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Interestingly enough, the free software movement came about due to Richard Stallman’s frustrations with Symbolics, one of the Lisp machine companies that came f
by linguae 3y ago
Interestingly enough, the free software movement came about due to Richard Stallman’s frustrations with Symbolics, one of the Lisp machine companies that came from the same MIT AI lab he worked in. It’s just that RMS chose to reimplement Unix (GNU) instead of creating a free Lisp operating system, though one could argue half-jokingly and half-seriously that GNU Emacs is that free Lisp OS.
- EdwardCoffin 3y agoI understood it came about due to RMS wanting the source for the printer driver for the Xerox 9700 - nothing to do with Symbolics.
- linguae 3y agoThe printer driver situation was RMS’s last straw, but he was already saddened by the demise of the sharing culture of the MIT AI lab once Symbolics and Lisp Machines, Inc. were founded, and he spent a considerable amount of effort reimplementing features from Symbolics: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html
- anthk 3y agoI was about to say that, point to point. But, think about that. Unix was the cool thing from the 80's, so even if ITS was a hackers' dream, mixing Unix' utilitarianism with Emacs' Elisp hackability on top of that wouldn't be so bad under a proper GNU kernel + Emacs userland system.