New Unix Implementation Turns 30

Thirty years ago, rms wrote: "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." And thus began the revolution. Thirty years after posting the initial announcement, it's hard to find someone who hasn't interacted with Free Software at some point, even if they didn't realize it. To celebrate, the FSF is holding an anniversary celebration and hackathon this weekend at MIT.

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

Today

[girlintraining]

"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."

If someone said that today, he'd be promptly sued by SCO, dragged into dark cavernous courtrooms filled with patent trolls, accused by the government of being a terrorist, and laughed at by the mainstream community of UNIX-like OS users, such as the ones reading this post; Absent Linux, we'd all be warring over which was better -- Macintosh or Windows. Both have UNIX buried in their guts.

My point is that RMS' achievement, organizing people into a cohesive political movement loosely termed 'open source', probably couldn't happen today. It is therefore particularly important that he did so thirty years ago, before the global international business and government communities were aware of the potential impact of his activities.

There are fewer and fewer like him every year -- old schoolers who grew up with the fervent belief that the internet, computers, all this digital technology, could empower, enlighten, and educate millions. And then set about proving just that. These days... the majority of people are content to watch Youtube videos of cats, and try not to see any potential beyond immediate gratification and entertainment. It's sad that the hacker ethic has become in such short supply, even within this community. Back then, nobody would think any less of you for going off on your own to reinvent the wheel... your peers thought, at worst, that it might be good practice for you. Today, it's a face full of rage and religious views if you even suggest things may not be as good as they could be.

Re:Megalomanic

[cold fjord]

"Ima gonna write a new unix". That's One Huge Task.

It was a much smaller task at the time.

It's worth remembering that Unix got its start as more or less as a fun project - there wasn't a plan to conquer the world.

Re:Raise a glass to you, RMS

[spike_gran]

He may not have accomplished everything he set out to do, but, he certainly accomplished a great deal.

And while RMS and GNU alone didn't succeed at creating a free software OS and development stack, they got the ball rolling, and it exists now.

Re:Today

[girlintraining]

RMS has nothing to do with "open source". Sad that to this day trolls and idiots keep intentionally attributing it to him, in order to misinform. Do everyone a favor and shut the fuck up.

He was the principle author of the GNU GPL [gnu.org], the first real open source license. The entire open source movement is based on licensing; That's how open source is defined -- by licensing terms. And RMS was the first to come up with a license that captured this essential quality and formalized it. Richard Stallman wants to use the term "free software" instead of "open source", but that doesn't make me a troll for using a different term for it than he does.

A pity so many Anonymous Cowards love replying to me with a casual "STFU" and claim I know nothing, it's off topic, etc., and people believe them. Further proof of the sad, sad state slashdot has descended into... that an informed and long-time contributor to the community gets mod-bombed while the trolls get up-modded.

Contrary to popular belief

[BitZtream]

Stallman did not invent open source, nor start 'the revolution'. It was there before him. It wasn't his idea. While he has contributed much to open source, he has also personally harmed it more than just about anyone I can think of. His religion may appear great at first glance, but it is, just like pretty much every religion, warped into his personal agenda and crusade against everyone who doesn't agree with him in entirety.

His behavior in public forums and disrespect for others around him is a good example of you should ignore him.

I suspect, the same sort of vigor will be unleashed against this comment. -5 disagree after all.

Re:Megalomanic

[aardvarkjoe]

Ask yourself, "What software projects does RMS devote his time too?". To my knowledge, not many if any. He is a great advocate and he has done many things for our community but he did not complete what he set out to do.

Although to my understanding that's true today, he was largely responsible for several important projects, including emacs and gcc. The GNU project never achieved all of its goals, but his software contributions are integral to the free Unix(-like) operating systems of today.

