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

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