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

Megalomanic

[CurryCamel]

"Ima gonna write a new unix". That's One Huge Task. Weird thing is - he pulled it off. Hats off to RMS. And thanks.

Raise a glass to you, RMS

[dkleinsc]

I was actually planning on installing Debian tonight on a spare box, completely unaware of this anniversary. Now I pretty much have to do it.

Re:Where can I get this?

[girlintraining]

"One consequence you can expect if you donate machines is that GNU will run on them at an early date." So, exactly how many PDP-11's have *you* donated?...

None. GCC already supported compiling for the PDP-11 [gnu.org]. It has since March, 2002 according to the patch notes for GCC. Which, let's be honest -- getting hardware support into the compiler a mere 5 years after the line was discontinued is remarkably fast for the GNU project.

I'm still waiting for the day they include a warning when you derp a sizeof(x) into your code, when you really wanted a sizeof(*x) , something Visual Studio will happily warn me about when compiling something. Of course, gcc does what the code tells it to and reports the bytelength of a pointer variable (how useful!) without complaint, whereas Visual Studio will happily explode my system, then run screaming out of the hole with toilet paper stuck to its foot yelling "Why did you use that win32 call when, although we didn't bother putting it in the documentation, it was depreciated 8 years ago and replaced with seven other similar-sounding functions, equally badly documented and not backwards-compatable!" ...

So credit where credit is due: GCC will let you shoot your own foot without complaint, but it's a bit slow on the feature list. Whereas the big-time Windows compiler... it's got all the latest features, warnings, etc., but when you merely go for shooting your own foot, it instead blows your whole leg off, then drops a bomb on your head while muttering something about upgrading to the latest .NET and dll versions...

Re:Megalomanic

[Skiron]

AS I said on here before - if it wasn't for GCC (or the Gnu C compiler as it was then) written by RMS, then Linus couldn't have even started doing his stuff with linux.

RMS is the seed of *all* the free open source code/projects available now (and in the future). He is GOD and well done to him and his principles.

Re:Megalomanic

[cold fjord]

Unofficial bootleg project with no support from the company after their project request was rejected. Wrote space game and developed project they wanted to do, not as a work requirement. It's in the paper.

Re:Megalomanic

[Dogtanian]

That still doesn't change the fact that RMS did not re-implement UNIX as the summary suggests. UNIX user-space utilities are useful, yes, but are not UNIX in themselves.

It's a shame that the borderline trollish aspects of your original post distracted from the legitimate point it *did* make- that RMS and the GNU project were *not* responsible for the most popular GPL kernel (i.e. Linux).

On the other hand, they kicked off the whole thing and were responsible for a *significant* proportion of the utilities that make that kernel into a proper OS. And it's quite possible- if not probable- that had Stallman not created and popularised the GPL that Linux would never have been released under anything resembling the GPL. (It's worth remembering that early versions of Linux had a noncommercial-use-only license; according to Wikipedia "Torvalds has described licensing Linux under the GPL as the "best thing I ever did." ".)

Would people have been so willing to contribute to Linux under the original license terms? Would it have ever taken off?

So, to reverse Stallman's usual bugbear, it's not just GNU, it's, er... Linux/GNU. But ultimately, beyond who gets credit for what, that's not that big a deal- RMS and the GNU project didn't write it, but they certainly do deserve the credit for creating the GPL it's licensed under, something which probably benefited Linux as much as Linux benefited GNU and free software in general. Stallman himself acknowledges that Linux meets the need for a free kernel and that finishing Hurd is no longer essential. (Ironically, I'm guessing that the success of Linux probably attracted developers who might otherwise have worked on the Hurd).

So it's a win-win situation; beyond the very worthwhile software that the GNU project created, its popularisation of the GPL encouraged a whole lot more- including Linux.