7 ms·

Happy birthday to GNU: celebrating 34 years of the free software movement

190 points by jrepinc 9y ago

0xFFC 9y ago
Hats off to RMS. Whom I love and respect deeply. Thank you for all have you done for free software. P.S. I am from small third world country. Right now I am applying and starting PhD in one of universities in USA and my field is basically OS and File systems. I have said this, to mention one thing created the interest in me to study and persue CS when I was teenager. And it was GNU. I remember first days when I installed GNU operating system when at 2002 when I was 11. The idea and openness of Free software literally changed my life.
- jimmies 9y ago
  Same here. I am forever indebted to RMS and his crazy vision. May he be with the world for a long time. It has played a big role in turning my life around from a college drop-out to almost getting my PhD in the USA now. If I had just stuck with proprietary software, I don't think I would know what I know today. It is that the idea that you actually could touch and understand the world, given enough time and dedication in a small, hot, dusty corner in a third world country with a cheap computer is extremely, extremely powerful. There is nothing else like it. Especially when I compare to many biologist friends from the same country as mine, they are much more disadvantaged compared to American ones, because of not having the $1M equipment and software they need back home. In the software world, I always feel like I had the level playing field, and the rest was just my dedication. As I am almost done with this stage, I am seriously considering devoting a big part of my life to developing free software so everyone will have the same chance I had. At the same time, I feel the world has moved on, and again social mobility now is not as high as when the PC was the king anymore (but maybe it's just because I am just in a depression now, the world changes alright).
  - carussell 9y ago
    Please look into effective altruism. Relevant discussion is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13678952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13678952
    - jimmies 9y ago
      Thanks for the directions. I will see how I best engage in the community, to be honest, now I don't feel like super enthusiastic about the industry. So I might just take a break some time and write whatever the hell I want.
marksomnian 9y ago
RMS may be seen by many as a zealot or maybe even an extremist, and I personally disagree with some of his views, but it's clear that without him the open-source world would be in a completely different place. Hat tip.
- adtac 9y ago
  There wouldn't be a place for free and open software without him. I'm absolutely convinced of this -- he is a combination of good will, great programming talent, insane dedication who is not motivated by money. It's just a shame he'll never be as well known to the general public as someone like Steve Jobs.
  - AceJohnny2 9y ago
    > insane dedication who is not motivated by money You can say that again. I believe he's pretty far on Asperger's? I view RMS as one pole of the philosophical spectrum of free software (the other being entirely proprietary). An uncompromising absolutist, his views can't survive contact with the real world intact, but they can influence the landscape as he exerts pressure on it. And he has proven visionary and right time and time again. I don't agree with many things he says, but I do appreciate the direction he's pulled the industry in. For that, he has my continued respect.
    - jimmies 9y ago
      > An uncompromising absolutist, his views can't survive contact with the real world intact, but they can influence the landscape as he exerts pressure on it. Well, somehow his views survived. GNU happened and is alive today. Billions of people are using it or a variant of it. In fact, GNU/Linux is arguably the most successful OS in the planet. The GNU has projects that power almost every computer and every mobile phone and it is inside many embedded systems today. There are even laptops that run strictly on free software, which hasn't happenned until recently. What more you want?
      - AceJohnny2 9y ago
drallison 9y ago
The Free Software Foundation and the GNU project have had an enormous impact on people's lives. We all owe a significant debt of gratitude to the many people who have worked on FSF/Gnu products. Even more significant is the ethos involved. Where would we be today were it not for the free software community.
- nerdponx 9y ago
  Indeed. GNU is way more than Linux. GNU Parallel, the ubiquitous GNU Make (did you know ":=" is a GMU extension?), GNU versions of Grep and Sed that have some really nice quality of life options, and the GPL which for better or worse has "infected" a lot of really important software. That said, it's a shame that GNOME, Gtk, and Glibc are evidently not the best (I use none of them but I have read many complaints). Lots of other old, weird, and/or semi-abandoned projects too like Taler, the GNU version of 'yes' [0] and Hurd of course. What makes some GNU tools so great and others not-so-great? And where does this "everything but the kitchen sink" mentality come from with respect to options and configuration in GNU programs? 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14542938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14542938
  - rekado 9y ago
    What's not to like about the GNU C library? It's used on the vast majority of GNU+Linux distributions. > Lots of other old, weird, and/or semi-abandoned projects too like Taler, ... GNU Taler is none of these things. > And where does this "everything but the kitchen sink" mentality come from with respect to options and configuration in GNU programs? Did you know that GNU Emacs had an overflowing kitchen sink as its logo for a while? (I still prefer that logo over the current logo, actually.)
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      > GNU Emacs had an overflowing kitchen sink as its logo oh wow, http://ergoemacs.org/misc/emacs_overflowing_kitchen_sink_icon.html http://ergoemacs.org/misc/emacs_overflowing_kitchen_sink_ico... pretty nice, and with dataflow !
smhenderson 9y ago
Thank you to RMS and the entire GNU community for their tireless efforts and the many wonderful projects they have created and shared with the world. Whether you call it FS, FLOSS or OSS none of it would be where it is today without GNU. Here's to the next 34!
overcast 9y ago
What I always found bizarre about Stallman is the lengths he goes to make himself anonymous(no online purchases, fetching websites remotely and then emailing output). Yet at the same time, he's so prolific publicly in everything he preaches about. https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html
- peatmoss 9y ago
  > prolific publicly in everything he preaches about. I think that's the key point: he's private where he's given no consent (i.e. being tracked on the web), and is public where he has chosen to... preach.
  - overcast 9y ago
    To the extent that you need a remote system to retrieve a webpage, and then email it to you so you can read it?! I mean come on here.
    - peatmoss 9y ago
      You can argue that is extreme (it's certainly more extreme than I'm able / willing to do), but your earlier comment was claiming a disconnect between his web browsing habits and the public persona that he maintains. I don't see his cultivated public persona at odds with his private desire to be un-tracked on the web.
- smith333 9y ago
  Exactly that's the point your choose your privacy.
vfclists 9y ago
The GNU vision of the desktop needs to be rebooted and more dedication and skill applied to it. I got into a discussion on it on the emacs reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/701v90/guile_needs_a_community_elispemacs_needs_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/701v90/guile_needs_a... but it seems a fair number of people have forgotten about or don't quite get it.
madmax108 9y ago
Just crossposting from the article, but every year on this day I donate to the FSF. You can as well at: https://my.fsf.org/donate https://my.fsf.org/donate Remember that almost every tinfoil scenario that RMS has been preaching about has come true in the last dozen or so years, and it is important, now more than ever, to be able to defend the rights and freedoms of computer users. You can also become an FSF member at: https://my.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom/join_fsf https://my.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom/join_fsf
smith333 9y ago
RMS is both extremely capable and strong willed activist which is very combination.

