The GNU Manifesto by Richard Stallman

Summary:

GNU stands for “GNU’s Not Unix”. At the time that Stallman wrote this, he was a programmer frustrated with the social limitations that the software like Unix (an early operating system)created by having licensing restrictions. Stallman believed that software should be free to be received, used, modified, and redistributed. This belief was based on the idea that users distributing it rather than paying for it really didn’t hurt anyone except the corporations that were unfairly profiting from it. What did hurt people thought was their limited access to useful software at the hands of these greedy corporations. These ideas led to Stallman creating his GNU operating system, which would function similarly to the popular Unix, but with open licensing, meaning that it could be distributed and used freely.

The actual manifesto’s purpose is to raise money, resources, and volunteers for his GNU project, so his audience is obviously programmers and companies interested in his cause. What Stallman has on the line is the future of his GNU project, so this Manifesto is extremely important. He first describes GNU, saying that it is a full Unix-compatible system to be distributed freely. Stallman states that his moral reasoning for writing the GNU system is that “…the Golden Rule requires that if I like a program I just share it with other people who like it.” (546) The meat of Stallman’s arguments comes when he explains how all computer users will benefit from Unix. He states that freely distributing software is not just to save everyone the price of the software, but is to avoid “wasteful duplication of system programming effort”, which can “go instead into advancing the state of the art”. (547) This is then followed by a series of arguments against GNU and their rebuttals. Most of the argument has to do with the fact that the field might stagnate if programmers are no longer getting paid, and is countered by Stallman’s citing the nature of computer programmers and the fact that they will still be able to make money, just not as much.

Inquiry:

I believe that Stallman’s main idea behind the GNU, that restricting software use has a detrimental effect on society as a whole, is very sound. Professional software licenses can cost in the thousands easily, even more depending on its use, and this comes to be a huge cost on companies and consumers. This limiting of the use of professional software leads to it not being shared and used by people who may need it, and in this way puts an unnecessary burden on society. In my experience, when trying to get a license for Adobe Photoshop, something I need to support my Graphic Design hobby, I found that a new copy of the latest version can cost up to $999.99. I have spent hours learning to use Photoshop, and to find that I can never actually use it because a simple license cost so much personally limited me in a field that I was really interested in.

Our generation seems to have adapted to this legal but unethical limitation by circumventing these limitations with illegal and still unethical methods of software sharing. While a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended edition costs $999.99 here, one could download a copy for nothing elsewhere just as easily. The happy ending to my story is that student editions of Photoshop are below $100, and work perfectly with the limitation that you can’t use it to make a profit.

Questions:

1 ) What do you think of Stallman’s idea of a freely distributed Operating system? Would it cause the field of software design to advance, as he suggests, or do you think that programmers would shy away from a profession where their work was handed out and modified freely?

2) Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you were unable to do something computer-related because of software costs? If so describe your experiences?

3) Have you ever used open-source software, or freeware? Did you find it to be inferior or less reliable than equivalent licensed software? I recommend you try Ubuntu. It is a Linux-based operating system that you can download and use for free. You can even download it and run it in “Demo mode” without installing anything. Try it!