Re: Megalomanic

[SpaghettiPattern]

You think Linux would have come this soon without GNU? Do you think early versions of Linux could have done without GanU? Do you really think one guy will write a FULL os on his own? All programs, all docs, distro etc...
Any huge achievement is a term work. Some members will be better. Some will get more exposure. Some will be awarded more. But in the end a team or community does it together.
I take my hat off to rms and to all contributors. Without you guys I'd probably be still at the mercy of businesses with undisclosed agendas.

Re:Contrary to popular belief

[StormReaver]

His behavior in public forums and disrespect for others around him is a good example of [why] you should ignore him.

His consistent accuracy in predicting the consequences of disregarding Freedom is a great example of why you should listen to him.

Re: Megalomanic

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true people! There were no C compilers before gcc -- sure, the C language was created back in the earliest days of UNIX, but there was no compiler -- if you wanted your C code compiled, you had to mail it to Dennis Ritchie and, when he got around to it, he'd compile it by hand (with pencil, paper, and an opcodes list) then send you a tape with the resulting object code -- by the time Linus was ready to start his kernel, Ritchie was so swamped there'd be no way to get a project of that magnitude compiled! (Good thing Andrew Tanenbaum got in early having Ritchie compile the first version of ACK, so he had his own compiler for MINIX, huh?) There definitely wasn't any compiler, and particularly not a portable C compiler, being shipped with either AT&T or Berkeley UNIX.

TL;DR: shut up, you miserable mushbrain. RMS's worst enemy isn't the people who (whether out of ignorance, malice, or an honest disagreement of the relative importance of kernel and userland) refuse to acknowledge the presence of some GNU in GNU/Linux, but ignorant louts like you loudly giving him too much credit, which feeds the "arrogant jackass who demands credit for everything whether he did it or not" meme.

Writing kernels

[unixisc]

Writing a kernel ain't hard - Linus did it. Writing a microkernel ain't hard - Tannenbaum did it. The reason Hurd wasn't pulled off was that they kept changing the microkernels that they wanted to work w/ - L4, Viengoos and Coyotos - before reverting to Mach. Essentially, Hurd was one of the worst managed projects - if at all managed

In fact, since much of the work in HURD was about writing daemons that used the kernel services, they would have done well to have taken any of the available microkernels - Amoeba or Minix - and then built around those. At that time, those things were small enough that making microkernels would have been easier.

Re:Megalomanic

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside observer here. Zero Kelvin, you're an ass.

Re:Megalomanic

[lightBearer]

I believe the interesting part of that article [bell-labs.com] was this:

Space Travel, though it made a very attractive game, served mainly as an introduction to the clumsy technology of preparing programs for the PDP-7. Soon Thompson began implementing the paper file system (perhaps `chalk file system' would be more accurate) that had been designed earlier. A file system without a way to exercise it is a sterile proposition, so he proceeded to flesh it out with the other requirements for a working operating system, in particular the notion of processes. Then came a small set of user-level utilities: the means to copy, print, delete, and edit files, and of course a simple command interpreter (shell). Up to this time all the programs were written using GECOS and files were transferred to the PDP-7 on paper tape; but once an assembler was completed the system was able to support itself. Although it was not until well into 1970 that Brian Kernighan suggested the name `Unix,' in a somewhat treacherous pun on `Multics,' the operating system we know today was born.

...this came after descriptions of how the original authors tried to get permission from Bell Labs to construct this thing. Instead, they built it on discarded hardware. This origin was not exactly company sanctioned.

Re: Megalomanic

[SpaghettiPattern]

I agree that perhaps without the lawsuit BSD would have been further ahead. But you cannot deny the impact the GPL has had. GPL plays the license game in order to make game fairer. The BSD license has very little restrictions and would be the better option in a fairer, utopian world.

IMHO RMS has earned his place to come first in the list of contributors. He initiated the free (as in libre) software movement and continues to back it up. The easier route for a guy of his "caliber" would have been to go commercial and to cash in huge amounts of money in the last 30+ years. He refrained from that. How many others can say that?