zmacx07@doc.ic.ac.uk (Simon E Spero) (11/17/89)
The following text is taken from Page 31 The Guardian, Thursday November 16th 1989 without permission. The Guardian is a national newspaper of a liberal hue. The computer coverage is IMHO the best in a newspaper (The editor, Jack Schofield, is a great supporter of Unix, OSI, Ataris, Amigas and other good things). All spelling mistakes are my own. [Big picture of rms at an LPF rally] [14pt]Richard Stallman has taken on some of the most powerful computer companies in America in his crusade for freedom of programming information. Benjamin Wooley reports [Headline: Love is for wimps and hackers] 'PEOPLE WILL program for love' proclaimed Richard Stallman. Not, note, for a generous renumeration package, not for prestige (which never seemed likely in any case), not even for an enternity of mind-mouldering servitude, but for love. Stallman made this assertion just two years ago, and has been sticking to it ever since as part of his campaign for "Programming Freedom". This is a man who seems seriously out of step with the times. Love is for wimps. Computing is big business now. It's about expensive consultancy, not free thinking. Nevertheless, he is to be taken seriously. Stallman embodies the true spirit of hacking - not the fraud, embezzelment, corruption and other crimesthat happen to be commited using a computer and are therefore attributed to hackers, but the fight for the freedom of commercial information, the challenge to the computer and media industry's assumption of a proprietary right to own information and exploit it in anyway it pleases. Stallman works- for love, presumably - at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's pioneering Artificial Intelligence lab, where he developed the influential Emacs (Editing Macros) word processing system, which is available on a wide range of computers. His office is a small, dark cell in one of the MIT campus towers. It seems to be his complete universe - indeed, little short of a Big Bang could have generated such as chaotic arrangement of clothing, bedding, books and papers. The only signs of order are a program listing displayed on a large VDU and a young, neat amanuesis sat next to him, keying in his bubbling stream of consciousness into the the computer. Reluctantly enticed into the lab's harsh illumination, Stallman looks like a pale-skinned, soft-bodied dweller of cave-pools, unadapted to the worlds glare and noise. Sitting on a sofa in a reception area with white,. melamine walls smeared in mathematical graffiti, watching burned out researchers wander to and fro like the undead, it is hard to believe that you had come to the right planet. Stallman, however, knows where he is comming from. He has taken on some of the most powerful Information Technology companies in America- Apple, Lotus, Ashton-Tate - in his crusade against the Enclosure of information. With a group of like-minded programmers, he has embarked on the development of a complete program suite, called GNU (GNU is Not Unix) designed to provide an alternative, non-proprietary software environment for computer users- a new programming world for those escaping the legal persecutions of the old. What he is fighting is nothing less that the spreading commercialisation of computers. "In the time that I've worked as a programmer I've watched the field change from one of co-operating and sharing, where people could re-use previous work in any useful way, to advance the state of the art, to one in which co-operation is largely forbidden by the owners of the software. Copyright, the main legal instrument for controlling information was originally intended to be used by authors to protect their creative effort. However, which the introduction of cheap copying technology- tape recorders, photo-copiers, personal computers, it has increasingly been adopted by publishers to protect their profits. "It is no longer possible to enforce any kind of intellectual property rights without a heavy hand", said Stallman This was, he things, exemplified by the recent cases brought by Apple, Lotus, and Ashton-Tate against companies that have products with a "look and feel" similar to theirs. At stake was whether or not a programs user interface, the means by which the user manipulates it can be copyrighted. if it can, argues Stallman, so can a typewriters User interface, forcing each typewriter manufacturer to develop their own arrangement of keys. And so can a car's, forcing each car company to use different arrangements to the steering wheel. In their defence, Apple and the others claim that they are merely seeking to protect their investment. This cuts no ice with Stallman " It's the user who makes the investment, by learning how the interface works", he says. Also, Apple was seeking to protect work that not only originated at Xerox and Stanford, but the desktop metaphor it used to achieve the Macintosh's much lauded Intuitive design. So shouldn't Apple by paying the office equipment manufacturers something for the investment they made in designing "their" user interface? The fact that companies are even attempting to press such claims shows how commercially important the control of information has become. Information owners have become dangerously possessive, Stallman says: "There's a tendency to destructive competition, where instead of trying to run faster yourself, you try to trip up everyone else". The result is a threat to the benefits that computers are supposed to confer: " The full fruits of information technology can be realised only when everyone has the freedom and ability