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1.1 ! root 1: ! 2: GNU'S NOT UNIX ! 3: ! 4: Conducted by David Betz and Jon Edwards ! 5: ! 6: Richard Stallman discusses his public-domain ! 7: UNIX-compatible software system ! 8: with BYTE editors ! 9: (July 1986) ! 10: ! 11: Copyright (C) 1986 Richard Stallman. Permission is granted to make and ! 12: distribute copies of this article as long as the copyright and this notice ! 13: appear on all copies. ! 14: ! 15: Richard Stallman has undertaken probably the most ambitious free software ! 16: development project to date, the GNU system. In his GNU Manifesto, ! 17: published in the March 1985 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal, Stallman described ! 18: GNU as a "complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so ! 19: that I can give it away free to everyone who can use it... Once GNU is ! 20: written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just ! 21: like air." (GNU is an acronym for GNU's Not UNIX; the "G" is pronounced.) ! 22: ! 23: Stallman is widely known as the author of EMACS, a powerful text editor ! 24: that he developed at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. It is no ! 25: coincidence that the first piece of software produced as part of the GNU ! 26: project was a new implementation of EMACS. GNU EMACS has already achieved a ! 27: reputation as one of the best implementations of EMACS currently available ! 28: at any price. ! 29: ! 30: BYTE: We read your GNU Manifesto in the March 1985 issue of Dr. Dobb's. ! 31: What has happened since? Was that really the beginning, and how have you ! 32: progressed since then? ! 33: ! 34: Stallman: The publication in Dr. Dobb's wasn't the beginning of the ! 35: project. I wrote the GNU Manifesto when I was getting ready to start the ! 36: project, as a proposal to ask computer manufacturers for funding. They ! 37: didn't want to get involved, and I decided that rather than spend my time ! 38: trying to pursue funds, I ought to spend it writing code. The manifesto was ! 39: published about a year and a half after I had written it, when I had barely ! 40: begun distributing the GNU EMACS. Since that time, in addition to making ! 41: GNU EMACS more complete and making it run on many more computers, I have ! 42: nearly finished the optimizing C compiler and all the other software that ! 43: is needed for running C programs. This includes a source-level debugger ! 44: that has many features that the other source-level debuggers on UNIX don't ! 45: have. For example, it has convenience variables within the debugger so you ! 46: can save values, and it also has a history of all the values that you have ! 47: printed out, making it tremendously easier to chase around list structures. ! 48: ! 49: BYTE: You have finished an editor that is now widely distributed and you ! 50: are about to finish the compiler. ! 51: ! 52: Stallman: I expect that it will be finished this October. ! 53: ! 54: BYTE: What about the kernel? ! 55: ! 56: Stallman: I'm currently planning to start with the kernel that was written ! 57: at MIT and was released to the public recently with the idea that I would ! 58: use it. This kernel is called TRIX; it's based on remote procedure call. I ! 59: still need to add compatibility for a lot of the features of UNIX which it ! 60: doesn't have currently. I haven't started to work on that yet. I'm ! 61: finishing the compiler before I go to work on the kernel. I am also going ! 62: to have to rewrite the file system. I intend to make it failsafe just by ! 63: having it write blocks in the proper order so that the disk structure is ! 64: always consistent. Then I want to add version numbers. I have a complicated ! 65: scheme to reconcile version numbers with the way people usually use UNIX. ! 66: You have to be able to specify filenames without version numbers, but you ! 67: also have to be able to specify them with explicit version numbers, and ! 68: these both need to work with ordinary UNIX programs that have not been ! 69: modified in any way to deal with the existence of this feature. I think I ! 70: have a scheme for doing this, and only trying it will show me whether it ! 71: really does the job. ! 72: ! 73: BYTE: Do you have a brief description you can give us as to how GNU as a ! 74: system will be superior to other systems? We know that one of your goals is ! 75: to produce something that is compatible with UNIX. But at least in the area ! 76: of file systems you have already said that you are going to go beyond UNIX ! 