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Looking back, this is probably one of the most important initiatives in the last 30 years, though I don't usually like Stallman. I've personally found more uti
by jcnnghm 16y ago
Looking back, this is probably one of the most important initiatives in the last 30 years, though I don't usually like Stallman. I've personally found more utility in the BSD and MIT licenses, but the GNU initiative really spawned the free software movement as a whole. It's interesting to think where we would be today if Linux and the GNU userland tools were never created. Would it have been possible to build something like Google without free software, or would it have gotten killed by licensing and vendor fees? In any case, Stallman really did change everything.
- acqq 16y agoStallman made free Emacs, then free GCC. He hasn't managed to make the widely usable free kernel at the time, but he prepared everything but that, which made possible for GNU licensed Linux kernel to become the part of the whole free system. It's an immense feat. Some other important dates: March 1985 -- The GNU Manifesto http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html 22 Mar 87 -- first release of GCC http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/History http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/History