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GNU'S NOT UNIX
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Conducted by David Betz and Jon Edwards
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Richard Stallman discusses his public-domain
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UNIX-compatible software system
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with BYTE editors
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(July 1986)
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Copyright (C) 1986 Richard Stallman. Permission is granted to make and
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distribute copies of this article as long as the copyright and this notice
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appear on all copies.
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Richard Stallman has undertaken probably the most ambitious free software
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development project to date, the GNU system. In his GNU Manifesto,
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published in the March 1985 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal, Stallman described
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GNU as a "complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so
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that I can give it away free to everyone who can use it... Once GNU is
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written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just
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like air." (GNU is an acronym for GNU's Not UNIX; the "G" is pronounced.)
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Stallman is widely known as the author of EMACS, a powerful text editor
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that he developed at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. It is no
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coincidence that the first piece of software produced as part of the GNU
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project was a new implementation of EMACS. GNU EMACS has already achieved a
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reputation as one of the best implementations of EMACS currently available
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at any price.
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BYTE: We read your GNU Manifesto in the March 1985 issue of Dr. Dobb's.
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What has happened since? Was that really the beginning, and how have you
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progressed since then?
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Stallman: The publication in Dr. Dobb's wasn't the beginning of the
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project. I wrote the GNU Manifesto when I was getting ready to start the
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project, as a proposal to ask computer manufacturers for funding. They
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didn't want to get involved, and I decided that rather than spend my time
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trying to pursue funds, I ought to spend it writing code. The manifesto was
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published about a year and a half after I had written it, when I had barely
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begun distributing the GNU EMACS. Since that time, in addition to making
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GNU EMACS more complete and making it run on many more computers, I have
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nearly finished the optimizing C compiler and all the other software that
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is needed for running C programs. This includes a source-level debugger
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that has many features that the other source-level debuggers on UNIX don't
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have. For example, it has convenience variables within the debugger so you
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can save values, and it also has a history of all the values that you have
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printed out, making it tremendously easier to chase around list structures.
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BYTE: You have finished an editor that is now widely distributed and you
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are about to finish the compiler.
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Stallman: I expect that it will be finished this October.
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BYTE: What about the kernel?
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Stallman: I'm currently planning to start with the kernel that was written
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at MIT and was released to the public recently with the idea that I would
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use it. This kernel is called TRIX; it's based on remote procedure call. I
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still need to add compatibility for a lot of the features of UNIX which it
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doesn't have currently. I haven't started to work on that yet. I'm
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finishing the compiler before I go to work on the kernel. I am also going
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to have to rewrite the file system. I intend to make it failsafe just by
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having it write blocks in the proper order so that the disk structure is
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always consistent. Then I want to add version numbers. I have a complicated
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scheme to reconcile version numbers with the way people usually use UNIX.
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You have to be able to specify filenames without version numbers, but you
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also have to be able to specify them with explicit version numbers, and
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these both need to work with ordinary UNIX programs that have not been
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modified in any way to deal with the existence of this feature. I think I
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have a scheme for doing this, and only trying it will show me whether it
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really does the job.
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BYTE: Do you have a brief description you can give us as to how GNU as a
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system will be superior to other systems? We know that one of your goals is
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to produce something that is compatible with UNIX. But at least in the area
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of file systems you have already said that you are going to go beyond UNIX
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and produce something that is better.
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Stallman: The C compiler will produce better code and run faster. The
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debugger is better. With each piece I may or may not find a way to improve
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it. But there is no one answer to this question. To some extent I am
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getting the benefit of reimplementation, which makes many systems much
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better. To some extent it's because I have been in the field a long time
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and worked on many other systems. I therefore have many ideas to bring to
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bear. One way in which it will be better is that practically everything in
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the system will work on files of any size, on lines of any size, with any
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characters appearing in them. The UNIX system is very bad in that regard.
