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GNU is Not Unix, but it is 25


By Alex Handy
February 15, 2009 — 
In the earliest days of computers, just about everything could be considered free software. Computers were so large, unwieldy and difficult to understand that any reasonably well-written program would be passed around via punch cards or paper tape. Into that free software world Richard Stallman was born.

In the 1960s, he programmed IBM System/360 mainframes in PL/I, a procedural language that itself is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year. In the 1970s, Stallman worked at the famous MIT Artificial Intelligence laboratory. Along the way, he saw software developers change their attitudes and move away from openness toward the proprietary. It was this shift in the hacker culture, as he called it, that eventually led him to strike out on his own in 1983.

“In the 70s, operating systems mostly became proprietary,” said Stallman. “I was working in a sort of island where a more ethical and cooperative way of life still existed; namely the AI lab at MIT. We had an OS that was entirely free software. But then that community died in the early 80s.”

During that time, a company called Symbolics built proprietary LISP systems, combining both hardware and software. Stallman saw this closed-source approach as the antithesis to his desires for free software.

“I spent a couple of years punishing Symbolics by attacking it and giving an ultimatum to the people at the AI lab," he said. "I didn't want to spend the rest of my life punishing somebody. I wanted to rebuild what was destroyed. I wanted to be able to use computers while having freedom. This is impossible if you have a proprietary program.”

So Stallman spent most of 1984 writing a free operating system. He named this body of work with a recursive acronym: GNU, meaning GNU is Not Unix. He began by modifying a compiler called Pastel, but soon found it lacking and rewrote it from scratch; this later became the foundation of the GNU Compiler Collection, or the gcc. Next, he reworked the Gosling Emacs text editor, eventually replacing all of its code with LISP. This would become Stallman's first piece of free software: GNU Emacs.

The rest, as they say, is history. To release GNU Emacs, Stallman knew he needed a license. While his initial license, released in 1985, wasn't the GPL, it was his first step into the world of legal wrangling. Four years later, that license, and others like it within the GNU operating system, would merge into a single form: the GNU General Public License.

“I noticed both similarities and differences,” said Stallman of the law and code. “Sometimes I used to refer to the language of contracts as Legalbol. Licenses aren't interpreted by computers. They're interpreted by judges. They're interpreted by human beings who are only partly acting like computers. That means in some ways you get the benefit of their human intelligence.”

The GPL: still relevant
Twenty years after the release of the first GPL, it is hard to deny the license's influence and prominence. Over half of the world's free and open-source software is available under the GPL or a variant. Projects such as the gcc, the GNU Debugger and GlibC have all grown to become major open-source movements in their own right, and they have expanded their scope beyond the GNU operating system.

James Grimmelmann, professor at the New York Law School, said that the GPL's biggest strengths are its public scrutiny and broad adoption.

“It is an especially well-drafted license,” said Grimmelmann. “There are many licenses. Many of them are well drafted. But the GPL, especially through community effort, has received an extremely close level of reading over the years. They've thought of a lot of contingencies.”

Twenty years on, the GPL still hasn't seen the inside of a courtroom. But Grimmelmann said that this is still not a hindrance to it. In fact, aside from some remaining quibbles over GPLv3's handling of digital rights management, and some legal questions on whether it is a license or contract, there is little controversy remaining around the GPL.

“It's almost impossible to invalidate the GPL without invalidating most open-source licenses,” said Grimmelmann.

But that's not likely to happen any time soon, he added. “Most contracts and licenses are never litigated, and we don't worry about that fact. The indicator of a successful legal document is if it never winds up in court. Imagine a contract to purchase 10 tons of steel. When you see those in court, you don't worry that the steel industry is going to collapse,” he said.

But would the GPL (and the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation) collapse without Richard Stallman? What happens when Stallman retires? Brett Smith, FSF license compliance engineer, said that the FSF has long been decoupled from Stallman, thanks to its non-profit status. “The FSF as an organization is a steward for the license and, organizationally, we have a board of directors who are responsible for the well-being of the foundation,” said Smith.

GNU/Linux or just Linux?
A constant area of strife within the GNU community revolves around Stallman and his rigorous semantic debates. Brian Behlendorf, a founding member of the Apache Foundation, thought Stallman's insistence on specific nomenclature, and his lack of tolerance for other opinions, was distracting.

Behlendorf uses the term “Open Source” interchangeably with the term “Free Software,” something Stallman vehemently opposes. Behlendorf takes a broader view of the free software ecosystem and sees room for many variations on the GPL theme, even ones that do not compel redistribution of derivative works.

“A lot of the world has moved on from license differences,” said Behlendorf. “It used to be the case in the 1980s that the idea of giving away software that wasn't shareware that you got the source code to was novel. Compelling the giveback was the only way to go. There was the Berkeley license, but because there wasn't giveback, the industry was fragmented. That's why the original Unix marketplace failed. In the early days of the Free Software Foundation, they had to have that because the benefits were not obvious.”

Behlendorf said that some of the semantic debates Stallman still sparks aren't endearing him to a new generation of software developers.

“The whole open source vs. free software dichotomy has really frustrated a lot of us,” he said. “I think Stallman feels like, as the originator of a lot of these concepts, people co-opted them. People who do interesting things with them are paying you tribute. He should be proud of that, rather than feel like it's compromised him or compromised his vision.

"I do think free software and open source have a symbiotic relationship. If Stallman hadn't existed, we would have had to invent him. It's necessary to have the advocates and [to have] them not compromising in order for the rest of us to help bring the world along. I think today if you are using open-source software, and you find a bug, your first instinct is to go to the developers and submit it.”

And that shows how far we've come, said Behlendorf. Thanks to the GNU Project and Stallman, “We have a whole generation of software developers for whom that has become second nature.”


Related Search Term(s): GNU, GPL, open source, Unix


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Comments

02/15/2009 04:50:09 PM EST

Happy Birthday GNU and thank you Mr. Stallman!

United StatesTodd R. Gailfoil


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