77: and produce something that is better. ! 78: ! 79: Stallman: The C compiler will produce better code and run faster. The ! 80: debugger is better. With each piece I may or may not find a way to improve ! 81: it. But there is no one answer to this question. To some extent I am ! 82: getting the benefit of reimplementation, which makes many systems much ! 83: better. To some extent it's because I have been in the field a long time ! 84: and worked on many other systems. I therefore have many ideas to bring to ! 85: bear. One way in which it will be better is that practically everything in ! 86: the system will work on files of any size, on lines of any size, with any ! 87: characters appearing in them. The UNIX system is very bad in that regard. ! 88: It's not anything new as a principle of software engineering that you ! 89: shouldn't have arbitrary limits. But it just was the standard practice in ! 90: writing UNIX to put those in all the time, possibly just because they were ! 91: writing it for a very small computer. The only limit in the GNU system is ! 92: when your program runs out of memory because it tried to work on too much ! 93: data and there is no place to keep it all. ! 94: ! 95: BYTE: And that isn't likely to be hit if you've got virtual memory. You may ! 96: just take forever to come up with the solution. ! 97: ! 98: Stallman: Actually these limits tend to hit in a time long before you take ! 99: forever to come up with the solution. ! 100: ! 101: BYTE: Can you say something about what types of machines and environments ! 102: GNU EMACS in particular has been made to run under? It's now running on ! 103: VAXes; has it migrated in any form to personal computers? ! 104: ! 105: Stallman: I'm not sure what you mean by personal computers. For example, is ! 106: a Sun a personal computer? GNU EMACS requires at least a megabyte of ! 107: available memory and preferably more. It is normally used on machines that ! 108: have virtual memory. Except for various technical problems in a few C ! 109: compilers, almost any machine with virtual memory and running a fairly ! 110: recent version of UNIX will run GNU EMACS, and most of them currently do. ! 111: ! 112: BYTE: Has anyone tried to port it to Ataris or Macintoshes? ! 113: ! 114: Stallman: The Atari 1040ST still doesn't have quite enough memory. The next ! 115: Atari machine, I expect, will run it. I also think that future Ataris will ! 116: have some forms of memory mapping. Of course, I am not designing the ! 117: software to run on the kinds of computers that are prevalent today. I knew ! 118: when I started this project it was going to take a few years. I therefore ! 119: decided that I didn't want to make a worse system by taking on the ! 120: additional challenge of making it run in the currently constrained ! 121: environment. So instead I decided I'm going to write it in the way that ! 122: seems the most natural and best. I am confident that in a couple of years ! 123: machines of sufficient size will be prevalent. In fact, increases in memory ! 124: size are happening so fast it surprises me how slow most of the people are ! 125: to put in virtual memory; I think it is totally essential. ! 126: ! 127: BYTE: I think people don't really view it as being necessary for ! 128: single-user machines. ! 129: ! 130: Stallman: They don't understand that single user doesn't mean single ! 131: program. Certainly for any UNIX-like system it's important to be able to ! 132: run lots of different processes at the same time even if there is only one ! 133: of you. You could run GNU EMACS on a nonvirtual-memory machine with enough ! 134: memory, but you couldn't run the rest of the GNU system very well or a UNIX ! 135: system very well. ! 136: ! 137: BYTE: How much of LISP is present in GNU EMACS? It occurred to me that it ! 138: may be useful to use that as a tool for learning LISP. ! 139: ! 140: Stallman: You can certainly do that. GNU EMACS contains a complete, ! 141: although not very powerful, LISP system. It's powerful enough for writing ! 142: editor commands. It's not comparable with, say, a Common LISP System, ! 143: something you could really use for system programming, but it has all the ! 144: things that LISP needs to have. ! 145: ! 146: BYTE: Do you have any predictions about when you would be likely to ! 147: distribute a workable environment in which, if we put it on our machines or ! 148: workstations, we could actually get reasonable work done without using ! 