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It's not anything new as a principle of software engineering that you
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shouldn't have arbitrary limits. But it just was the standard practice in
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writing UNIX to put those in all the time, possibly just because they were
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writing it for a very small computer. The only limit in the GNU system is
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when your program runs out of memory because it tried to work on too much
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data and there is no place to keep it all.
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BYTE: And that isn't likely to be hit if you've got virtual memory. You may
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just take forever to come up with the solution.
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Stallman: Actually these limits tend to hit in a time long before you take
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forever to come up with the solution.
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BYTE: Can you say something about what types of machines and environments
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GNU EMACS in particular has been made to run under? It's now running on
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VAXes; has it migrated in any form to personal computers?
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Stallman: I'm not sure what you mean by personal computers. For example, is
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a Sun a personal computer? GNU EMACS requires at least a megabyte of
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available memory and preferably more. It is normally used on machines that
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have virtual memory. Except for various technical problems in a few C
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compilers, almost any machine with virtual memory and running a fairly
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recent version of UNIX will run GNU EMACS, and most of them currently do.
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BYTE: Has anyone tried to port it to Ataris or Macintoshes?
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Stallman: The Atari 1040ST still doesn't have quite enough memory. The next
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Atari machine, I expect, will run it. I also think that future Ataris will
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have some forms of memory mapping. Of course, I am not designing the
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software to run on the kinds of computers that are prevalent today. I knew
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when I started this project it was going to take a few years. I therefore
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decided that I didn't want to make a worse system by taking on the
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additional challenge of making it run in the currently constrained
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environment. So instead I decided I'm going to write it in the way that
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seems the most natural and best. I am confident that in a couple of years
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machines of sufficient size will be prevalent. In fact, increases in memory
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size are happening so fast it surprises me how slow most of the people are
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to put in virtual memory; I think it is totally essential.
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BYTE: I think people don't really view it as being necessary for
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single-user machines.
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Stallman: They don't understand that single user doesn't mean single
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program. Certainly for any UNIX-like system it's important to be able to
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run lots of different processes at the same time even if there is only one
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of you. You could run GNU EMACS on a nonvirtual-memory machine with enough
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memory, but you couldn't run the rest of the GNU system very well or a UNIX
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system very well.
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BYTE: How much of LISP is present in GNU EMACS? It occurred to me that it
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may be useful to use that as a tool for learning LISP.
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Stallman: You can certainly do that. GNU EMACS contains a complete,
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although not very powerful, LISP system. It's powerful enough for writing
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editor commands. It's not comparable with, say, a Common LISP System,
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something you could really use for system programming, but it has all the
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things that LISP needs to have.
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BYTE: Do you have any predictions about when you would be likely to
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distribute a workable environment in which, if we put it on our machines or
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workstations, we could actually get reasonable work done without using
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anything other than code that you distribute?
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Stallman: It's really hard to say. That could happen in a year, but of
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course it could take longer. It could also conceivably take less, but
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that's not too likely anymore. I think I'll have the compiler finished in a
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month or two. The only other large piece of work I really have to do is in
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the kernel. I first predicted GNU would take something like two years, but
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it has now been two and a half years and I'm still not finished. Part of
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the reason for the delay is that I spent a lot of time working on one
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compiler that turned out to be a dead end. I had to rewrite it completely.
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Another reason is that I spent so much time on GNU EMACS. I originally
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thought I wouldn't have to do that at all.
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BYTE: Tell us about your distribution scheme.
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Stallman: I don't put software or manuals in the public domain, and the
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reason is that I want to make sure that all the users get the freedom to
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share. I don't want anyone making an improved version of a program I wrote
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and distributing it as proprietary. I don't want that to ever be able to
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happen. I want to encourage the free improvements to these programs, and
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the best way to do that is to take away any temptation for a person to make
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improvements nonfree. Yes, a few of them will refrain from making
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improvements, but a lot of others will make the same improvements and
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they'll make them free.
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BYTE: And how do you go about guaranteeing that?
