do object if someone else takes it and stops me from
-eating it. In this case, that person and I have the same material
-interests at stake, and it's a zero-sum game. The smallest
-distinction between us is enough to tip the ethical balance.
-
-But whether you run or change a program I wrote affects you directly
-and me only indirectly. Whether you give a copy to your friend
-affects you and your friend much more than it affects me. I shouldn't
-have the power to tell you not to do these things. No one should.
-
-The second reason is that people have been told that natural rights
-for authors is the accepted and unquestioned tradition of our society.
-
-As a matter of history, the opposite is true. The idea of natural
-rights of authors was proposed and decisively rejected when the US
-Constitution was drawn up. That's why the Constitution only *permits*
-a system of copyright and does not *require* one; that's why it says
-that copyright must be temporary. It also states that the purpose of
-copyright is to promote progress--not to reward authors. Copyright
-does reward authors somewhat, and publishers more, but that is
-intended as a means of modifying their behavior.
-
-The real established tradition of our society is that copyright cuts
-into the natural rights of the public--and that this can only be
-justified for the public's sake.
-
-* Economics.
-
-The final argument made for having owners of software is that this
-leads to production of more software.
-
-Unlike the others, this argument at least takes a legitimate approach
-to the subject. It is based on a valid goal--satisfying the users of
-software. And it is empirically clear that people will produce more of
-something if they are well paid for doing so.
-
-But the economic argument has a flaw: it is based on the assumption
-that the difference is only a matter of how much money we have to pay.
-It assumes that "production of software" is what we want, whether the
-software has owners or not.
-
-People readily accept this assumption because it accords with our
-experiences with material objects. Consider a sandwich, for instance.
-You might well be able to get an equivalent sandwich either free or
-for a price. If so, the amount you pay is the only difference.
-Whether or not you have to buy it, the sandwich has the same taste,
-the same nutritional value, and in either case you can only eat it
-once. Whether you get the sandwich from an owner or not cannot
-directly affect anything but the amount of money you have afterwards.
-
-This is true for any kind of material object--whether or not it has an
-owner does not directly affect what it *is*, or what you can do with
-it if you acquire it.
-
-But if a program has an owner, this very much affects what it is, and
-what you can do with a copy if you buy one. The difference is not
-just a matter of money. The system of owners of software encourages
-software owners to produce something--but not what society really
-needs. And it causes intangible ethical pollution that affects us
-all.
-
-What does society need? It needs information that is truly available
-to its citizens--for example, programs that people can read, fix,
-adapt, and improve, not just operate. But what software owners
-typically deliver is a black box that we can't study or change.
-
-Society also needs freedom. When a program has an owner, the users
-lose freedom to control part of their own lives.
-
-And above all society needs to encourage the spirit of voluntary
-cooperation in its citizens. When software owners tell us that
-helping our neighbors in a natural way is "piracy", they pollute our
-society's civic spirit.
-
-This is why we say that free software is a matter of freedom, not
-price.
-
-The economic argument for owners is erroneous, but the economic issue
-is real. Some people write useful software for the pleasure of
-writing it or for admiration and love; but if we want more software
-than those people write, we need to raise funds.
-
-For ten years now, free software developers have tried various methods
-of finding funds, with some success. There's no need to make anyone
-rich; the median US family income, around $35k, proves to be enough
-incentive for many jobs that are less satisfying than programming.
-
-For years, until a fellowship made it unnecessary, I made a living
-from custom enhancements of the free software I had written. Each
-enhancement was added to the standard released version and thus
-eventually became available to the general public. Clients paid me so
-that I would work on the enhancements they wanted, rather than on the
-features I would otherwise have considered highest priority.
-
-The Free Software Foundation, a tax-exempt charity for free software
-development, raises funds by selling CD-ROMs, tapes and manuals (all
-of which users are free to copy and change), as well as from
-donations. It now has a staff of five programmers, plus three
-employees who handle mail orders.
-
-Some free software developers make money by selling support services.
-Cygnus Support, with around 50 employees, estimates that about 15 per
-cent of its staff activity is free software development--a respectable
-percentage for a software company.