149: anything other than code that you distribute? ! 150: ! 151: Stallman: It's really hard to say. That could happen in a year, but of ! 152: course it could take longer. It could also conceivably take less, but ! 153: that's not too likely anymore. I think I'll have the compiler finished in a ! 154: month or two. The only other large piece of work I really have to do is in ! 155: the kernel. I first predicted GNU would take something like two years, but ! 156: it has now been two and a half years and I'm still not finished. Part of ! 157: the reason for the delay is that I spent a lot of time working on one ! 158: compiler that turned out to be a dead end. I had to rewrite it completely. ! 159: Another reason is that I spent so much time on GNU EMACS. I originally ! 160: thought I wouldn't have to do that at all. ! 161: ! 162: BYTE: Tell us about your distribution scheme. ! 163: ! 164: Stallman: I don't put software or manuals in the public domain, and the ! 165: reason is that I want to make sure that all the users get the freedom to ! 166: share. I don't want anyone making an improved version of a program I wrote ! 167: and distributing it as proprietary. I don't want that to ever be able to ! 168: happen. I want to encourage the free improvements to these programs, and ! 169: the best way to do that is to take away any temptation for a person to make ! 170: improvements nonfree. Yes, a few of them will refrain from making ! 171: improvements, but a lot of others will make the same improvements and ! 172: they'll make them free. ! 173: ! 174: BYTE: And how do you go about guaranteeing that? ! 175: ! 176: Stallman: I do this by copyrighting the programs and putting on a notice ! 177: giving people explicit permission to copy the programs and change them but ! 178: only on the condition that they distribute under the same terms that I ! 179: used, if at all. You don't have to distribute the changes you make to any ! 180: of my programs--you can just do it for yourself, and you don't have to give ! 181: it to anyone or tell anyone. But if you do give it to someone else, you ! 182: have to do it under the same terms that I use. ! 183: ! 184: BYTE: Do you obtain any rights over the executable code derived from the C ! 185: compiler? ! 186: ! 187: Stallman: The copyright law doesn't give me copyright on output from the ! 188: compiler, so it doesn't give me a way to say anything about that, and in ! 189: fact I don't try to. I don't sympathize with people developing proprietary ! 190: products with any compiler, but it doesn't seem especially useful to try to ! 191: stop them from developing them with this compiler, so I am not going to. ! 192: ! 193: BYTE: Do your restrictions apply if people take pieces of your code to ! 194: produce other things as well? ! 195: ! 196: Stallman: Yes, if they incorporate with changes any sizable piece. If it ! 197: were two lines of code, that's nothing; copyright doesn't apply to that. ! 198: Essentially, I have chosen these conditions so that first there is a ! 199: copyright, which is what all the software hoarders use to stop everybody ! 200: from doing anything, and then I add a notice giving up part of those ! 201: rights. So the conditions talk only about the things that copyright applies ! 202: to. I don't believe that the reason you should obey these conditions is ! 203: because of the law. The reason you should obey is because an upright person ! 204: when he distributes software encourages other people to share it further. ! 205: ! 206: BYTE: In a sense you are enticing people into this mode of thinking by ! 207: providing all of these interesting tools that they can use but only if they ! 208: buy into your philosophy. ! 209: ! 210: Stallman: Yes. You could also see it as using the legal system that ! 211: software hoarders have set up against them. I'm using it to protect the ! 212: public from them. ! 213: ! 214: BYTE: Given that manufacturers haven't wanted to fund the project, who do ! 215: you think will use the GNU system when it is done? ! 216: ! 217: Stallman: I have no idea, but it is not an important question. My purpose ! 218: is to make it possible for people to reject the chains that come with ! 219: proprietary software. I know that there are people who want to do that. ! 220: Now, there may be others who don't care, but they are not my concern. I ! 221: feel a bit sad for them and for the people that they influence. Right now a ! 222: person who perceives the unpleasantness of the terms of proprietary ! 