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Stallman: I do this by copyrighting the programs and putting on a notice
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giving people explicit permission to copy the programs and change them but
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only on the condition that they distribute under the same terms that I
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used, if at all. You don't have to distribute the changes you make to any
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of my programs--you can just do it for yourself, and you don't have to give
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it to anyone or tell anyone. But if you do give it to someone else, you
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have to do it under the same terms that I use.
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BYTE: Do you obtain any rights over the executable code derived from the C
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compiler?
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Stallman: The copyright law doesn't give me copyright on output from the
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compiler, so it doesn't give me a way to say anything about that, and in
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fact I don't try to. I don't sympathize with people developing proprietary
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products with any compiler, but it doesn't seem especially useful to try to
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stop them from developing them with this compiler, so I am not going to.
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BYTE: Do your restrictions apply if people take pieces of your code to
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produce other things as well?
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Stallman: Yes, if they incorporate with changes any sizable piece. If it
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were two lines of code, that's nothing; copyright doesn't apply to that.
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Essentially, I have chosen these conditions so that first there is a
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copyright, which is what all the software hoarders use to stop everybody
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from doing anything, and then I add a notice giving up part of those
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rights. So the conditions talk only about the things that copyright applies
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to. I don't believe that the reason you should obey these conditions is
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because of the law. The reason you should obey is because an upright person
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when he distributes software encourages other people to share it further.
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BYTE: In a sense you are enticing people into this mode of thinking by
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providing all of these interesting tools that they can use but only if they
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buy into your philosophy.
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Stallman: Yes. You could also see it as using the legal system that
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software hoarders have set up against them. I'm using it to protect the
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public from them.
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BYTE: Given that manufacturers haven't wanted to fund the project, who do
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you think will use the GNU system when it is done?
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Stallman: I have no idea, but it is not an important question. My purpose
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is to make it possible for people to reject the chains that come with
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proprietary software. I know that there are people who want to do that.
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Now, there may be others who don't care, but they are not my concern. I
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feel a bit sad for them and for the people that they influence. Right now a
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person who perceives the unpleasantness of the terms of proprietary
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software feels that he is stuck and has no alternative except not to use a
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computer. Well, I am going to give him a comfortable alternative.
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Other people may use the GNU system simply because it is technically
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superior. For example, my C compiler is producing about as good a code as I
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have seen from any C compiler. And GNU EMACS is generally regarded as being
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far superior to the commercial competition. And GNU EMACS was not funded by
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anyone either, but everyone is using it. I therefore think that many people
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will use the rest of the GNU system because of its technical advantages.
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But I would be doing a GNU system even if I didn't know how to make it
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technically better because I want it to be socially better. The GNU project
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is really a social project. It uses technical means to make a change in
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society.
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BYTE: Then it is fairly important to you that people adopt GNU. It is not
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just an academic exercise to produce this software to give it away to
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people. You hope it will change the way the software industry operates.
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Stallman: Yes. Some people say no one will ever use it because it doesn't
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have some attractive corporate logo on it, and other people say that they
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think it is tremendously important and everyone's going to want to use it.
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I have no way of knowing what is really going to happen. I don't know any
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other way to try to change the ugliness of the field that I find myself in,
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so this is what I have to do.
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BYTE: Can you address the implications? You obviously feel that this is an
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important political and social statement.
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Stallman: It is a change. I'm trying to change the way people approach
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knowledge and information in general. I think that to try to own knowledge,
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to try to control whether people are allowed to use it, or to try to stop
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other people from sharing it, is sabotage. It is an activity that benefits
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the person that does it at the cost of impoverishing all of society. One
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person gains one dollar by destroying two dollars' worth of wealth. I think
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a person with a conscience wouldn't do that sort of thing except perhaps if
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he would otherwise die. And of course the people who do this are fairly
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rich; I can only conclude that they are unscrupulous. I would like to see
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people get rewards for writing free software and for encouraging other
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people to use it. I don't want to see people get rewards for writing
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proprietary software because that is not really a contribution to society.