-
-Companies including Intel, Motorola, Texas Instruments and Analog
-Devices have combined to fund the continued development of the free
-GNU compiler for the language C. Meanwhile, the GNU compiler for the
-Ada language is being funded by the US Air Force, which believes this
-is the most cost-effective way to get a high quality compiler.
-
-All these examples are small; the free software movement is still
-small, and still young. But the example of listener-supported radio
-in this country shows it's possible to support a large activity
-without forcing each user to pay.
-
-As a computer user today, you may find yourself using a proprietary
-program. If your friend asks to make a copy, it would be wrong to
-refuse. Cooperation is more important than copyright. But
-underground, closet cooperation does not make for a good society. A
-person should aspire to live an upright life openly with pride, and
-this means saying "No" to proprietary software.
-
-You deserve to be able to cooperate openly and freely with other
-people who use software. You deserve to be able to learn how the
-software works, and to teach your students with it. You deserve to be
-able to hire your favorite programmer to fix it when it breaks.
-
-You deserve free software.
-
-
-Copyright 1994 Richard Stallman
-Verbatim copying and redistribution is permitted
-without royalty as long as this notice is preserved;
-alteration is not permitted.
+Why Software Should Not Have Owners
+
+Note added March 2014:
+
+This file is obsolete and will be removed in future.
+Please update any references to use
+
+<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html>
2014-03-22 Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
+ * startup.el (fancy-startup-text):
+ * help.el (describe-gnu-project): Visit online info about GNU project.
+
* help-fns.el (help-fns--interactive-only): New function.
(help-fns-describe-function-functions): Add the above function.
* simple.el (beginning-of-buffer, end-of-buffer, insert-buffer)
;;; help.el --- help commands for Emacs
-;; Copyright (C) 1985-1986, 1993-1994, 1998-2014 Free Software
-;; Foundation, Inc.
+;; Copyright (C) 1985-1986, 1993-1994, 1998-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
;; Maintainer: emacs-devel@gnu.org
;; Keywords: help, internal
(interactive)
(view-help-file "COPYING"))
+;; Maybe this command should just be removed.
(defun describe-gnu-project ()
- "Display info on the GNU project."
+ "Browse online information on the GNU project."
(interactive)
- (view-help-file "THE-GNU-PROJECT"))
+ (browse-url "http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html"))
(define-obsolete-function-alias 'describe-project 'describe-gnu-project "22.2")
`("GNU/Linux"
,(lambda (_button) (browse-url "http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html"))
"Browse http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html")
- `("GNU" ,(lambda (_button) (describe-gnu-project))
- "Display info on the GNU project")))
+ `("GNU" ,(lambda (_button)
+ (browse-url "http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html"))
+ "Browse http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html")))
" operating system.\n\n"
:face variable-pitch
:link ("Emacs Tutorial" ,(lambda (_button) (help-with-tutorial)))
+2014-03-22 Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
+
+ * callproc.c (init_callproc): In etc, look for NEWS rather than GNU.
+
2014-03-22 Daniel Colascione <dancol@dancol.org>
* process.c (conv_sockaddr_to_lisp): When extracting the string
- names of AF_LOCAL sockets, stop before reading uninitialized
- memory.
+ names of AF_LOCAL sockets, stop before reading uninitialized memory.
2014-03-21 YAMAMOTO Mitsuharu <mituharu@math.s.chiba-u.ac.jp>
srcdir = Fexpand_file_name (build_string ("../src/"), lispdir);
- tem = Fexpand_file_name (build_string ("GNU"), Vdata_directory);
+ tem = Fexpand_file_name (build_string ("NEWS"), Vdata_directory);
tem1 = Ffile_exists_p (tem);
if (!NILP (Fequal (srcdir, Vinvocation_directory)) || NILP (tem1))
{
Lisp_Object newdir;
newdir = Fexpand_file_name (build_string ("../etc/"), lispdir);
- tem = Fexpand_file_name (build_string ("GNU"), newdir);
+ tem = Fexpand_file_name (build_string ("NEWS"), newdir);
tem1 = Ffile_exists_p (tem);
if (!NILP (tem1))
Vdata_directory = newdir;
HCoop / bpt / emacs.git / commitdiff