223: software feels that he is stuck and has no alternative except not to use a ! 224: computer. Well, I am going to give him a comfortable alternative. ! 225: Other people may use the GNU system simply because it is technically ! 226: superior. For example, my C compiler is producing about as good a code as I ! 227: have seen from any C compiler. And GNU EMACS is generally regarded as being ! 228: far superior to the commercial competition. And GNU EMACS was not funded by ! 229: anyone either, but everyone is using it. I therefore think that many people ! 230: will use the rest of the GNU system because of its technical advantages. ! 231: But I would be doing a GNU system even if I didn't know how to make it ! 232: technically better because I want it to be socially better. The GNU project ! 233: is really a social project. It uses technical means to make a change in ! 234: society. ! 235: ! 236: BYTE: Then it is fairly important to you that people adopt GNU. It is not ! 237: just an academic exercise to produce this software to give it away to ! 238: people. You hope it will change the way the software industry operates. ! 239: ! 240: Stallman: Yes. Some people say no one will ever use it because it doesn't ! 241: have some attractive corporate logo on it, and other people say that they ! 242: think it is tremendously important and everyone's going to want to use it. ! 243: I have no way of knowing what is really going to happen. I don't know any ! 244: other way to try to change the ugliness of the field that I find myself in, ! 245: so this is what I have to do. ! 246: ! 247: BYTE: Can you address the implications? You obviously feel that this is an ! 248: important political and social statement. ! 249: ! 250: Stallman: It is a change. I'm trying to change the way people approach ! 251: knowledge and information in general. I think that to try to own knowledge, ! 252: to try to control whether people are allowed to use it, or to try to stop ! 253: other people from sharing it, is sabotage. It is an activity that benefits ! 254: the person that does it at the cost of impoverishing all of society. One ! 255: person gains one dollar by destroying two dollars' worth of wealth. I think ! 256: a person with a conscience wouldn't do that sort of thing except perhaps if ! 257: he would otherwise die. And of course the people who do this are fairly ! 258: rich; I can only conclude that they are unscrupulous. I would like to see ! 259: people get rewards for writing free software and for encouraging other ! 260: people to use it. I don't want to see people get rewards for writing ! 261: proprietary software because that is not really a contribution to society. ! 262: The principle of capitalism is the idea that people manage to make money by ! 263: producing things and thereby are encouraged to do what is useful, ! 264: automatically, so to speak. But that doesn't work when it comes to owning ! 265: knowledge. They are encouraged to do not really what's useful, and what ! 266: really is useful is not encouraged. I think it is important to say that ! 267: information is different from material objects like cars and loaves of ! 268: bread because people can copy it and share it on their own and, if nobody ! 269: attempts to stop them, they can change it and make it better for ! 270: themselves. That is a useful thing for people to do. This isn't true of ! 271: loaves of bread. If you have one loaf of bread and you want another, you ! 272: can't just put your loaf of bread into a bread copier. you can't make ! 273: another one except by going through all the steps that were used to make ! 274: the first one. It therefore is irrelevant whether people are permitted to ! 275: copy it--it's impossible. ! 276: Books were printed only on printing presses until recently. It was ! 277: possible to make a copy yourself by hand, but it wasn't practical because ! 278: it took so much more work than using a printing press. And it produced ! 279: something so much less attractive that, for all intents and purposes, you ! 280: could act as if it were impossible to make books except by mass producing ! 281: them. And therefore copyright didn't really take any freedom away from the ! 282: reading public. There wasn't anything that a book purchaser could do that ! 283: was forbidden by copyright. ! 284: But this isn't true for computer programs. It's also not true for tape ! 285: cassettes. It's partly false now for books, but it is still true that for ! 286: most books it is more expensive and certainly a lot more work to Xerox them ! 