190 points by jrepinc 9y ago

Hats off to RMS. Whom I love and respect deeply. Thank you for all have you done for free software. P.S. I am from small third world country. Right now I am applying and starting PhD in one of universities in USA and my field is basically OS and File systems. I have said this, to mention one thing created the interest in me to study and persue CS when I was teenager. And it was GNU. I remember first days when I installed GNU operating system when at 2002 when I was 11. The idea and openness of Free software literally changed my life.

jimmies 9y ago
Same here. I am forever indebted to RMS and his crazy vision. May he be with the world for a long time. It has played a big role in turning my life around from a college drop-out to almost getting my PhD in the USA now. If I had just stuck with proprietary software, I don't think I would know what I know today. It is that the idea that you actually could touch and understand the world, given enough time and dedication in a small, hot, dusty corner in a third world country with a cheap computer is extremely, extremely powerful. There is nothing else like it. Especially when I compare to many biologist friends from the same country as mine, they are much more disadvantaged compared to American ones, because of not having the $1M equipment and software they need back home. In the software world, I always feel like I had the level playing field, and the rest was just my dedication. As I am almost done with this stage, I am seriously considering devoting a big part of my life to developing free software so everyone will have the same chance I had. At the same time, I feel the world has moved on, and again social mobility now is not as high as when the PC was the king anymore (but maybe it's just because I am just in a depression now, the world changes alright).
- carussell 9y ago
  Please look into effective altruism. Relevant discussion is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13678952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13678952
  - jimmies 9y ago
    Thanks for the directions. I will see how I best engage in the community, to be honest, now I don't feel like super enthusiastic about the industry. So I might just take a break some time and write whatever the hell I want.

marksomnian 9y ago

RMS may be seen by many as a zealot or maybe even an extremist, and I personally disagree with some of his views, but it's clear that without him the open-source world would be in a completely different place. Hat tip.