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The principle of capitalism is the idea that people manage to make money by
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producing things and thereby are encouraged to do what is useful,
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automatically, so to speak. But that doesn't work when it comes to owning
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knowledge. They are encouraged to do not really what's useful, and what
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really is useful is not encouraged. I think it is important to say that
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information is different from material objects like cars and loaves of
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bread because people can copy it and share it on their own and, if nobody
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attempts to stop them, they can change it and make it better for
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themselves. That is a useful thing for people to do. This isn't true of
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loaves of bread. If you have one loaf of bread and you want another, you
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can't just put your loaf of bread into a bread copier. you can't make
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another one except by going through all the steps that were used to make
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the first one. It therefore is irrelevant whether people are permitted to
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copy it--it's impossible.
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Books were printed only on printing presses until recently. It was
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possible to make a copy yourself by hand, but it wasn't practical because
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it took so much more work than using a printing press. And it produced
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something so much less attractive that, for all intents and purposes, you
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could act as if it were impossible to make books except by mass producing
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them. And therefore copyright didn't really take any freedom away from the
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reading public. There wasn't anything that a book purchaser could do that
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was forbidden by copyright.
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But this isn't true for computer programs. It's also not true for tape
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cassettes. It's partly false now for books, but it is still true that for
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most books it is more expensive and certainly a lot more work to Xerox them
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than to buy a copy, and the result is still less attractive. Right now we
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are in a period where the situation that made copyright harmless and
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acceptable is changing to a situation where copyright will become
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destructive and intolerable. So the people who are slandered as "pirates"
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are in fact the people who are trying to do something useful that they have
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been forbidden to do. The copyright laws are entirely designed to help
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people take complete control over the use of some information for their own
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good. But they aren't designed to help people who want to make sure that
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the information is accessible to the public and stop others from depriving
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the public. I think that the law should recognize a class of works that are
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owned by the public, which is different from public domain in the same
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sense that a public park is different from something found in a garbage
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can. It's not there for anybody to take away, it's there for everyone to
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use but for no one to impede. Anybody in the public who finds himself being
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deprived of the derivative work of something owned by the public should be
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able to sue about it.
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BYTE: But aren't pirates interested in getting copies of programs because
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they want to use those programs, not because they want to use that
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knowledge to produce something better?
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Stallman: I don't see that that's the important distinction. More people
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using a program means that the program contributes more to society. You
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have a loaf of bread that could be eaten either once or a million times.
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BYTE: Some users buy commercial software to obtain support. How does your
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distribution scheme provide support?
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Stallman: I suspect that those users are misled and are not thinking
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clearly. It is certainly useful to have support, but when they start
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thinking about how that has something to do with selling software or with
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the software being proprietary, at that point they are confusing
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themselves. There is no guarantee that proprietary software will receive
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good support. Simply because sellers say that they provide support, that
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doesn't mean it will be any good. And they may go out of business. In fact,
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people think that GNU EMACS has better support than commercial EMACSes. One
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of the reasons is that I'm probably a better hacker than the people who
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wrote the other EMACSes, but the other reason is that everyone has sources
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and there are so many people interested in figuring out how to do things
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with it that you don't have to get your support from me. Even just the free
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support that consists of my fixing bugs people report to me and
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incorporating that in the next release has given people a good level of
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support. You can always hire somebody to solve a problem for you, and when
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the software is free you have a competitive market for the support. You can
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hire anybody. I distribute a service list with EMACS, a list of people's
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names and phone numbers and what they charge to provide support.
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BYTE: Do you collect their bug fixes?
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Stallman: Well, they send them to me. I asked all the people who wanted to
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be listed to promise that they would never ask any of their customers to
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keep secret whatever they were told or any changes they were given to the
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GNU software as part of that support.
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BYTE: So you can't have people competing to provide support based on their
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knowing the solution to some problem that somebody else doesn't know.
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Stallman: No. They can compete based on their being clever and more likely
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to find the solution to your problem, or their already understanding more
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of the common problems, or knowing better how to explain to you what you
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should do. These are all ways they can compete. They can try to do better,
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but they cannot actively impede their competitors.