287: than to buy a copy, and the result is still less attractive. Right now we ! 288: are in a period where the situation that made copyright harmless and ! 289: acceptable is changing to a situation where copyright will become ! 290: destructive and intolerable. So the people who are slandered as "pirates" ! 291: are in fact the people who are trying to do something useful that they have ! 292: been forbidden to do. The copyright laws are entirely designed to help ! 293: people take complete control over the use of some information for their own ! 294: good. But they aren't designed to help people who want to make sure that ! 295: the information is accessible to the public and stop others from depriving ! 296: the public. I think that the law should recognize a class of works that are ! 297: owned by the public, which is different from public domain in the same ! 298: sense that a public park is different from something found in a garbage ! 299: can. It's not there for anybody to take away, it's there for everyone to ! 300: use but for no one to impede. Anybody in the public who finds himself being ! 301: deprived of the derivative work of something owned by the public should be ! 302: able to sue about it. ! 303: ! 304: BYTE: But aren't pirates interested in getting copies of programs because ! 305: they want to use those programs, not because they want to use that ! 306: knowledge to produce something better? ! 307: ! 308: Stallman: I don't see that that's the important distinction. More people ! 309: using a program means that the program contributes more to society. You ! 310: have a loaf of bread that could be eaten either once or a million times. ! 311: ! 312: BYTE: Some users buy commercial software to obtain support. How does your ! 313: distribution scheme provide support? ! 314: ! 315: Stallman: I suspect that those users are misled and are not thinking ! 316: clearly. It is certainly useful to have support, but when they start ! 317: thinking about how that has something to do with selling software or with ! 318: the software being proprietary, at that point they are confusing ! 319: themselves. There is no guarantee that proprietary software will receive ! 320: good support. Simply because sellers say that they provide support, that ! 321: doesn't mean it will be any good. And they may go out of business. In fact, ! 322: people think that GNU EMACS has better support than commercial EMACSes. One ! 323: of the reasons is that I'm probably a better hacker than the people who ! 324: wrote the other EMACSes, but the other reason is that everyone has sources ! 325: and there are so many people interested in figuring out how to do things ! 326: with it that you don't have to get your support from me. Even just the free ! 327: support that consists of my fixing bugs people report to me and ! 328: incorporating that in the next release has given people a good level of ! 329: support. You can always hire somebody to solve a problem for you, and when ! 330: the software is free you have a competitive market for the support. You can ! 331: hire anybody. I distribute a service list with EMACS, a list of people's ! 332: names and phone numbers and what they charge to provide support. ! 333: ! 334: BYTE: Do you collect their bug fixes? ! 335: ! 336: Stallman: Well, they send them to me. I asked all the people who wanted to ! 337: be listed to promise that they would never ask any of their customers to ! 338: keep secret whatever they were told or any changes they were given to the ! 339: GNU software as part of that support. ! 340: ! 341: BYTE: So you can't have people competing to provide support based on their ! 342: knowing the solution to some problem that somebody else doesn't know. ! 343: ! 344: Stallman: No. They can compete based on their being clever and more likely ! 345: to find the solution to your problem, or their already understanding more ! 346: of the common problems, or knowing better how to explain to you what you ! 347: should do. These are all ways they can compete. They can try to do better, ! 348: but they cannot actively impede their competitors. ! 349: ! 350: BYTE: I suppose it's like buying a car. You're not forced to go back to the ! 351: original manufacturer for support or continued maintenance. ! 352: ! 353: Stallman: Or buying a house--what would it be like if the only person who ! 354: could ever fix problems with your house was the contractor who built it ! 355: originally? That is the kind of imposition that's involved in proprietary ! 