In January 1984, Richard Stallman resigned from the Artificial Intelligence laboratory at MIT in order to devote himself to the development of software for the GNU project (GNU is the recursive acronym “GNU is Not Unix”). Its goal is to found a new community that freely shares the software. Stallman’s idea is to build a complete, completely free operating system. To do this, Stallman chooses to rely on the UNIX model . Various components are then developed within the framework of the GNU project (GNU Emacs, the C language library, the BASH command interpreter, GNU tar, the GNU C compiler, GDB, GNU Make, etc.).
The idea is to replace each UNIX component with its GNU equivalent. Thus, each GNU component can run on UNIX systems, long before the entire GNU system is available.
In 1990, the GNU system is almost finished: the kernel is the only major component missing. It’s called GNU Hurd and is in development. At the same time, a Finnish student, Linus Torvalds , is developing Linux, a kernel compatible with UNIX. In 1992, the association between Linux and the GNU system finally made it possible to have a free and complete operating system!
The distribution of free software
The first tool developed by Stallman within the framework of the GNU project is GNU Emacs (usable at the beginning of 1985) which is available by ftp. However, not all of the many people who want to use GNU Emacs have Internet access. Richard Stallman then offered to send a tape to anyone who wanted one, in exchange for a contribution of US $ 150. To meet this demand, Richard Stallman created the Free Software Foundation (FSF), a non-profit association. The FSF takes care of the distribution of free software on tape, sells free manuals as well as services associated with free software while the employees of the FSF collaborate in the development of the GNU tools.
Stallman then finds other sources of income: he offers courses on how to program software, on the customization of certain free software that he has developed and he also offers his services to continue the development of free software (he for example, porting GCC to new platforms).
A developer-centric vision
In Richard Stallman’s view, a user is always seen as an experienced software programmer, never as a user who simply wants to use software to complete a task. In 1998, it was increasingly difficult to make new users aware of the terms of freedom in software (freedom to access, modify, redistribute code, etc.). It was then that the term “Open Source software” was preferred by some to “Free Software”.
The goal is to target companies and professional users for whom the notion of profit prevails over this ideology of freedom and community which has always animated Stallman and the GNU project. Thus was born the Open Source Initiative (OSI) which emphasizes the technical potential, high quality and responsiveness of open source software.
A proven concept
Quebec-Science magazine, in its May 2002 issue , estimated between 15 and 18 million users of the operating system.