to copy and change programs" Stallman's solution to this problem at least has the merit of simplicity. It is summed up in the title of his Manifesto: Why Software Should Be Free. He doesn't mean free in the sense of costing nothing, but in the sense of available, usable, unrestricted. The concept of ownership should be replaced by one of service: Programmers should be paid for adapting and developing software for all. In a country where the word "Liberal" is used to denote dangerous radicalism, such ideas would seem to stand very little chance of widespread acceptance. Nevertheless, he has gained some political recognition for the League of Programming Freedom he helped found. And the Free Software Foundation which manages the GNU project apparently thrives, having it's own monthly GNU's bulletin and support comes from a variety of programmers, even some computer companies. It has received, for example, a donation from NeXT, the firm set up by Steve Jobs after leaving the one he co-founded, Apple. EOT -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ zmacx07@doc.ic.ac.uk | sispero%cix@specialix.co.uk | ..!ukc!slxsys!cix!sispero ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Advisers advise, Prime Ministers decide" | Not the official view. "The GNU Manifesto refers to all Software, not just Editors" | (I'm the FSF)
barmar@leander.think.com (Barry Margolin) (11/19/89)
In article <48453@bbn.COM> cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes: >zmacx07@doc.ic.ac.uk (Simon E Spero) writes: >> Stallman ... >>... developed the influential Emacs (Editing Macros) word >>processing system, which is available on a wide range of computers. >Who is spreading this bit of misinformation around? Has rms said it enough >that HE believes it? Do other over-enthusiastic FSF'ers perpetuate it? Some >ethics and standards... taking credit for other peoples work without a MENTION >of them. What's wrong with the statement? When I was at MIT, we all considered RMS the creator of the original PDP-10 EMACS. While he didn't write all the macros himself, he is the one who implemented much of the underlying TECO support for interactive display-oriented editing ("^R mode"), and he did bring the macro packages together into the cohesive whole that is what we now know as EMACS. Prior to Stallman's efforts, there were a number of competing, less complete macro packages. Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
jym@APPLE.COM (11/21/89)
Yeesh. Why do I get the feeling that some people only subscribe
to this list to flame about rms? Chances are *very* high that
the information that rms developed Emacs was itself developed by
the _Guardian_ reporter.
Did anyone see the story in the _New_York_Times_ a few months ago?
The almighty infallible pinnacle of American newspaper journalism
reported that Gosmacs source was distributed only to a few
friends of James Gosling's. (Imagine tens of thousands of
people showing up at Gosling's wedding reception . . . "Yeah,
yeah, I'm a close personal friend of Jim's . . . see? Here's
the source code . . .")
So, ye who is so concerned about the reporting of Emacs truths,
did you bitch and moan about the _Times_' error then?
<_Jym_>bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) (11/21/89)
In article <ZMACX07.89Nov16192342@tsun2.doc.ic.ac.uk> zmacx07@doc.ic.ac.uk (Simon E Spero) writes:
Reluctantly enticed into the lab's harsh illumination, Stallman
looks like a pale-skinned, soft-bodied dweller of cave-pools,
unadapted to the worlds glare and noise.
Hardly the Emacs manual's cover picture of a noble knight riding to
the rescue on a charging GNU, eh? :-)rfg@ics.uci.edu (Ron Guilmette) (11/21/89)
In article <BOB.89Nov20142414@volitans.MorningStar.Com> bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) writes: >In article <ZMACX07.89Nov16192342@tsun2.doc.ic.ac.uk> zmacx07@doc.ic.ac.uk (Simon E Spero) writes: > Reluctantly enticed into the lab's harsh illumination, Stallman > looks like a pale-skinned, soft-bodied dweller of cave-pools, > unadapted to the worlds glare and noise. > >Hardly the Emacs manual's cover picture of a noble knight riding to >the rescue on a charging GNU, eh? :-) Well, perhaps he's really a nobel pale-skinned, soft-bodied, cave-pool dwelling knight, unadapted to the worlds of glare and noise but well accustomed to riding to the rescue on a charging GNU! I wouldn't know. I've never met the man. // rfg
jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck) (11/23/89)
In article <8911201813.AA21712@nlp9> gnu-misc-discuss@cis.ohio-state.edu writes: >Did anyone see the story in the _New_York_Times_ a few months ago? > The almighty infallible pinnacle of American newspaper journalism > reported that Gosmacs source was distributed only to a few > friends of James Gosling's. Basically, the NYT fell for propaganda put out by Gosling and Unipress. See, essentially everyone on the net had a copy of Gosling's Emacs (plus a lot of enhancements added by Chris Torek, among others), but Gosling wanted to sell his rights to Unipress, make lots of money, and have everyone pay Unipress for Emacs, even though he'd done nothing to safeguard his copyright up to that point. So the story came out that Gosling's Emacs was never publically distributed, which was of course not true. Just the same, this line was sold to a lot of people. A much better argument could be made that RMS was the main author of the original Emacs, though there were other contributors. -- -- Joe Buck, just visiting/consulting at Entropic -- write me at: jbuck@janus.berkeley.edu ...!{uunet,ucbvax}!janus.berkeley.edu!jbuck