adtac 9y ago
There wouldn't be a place for free and open software without him. I'm absolutely convinced of this -- he is a combination of good will, great programming talent, insane dedication who is not motivated by money. It's just a shame he'll never be as well known to the general public as someone like Steve Jobs.
- AceJohnny2 9y ago
  > insane dedication who is not motivated by money You can say that again. I believe he's pretty far on Asperger's? I view RMS as one pole of the philosophical spectrum of free software (the other being entirely proprietary). An uncompromising absolutist, his views can't survive contact with the real world intact, but they can influence the landscape as he exerts pressure on it. And he has proven visionary and right time and time again. I don't agree with many things he says, but I do appreciate the direction he's pulled the industry in. For that, he has my continued respect.
  - jimmies 9y ago
    > An uncompromising absolutist, his views can't survive contact with the real world intact, but they can influence the landscape as he exerts pressure on it. Well, somehow his views survived. GNU happened and is alive today. Billions of people are using it or a variant of it. In fact, GNU/Linux is arguably the most successful OS in the planet. The GNU has projects that power almost every computer and every mobile phone and it is inside many embedded systems today. There are even laptops that run strictly on free software, which hasn't happenned until recently. What more you want?
    - AceJohnny2 9y ago

drallison 9y ago

The Free Software Foundation and the GNU project have had an enormous impact on people's lives. We all owe a significant debt of gratitude to the many people who have worked on FSF/Gnu products. Even more significant is the ethos involved. Where would we be today were it not for the free software community.

nerdponx 9y ago
Indeed. GNU is way more than Linux. GNU Parallel, the ubiquitous GNU Make (did you know ":=" is a GMU extension?), GNU versions of Grep and Sed that have some really nice quality of life options, and the GPL which for better or worse has "infected" a lot of really important software. That said, it's a shame that GNOME, Gtk, and Glibc are evidently not the best (I use none of them but I have read many complaints). Lots of other old, weird, and/or semi-abandoned projects too like Taler, the GNU version of 'yes' [0] and Hurd of course. What makes some GNU tools so great and others not-so-great? And where does this "everything but the kitchen sink" mentality come from with respect to options and configuration in GNU programs? 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14542938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14542938
- rekado 9y ago
  What's not to like about the GNU C library? It's used on the vast majority of GNU+Linux distributions. > Lots of other old, weird, and/or semi-abandoned projects too like Taler, ... GNU Taler is none of these things. > And where does this "everything but the kitchen sink" mentality come from with respect to options and configuration in GNU programs? Did you know that GNU Emacs had an overflowing kitchen sink as its logo for a while? (I still prefer that logo over the current logo, actually.)
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    > GNU Emacs had an overflowing kitchen sink as its logo oh wow, http://ergoemacs.org/misc/emacs_overflowing_kitchen_sink_icon.html http://ergoemacs.org/misc/emacs_overflowing_kitchen_sink_ico... pretty nice, and with dataflow !

smhenderson 9y ago

Thank you to RMS and the entire GNU community for their tireless efforts and the many wonderful projects they have created and shared with the world. Whether you call it FS, FLOSS or OSS none of it would be where it is today without GNU. Here's to the next 34!

overcast 9y ago

What I always found bizarre about Stallman is the lengths he goes to make himself anonymous(no online purchases, fetching websites remotely and then emailing output). Yet at the same time, he's so prolific publicly in everything he preaches about. https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

peatmoss 9y ago
> prolific publicly in everything he preaches about. I think that's the key point: he's private where he's given no consent (i.e. being tracked on the web), and is public where he has chosen to... preach.
- overcast 9y ago
  To the extent that you need a remote system to retrieve a webpage, and then email it to you so you can read it?! I mean come on here.
  - peatmoss 9y ago
    You can argue that is extreme (it's certainly more extreme than I'm able / willing to do), but your earlier comment was claiming a disconnect between his web browsing habits and the public persona that he maintains. I don't see his cultivated public persona at odds with his private desire to be un-tracked on the web.
smith333 9y ago
Exactly that's the point your choose your privacy.

vfclists 9y ago

The GNU vision of the desktop needs to be rebooted and more dedication and skill applied to it. I got into a discussion on it on the emacs reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/701v90/guile_needs_a_community_elispemacs_needs_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/701v90/guile_needs_a... but it seems a fair number of people have forgotten about or don't quite get it.

madmax108 9y ago

Just crossposting from the article, but every year on this day I donate to the FSF. You can as well at: https://my.fsf.org/donate https://my.fsf.org/donate Remember that almost every tinfoil scenario that RMS has been preaching about has come true in the last dozen or so years, and it is important, now more than ever, to be able to defend the rights and freedoms of computer users. You can also become an FSF member at: https://my.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom/join_fsf https://my.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom/join_fsf

smith333 9y ago

RMS is both extremely capable and strong willed activist which is very combination.