Twenty years ago today, Richard Stallman had this to say

[alfredo]

Mods, this is a historical document. the content should be allowed to stay in its original form. If you read it, you will see that Mr Stallman would not object.

This is when the open source movement began. The spirit lives on.


Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-eddie.UUCP
From: RMS@[e-mail] (Richard Stallman)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.usoft
Subject: new UNIX implementation
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 27-Sep-83 13:35:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.771
Posted: Tue Sep 27 13:35:59 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Sep-83 07:38:11 EDT
Organization: MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 90


Free Unix!

Starting this Thanksgiving I am going to write a complete
Unix-compatible software system called GNU (for Gnu's Not Unix), and
give it away free to everyone who can use it. Contributions of time,
money, programs and equipment are greatly needed.

To begin with, GNU will be a kernel plus all the utilities needed to
write and run C programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker,
assembler, and a few other things. After this we will add a text
formatter, a YACC, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of
other things. We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that
normally comes with a Unix system, and anything else useful, including
on-line and hardcopy documentation.

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 filenames, file version numbers, a crashproof
file system, filename completion perhaps, terminal-independent
display support, and 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 have network software based on MIT's chaosnet protocol,
far superior to UUCP. We may also have something compatible
with UUCP.


Who Am I?

I am Richard Stallman, inventor of the original much-imitated EMACS
editor, now at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT. I have worked
extensively on compilers, editors, debuggers, command interpreters, the
Incompatible Timesharing System and the Lisp Machine operating system.
I pioneered terminal-independent display support in ITS. In addition I
have implemented one crashproof file system and two window systems for
Lisp machines.


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. I cannot in good
conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license
agreement.

So that I can continue to use computers without violating my principles,
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.


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 computer manufacturer has already offered to provide a machine. But
we could use more. One consequence you can expect if you donate
machines is that GNU will run on them at an early date. The machine had
better be able to operate in a residential area, and not require
sophisticated cooling or power.

Individual programmers can contribute by writing a compatible duplicate
of some Unix utility and giving it to me. 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. Most
interface specifications are fixed by Unix compatibility. If each
contribution works with the rest of Unix, it will probably work
with the rest of GNU.

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, but I'm looking for people for
whom knowing they are helping humanity is as important as 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.


For more information, contact me.
Arpanet mail:
[e-mail]

Usenet:
...!mit-eddie!RMS@OZ
...!mit-vax!RMS@OZ

US Snail:
Richard Stallman
166 Prospect St
Cambridge, MA 02139

[tsipple]

1. Ah, yes... "Bang" Addresses!

Many of you will be puzzled by some of that stuff in Richard's Usenet post. For example, what the heck is this?

...!mit-eddie!RMS@OZ
...!mit-vax!RMS@OZ

That's actually a mid-1980s form of e-mail address. (Richard was also lucky enough to have a newfangled at-sign address: [e-mail]. MIT was pretty cutting edge obviously.)

Back in the "old days," e-mail had to be routed manually, where you told your e-mail program exactly which systems to route through to get the e-mail to its destination. If one system was down somewhere in the chain, the e-mail wouldn't make it. If you were lucky, you got an e-mail back indicating the problem. Oh, and how did you route it manually? Well, Richard is giving his "end of the routing chain" e-mail address, above. Here was my address circa 1986:

...!seismo!harvard!husc5!sipples

(At least, I think that was it.) So, to send mail to Richard, I'd address the e-mail to this address:

harvard!seismo!mit-eddie!RMS@OZ

"Seismo" was a popular ("well known") system that knew how to reach just about every other major e-mail system.

However, there's a problem. My e-mail program in that era really didn't like mixing "bangs" (!) with at-signs. So I could do this:

harvard!seismo!mit-eddie!OZ%RMS

and that would probably have worked. (The percent sign is basically a reverse at-sign.) For a while there were also hybrid addresses, like this hypothetical example:

[e-mail]

So it was generally a major mish-mash at the time. Unlike today, where there are universal e-mail addresses and the computers handle all the routing for you automatically. Of course there was no Web.

OK, sorry for the nostalgia digression. :-)

[alfredo]

2. Oh no, that was very informative.

I didn't get involved in the internet until the early 90's. I saw no need for it. A desire to link up with army buddies changed my mind.

My computer was for my business.

[markses]

3. GNU Manifesto

Bravo!

The dark Rasputin of the Internet Age. Love that wacky RMS!

Of course, I think Stallman might freak if he saw it called "Open Source" - given his (and the Open Source folks, esp. Eric Raymond in "The Cathedral and the Bazaar") insistence on the distinctionb between Free Software and Open Source, yes? A serious philosophical and practical difference, seems to me.

Copyleft: All rights reversed...;-)

[alfredo]

4. Well, I am free, i can cll it anything I want.

Love YellowDog Linux, though now OSX running FINK has replaced much of what I used Linux for.

http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/
http://fink.sourceforge.net/index.php
http://metapkg.org/

[markses]

5. No one said you couldn't

Just noting what RMS's probable response would be, since he takes pains at every single talk he gives to distinguish the Free Software Movement from the Open Source Movement...