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

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