Spreading the GNUs

Free Software Movement pioneer hacked over sloppy use of computer terms

01/11/2001

By Doug Bedell / The Dallas Morning News

Richard Stallman has been called the "Saint of Free Software. His detractors call him a devilish idealist.

Since 1984, this hirsute hacker has been laboring with others to develop a freely shared, Unix-type computer operating system that could rival the products of huge corporations such as AT&T and IBM.

By the early 1990s, Dr. Stallman and his fellow programmers had completed much of the work. They lacked only the kernel, the essential OS nucleus that provides basic services for all other parts of the operating system, to finish the GNU project. (GNU is a humorous acronym that stands for "GNU's Not Unix." It is pronounced guh-NEW.)

Before they could finish, Linus Torvalds added his kernel and released the operating system that has become known as Linux. Dr. Stallman insists that the proper name is GNU/Linux. In fact, he will not agree to an interview without assurances that GNU/Linux will be used in all references.

Today GNU/Linux powers Internet servers worldwide. By some estimates, as many as 20 million people have adopted this hot platform, which is making modest inroads into homes and small offices.

At 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dr. Stallman will preach the virtues of his Free Software Foundation and its projects. The DFW Unix Users Group will host him at the Sheraton Park Central Hotel, 7750 LBJ Freeway, Dallas. Admission is free.

Dr. Stallman graduated from Harvard in 1974 with a bachelor's degree in physics. During his college years, he also worked as a staff hacker at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. It was there in 1975 that he crafted the Emacs text editor, an essential tool for Unix-type operating systems. In 1998, the Electronic Frontier Foundation conferred its Pioneer award on both Dr. Stallman and Mr. Torvalds.

Many are irritated by Dr. Stallman's boundless determination to correct the errors of sloppy computer historians and espouse the glory of the Free Software Movement. But as longtime research associate Chris Hanson told Salon magazine last year: "Richard is a genius, a man with a clear and unusual vision, and like others before him, he comes in a quirky and difficult package."

DMN: You spend much of your time correcting people on their use of computer terms, such as the improper use of hacker to describe computer criminals.

DR. STALLMAN: The word has been twisted into an insult.

DMN: Do you ever feel like it's futile?

DR. STALLMAN: No. We've had a substantial amount of success after all...Sure, it's unfortunate that the GNU system has been mislabeled as Linux in most people's mind. It makes it hard for us to make people aware of what we've done. And it makes it hard to show people the connection between the software and our philosophy.

DMN: Still, many continue to confuse your efforts with those of the open source movement, one you contend doesn't truly back the free software philosophies.

DR. STALLMAN: Yes, it's a bit frustrating that our work is often described as open source, and that leads people to think that it was inspired by the philosophy of the open source movement. That doesn't mean we failed. It just makes it harder work.

DMN: The basic disagreement is over the definitions of free and open.

DR. STALLMAN: They don't think proprietary software is bad. They just think it's suboptimal, so fundamentally our goals are different. For them, proprietary software is a suboptimal solution. For us, proprietary software is the problem and free software is the solution.

DMN: In interviews, you've worried that some people have been attempting to write you out of the modern history of Linux by refusing to acknowledge your contributions.

DR. STALLMAN: Yes, but not as a personal malice, you see. It's not so much me as ethical questions they're trying to write out of history. The open source movement doesn't call into question ethical issues. They avoid such issues. They don't raise them.

The Linux boosters ... also don't cite idealistic values. They state their goal as world domination. But for people working for freedom, domination isn't the goal. It's liberating people – not dominating people – that constitutes success.

They are in effect writing out the GNU project and the GNU operating system and the philosophy behind it. They're using the GNU system under a different name and giving essentially a misdirected idea of where it came from and why it exists.

DMN: Distinctions are sometimes lost on dumb, old end users like me.

DR. STALLMAN: I don't want to call end users dumb. They just don't have the specific skills and training that I have. You just have to keep explaining. And we ask other people to help explain, also.

DMN: It's not just semantics to you, right?

DR. STALLMAN: The reason I pay so much attention to asking people to call the system GNU/Linux is because I've discovered that the choice of name communicates a message. The system is the same no matter what you call it. But the people's understanding of why it exists is not the same. If you call the system Linux, it naturally suggests to people that Linus Torvalds started it all and it started in 1991. Previous history gets excluded from this category in their minds.

DMN: Where are you in the development of a fully functional kernel, the GNU Hurd?

DR. STALLMAN: It's actually starting to work reliably. It's very close to being something people can just install and use. At this point, I wouldn't encourage nonwizards to do so because it doesn't have advantages for nonwizards. It has some advantages for programmers because it has a more powerful architecture.

DMN: The foundation's software isn't copyrighted; it's "copylefted." What does that mean?

DR. STALLMAN: Copyleft is meagerly based on copyright. It uses the copyright system. But instead of using it to impose restrictions on people, it uses copyright to protect people's freedom. Copyleft is a way of protecting people's freedom from those who want to restrict and control and divide people.

DMN: Much of your philosophy seems a rebellion against rampant corporatization of computer programming. Is that fair to say?

DR. STALLMAN: I'm not against companies doing business. But I don't think they should dominate life. Business should be kept in its place. It should not be our master.

DMN: Does the current technology stock market turmoil reinforce that view?

DR. STALLMAN: It was a bubble. It burst. It had to burst. The sooner the better.

DMN: Perhaps many of the companies entering computing and the Internet just didn't understand the medium very well.

DR. STALLMAN: I don't know. But that's just a normal part of stock market bubbles or any bubbles. You get so many people pumping out hype because the public wants to hear the hype. Read The Great Crash 1929 by [economist John Kenneth] Galbraith. It's happening now.

DMN: Do you feel the Free Software Movement has a better shot today than five years ago?

DR. STALLMAN: Well, I don't know. I see dangers. The forces that are trying to prohibit the development of free software are getting stronger. The U.S. is explicitly pushing other countries to allow software patents and thus take away the freedom from computer users in those countries.

DMN: But you're seeing some resistance to that in Europe, correct?

DR. STALLMAN: Right. For the first time, we've seen the Free Software community specifically in Europe organize to the point where they can stop political measures. There's finally been some visible public opposition.