356: software. People tell me about a problem that happens in UNIX. Because ! 357: manufacturers sell improved versions of UNIX, they tend to collect fixes ! 358: and not give them out except in binaries. The result is that the bugs don't ! 359: really get fixed. ! 360: ! 361: BYTE: They're all duplicating effort trying to solve bugs independently. ! 362: ! 363: Stallman: Yes. Here is another point that helps put the problem of ! 364: proprietary information in a social perspective. Think about the liability ! 365: insurance crisis. In order to get any compensation from society, an injured ! 366: person has to hire a lawyer and split the money with that lawyer. This is a ! 367: stupid and inefficient way of helping out people who are victims of ! 368: accidents. And consider all the time that people put into hustling to take ! 369: business away from their competition. Think of the pens that are packaged ! 370: in large cardboard packages that cost more than the pen--just to make sure ! 371: that the pen isn't stolen. Wouldn't it be better if we just put free pens ! 372: on every street corner? And think of all the toll booths that impede the ! 373: flow of traffic. It's a gigantic social phenomenon. People find ways of ! 374: getting money by impeding society. Once they can impede society, they can ! 375: be paid to leave people alone. The waste inherent in owning information ! 376: will become more and more important and will ultimately make the difference ! 377: between the utopia in which nobody really has to work for a living because ! 378: it's all done by robots and a world just like ours where everyone spends ! 379: much time replicating what the next fellow is doing. ! 380: ! 381: BYTE: Like typing in copyright notices on the software. ! 382: ! 383: Stallman: More like policing everyone to make sure that they don't have ! 384: forbidden copies of anything and duplicating all the work people have ! 385: already done because it is proprietary. ! 386: ! 387: BYTE: A cynic might wonder how you earn your living. ! 388: ! 389: Stallman: From consulting. When I do consulting, I always reserve the right ! 390: to give away what I wrote for the consulting job. Also, I could be making ! 391: my living by mailing copies of the free software that I wrote and some that ! 392: other people wrote. Lots of people send in $150 for GNU EMACS, but now this ! 393: money goes to the Free Software Foundation that I started. The foundation ! 394: doesn't pay me a salary because it would be a conflict of interest. ! 395: Instead, it hires other people to work on GNU. As long as I can go on ! 396: making a living by consulting I think that's the best way. ! 397: ! 398: BYTE: What is currently included in the official GNU distribution tape? ! 399: ! 400: Stallman: Right now the tape contains GNU EMACS (one version fits all ! 401: computers); Bison, a program that replaces YACC; MIT Scheme, which is ! 402: Professor Sussman's super-simplified dialect of LISP; and Hack, a ! 403: dungeon-exploring game similar to Rogue. ! 404: ! 405: BYTE: Does the printed manual come with the tape as well? ! 406: ! 407: Stallman: No. Printed manuals cost $15 each or copy them yourself. Copy ! 408: this interview and share it, too. ! 409: ! 410: BYTE: How can you get a copy of that? ! 411: ! 412: Stallman: Write to the Free Software Foundation, 675 Massachusetts Ave., ! 413: Cambridge, MA 02139. ! 414: ! 415: BYTE: What are you going to do when you are done with the GNU system? ! 416: ! 417: Stallman: I'm not sure. Sometimes I think that what I'll go on to do is the ! 418: same thing in other areas of software. ! 419: ! 420: BYTE: So this is just the first of a whole series of assaults on the ! 421: software industry? ! 422: ! 423: Stallman: I hope so. But perhaps what I'll do is just live a life of ease ! 424: working a little bit of the time just to live. I don't have to live ! 425: expensively. The rest of the time I can find interesting people to hang ! 426: around with or learn to do things that I don't know how to do. ! 427: ! 428: Editorial Note: BYTE holds the right to provide this interview on BIX but ! 429: will not interfere with its distribution. ! 430: ! 431: Richard Stallman, 545 Technology Square, Room 703, Cambridge, MA 02139. ! 432: Copyright (C) 1986 Richard Stallman. Permission is granted to make and ! 433: distribute copies of this article as long as the copyright and this notice ! 434: appear on all copies.
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