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BYTE: I suppose it's like buying a car. You're not forced to go back to the
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original manufacturer for support or continued maintenance.
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Stallman: Or buying a house--what would it be like if the only person who
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could ever fix problems with your house was the contractor who built it
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originally? That is the kind of imposition that's involved in proprietary
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software. People tell me about a problem that happens in UNIX. Because
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manufacturers sell improved versions of UNIX, they tend to collect fixes
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and not give them out except in binaries. The result is that the bugs don't
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really get fixed.
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BYTE: They're all duplicating effort trying to solve bugs independently.
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Stallman: Yes. Here is another point that helps put the problem of
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proprietary information in a social perspective. Think about the liability
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insurance crisis. In order to get any compensation from society, an injured
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person has to hire a lawyer and split the money with that lawyer. This is a
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stupid and inefficient way of helping out people who are victims of
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accidents. And consider all the time that people put into hustling to take
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business away from their competition. Think of the pens that are packaged
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in large cardboard packages that cost more than the pen--just to make sure
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that the pen isn't stolen. Wouldn't it be better if we just put free pens
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on every street corner? And think of all the toll booths that impede the
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flow of traffic. It's a gigantic social phenomenon. People find ways of
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getting money by impeding society. Once they can impede society, they can
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be paid to leave people alone. The waste inherent in owning information
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will become more and more important and will ultimately make the difference
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between the utopia in which nobody really has to work for a living because
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it's all done by robots and a world just like ours where everyone spends
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much time replicating what the next fellow is doing.
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BYTE: Like typing in copyright notices on the software.
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Stallman: More like policing everyone to make sure that they don't have
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forbidden copies of anything and duplicating all the work people have
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already done because it is proprietary.
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BYTE: A cynic might wonder how you earn your living.
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Stallman: From consulting. When I do consulting, I always reserve the right
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to give away what I wrote for the consulting job. Also, I could be making
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my living by mailing copies of the free software that I wrote and some that
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other people wrote. Lots of people send in $150 for GNU EMACS, but now this
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money goes to the Free Software Foundation that I started. The foundation
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doesn't pay me a salary because it would be a conflict of interest.
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Instead, it hires other people to work on GNU. As long as I can go on
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making a living by consulting I think that's the best way.
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BYTE: What is currently included in the official GNU distribution tape?
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Stallman: Right now the tape contains GNU EMACS (one version fits all
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computers); Bison, a program that replaces YACC; MIT Scheme, which is
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Professor Sussman's super-simplified dialect of LISP; and Hack, a
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dungeon-exploring game similar to Rogue.
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BYTE: Does the printed manual come with the tape as well?
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Stallman: No. Printed manuals cost $15 each or copy them yourself. Copy
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this interview and share it, too.
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BYTE: How can you get a copy of that?
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Stallman: Write to the Free Software Foundation, 675 Massachusetts Ave.,
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Cambridge, MA 02139.
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[In June 1995, this address changed to:
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Free Software Foundation
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59 Temple Place - Suite 330
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Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
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Voice: +1-617-542-5942
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Fax: +1-617-542-2652
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-gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu
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]
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BYTE: What are you going to do when you are done with the GNU system?
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Stallman: I'm not sure. Sometimes I think that what I'll go on to do is the
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same thing in other areas of software.
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BYTE: So this is just the first of a whole series of assaults on the
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software industry?
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Stallman: I hope so. But perhaps what I'll do is just live a life of ease
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working a little bit of the time just to live. I don't have to live
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expensively. The rest of the time I can find interesting people to hang
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around with or learn to do things that I don't know how to do.
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Editorial Note: BYTE holds the right to provide this interview on BIX but
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will not interfere with its distribution.
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Richard Stallman, 545 Technology Square, Room 703, Cambridge, MA 02139.
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Copyright (C) 1986 Richard Stallman. Permission is granted to make and
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distribute copies of this article as long as the copyright and this notice
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appear on all copies.
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