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The GNU Manifesto

What's GNU? Gnu's Not Unix!

GNU, which stands for Gnu's Not Unix, is the name for the complete Unix-compatible
software system which I am writing so that I can give it away free to everyone who
can use it [1]. Several other volunteers are helping me. Contributions of time,
money, programs and equipment are greatly needed.

So far we have an Emacs text editor with Lisp for writing editor commands, a source
level debugger, a yacc-compatible parser generator, a linker, and around 35 utilities.
A shell (command interpreter) is nearly completed. A new portable optimizing C compiler
has compiled itself and may be released this year. An initial kernel exists but many
more features are needed to emulate Unix. When the kernel and compiler are finished,
it will be possible to distribute a GNU system suitable for program development. We
will use TeX as our text formatter, but an nroff is being worked on. We will use the
free, portable X Window System as well. After this we will add a portable Common Lisp,
an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of other things, plus online documentation.
We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that normally comes with a Unix system,
and more.

GNU will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical to Unix. We will
make all improvements that are convenient, based on our experience with other operating
systems. In particular, we plan to have longer file names, file version numbers, a
crashproof file system, file name completion perhaps, terminal-independent display
support, and perhaps eventually a Lisp-based window system through which several Lisp
programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen. Both C and Lisp will be
available as system programming languages. We will try to support UUCP, MIT Chaosnet,
and Internet protocols for communication.

GNU is aimed initially at machines in the 68000/16000 class with virtual memory,
because they are the easiest machines to make it run on. The extra effort to make
it run on smaller machines will be left to someone who wants to use it on them.

To avoid horrible confusion, please pronounce the g in the word "GNU" when it is
the name of this project.

Why I Must Write GNU

I consider that the Golden Rule requires that if I like a program I must share it
with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer
them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity
with other users in this way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement
or a software license agreement. For years I worked within the Artificial Intelligence
Lab to resist such tendencies and other inhospitalities, but eventually they had gone
too far: I could not remain in an institution where such things are done for me
against my will.

So that I can continue to use computers without dishonor, I have decided to put
together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along
without any software that is not free. I have resigned from the AI Lab to deny MIT
any legal excuse to prevent me from giving GNU away [2].

Why GNU Will Be Compatible with Unix

Unix is not my ideal system, but it is not too bad. The essential features of Unix
seem to be good ones, and I think I can fill in what Unix lacks without spoiling
them. And a system compatible with Unix would be convenient for many other people
to adopt.

How GNU Will Be Available

GNU is not in the public domain. Everyone will be permitted to modify and redistribute
GNU, but no distributor will be allowed to restrict its further redistribution. That
is to say, proprietary modifications will not be allowed. I want to make sure that all
versions of GNU remain free.

Why Many Other Programmers Want to Help

I have found many other programmers who are excited about GNU and want to help.

Many programmers are unhappy about the commercialization of system software. It
may enable them to make more money, but it requires them to feel in conflict with
other programmers in general rather than feel as comrades. The fundamental act of
friendship among programmers is the sharing of programs; marketing arrangements now
typically used essentially forbid programmers to treat others as friends. The purchaser
of software must choose between friendship and obeying the law. Naturally, many decide
that friendship is more important. But those who believe in law often do not feel
at ease with either choice. They become cynical and think that programming is just
a way of making money.

By working on and using GNU rather than proprietary programs, we can be hospitable
to everyone and obey the law. In addition, GNU serves as an example to inspire and
a banner to rally others to join us in sharing. This can give us a feeling of harmony
which is impossible if we use software that is not free. For about half the programmers
I talk to, this is an important happiness that money cannot replace.

How You Can Contribute

    (Nowadays, for software tasks to work on, see the High Priority Projects list
    and the GNU Help Wanted list, the general task list for GNU software packages.
    For other ways to help, see the guide to helping the GNU operating system.)

I am asking computer manufacturers for donations of machines and money. I'm asking
individuals for donations of programs and work.

One consequence you can expect if you donate machines is that GNU will run on them
at an early date. The machines should be complete, ready to use systems, approved
for use in a residential area, and not in need of sophisticated cooling or power.

I have found very many programmers eager to contribute part-time work for GNU. For
most projects, such part-time distributed work would be very hard to coordinate; the
independently written parts would not work together. But for the particular task of
replacing Unix, this problem is absent. A complete Unix system contains hundreds of
utility programs, each of which is documented separately. Most interface specifications
are fixed by Unix compatibility. If each contributor can write a compatible replacement
for a single Unix utility, and make it work properly in place of the original on a
Unix system, then these utilities will work right when put together. Even allowing
for Murphy to create a few unexpected problems, assembling these components will be
a feasible task. (The kernel will require closer communication and will be worked on
by a small, tight group.)

If I get donations of money, I may be able to hire a few people full or part time.
The salary won't be high by programmers' standards, but I'm looking for people for
whom building community spirit is as important as making money. I view this as a way
of enabling dedicated people to devote their full energies to working on GNU by sparing
them the need to make a living in another way.

Why All Computer Users Will Benefit

Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free,
just like air [3].

This means much more than just saving everyone the price of a Unix license. It means
that much wasteful duplication of system programming effort will be avoided. This
effort can go instead into advancing the state of the art.

Complete system sources will be available to everyone. As a result, a user who needs
changes in the system will always be free to make them himself, or hire any available
programmer or company to make them for him. Users will no longer be at the mercy of one
programmer or company which owns the sources and is in sole position to make changes.

Schools will be able to provide a much more educational environment by encouraging all
students to study and improve the system code. Harvard's computer lab used to have the
policy that no program could be installed on the system if its sources were not on
public display, and upheld it by actually refusing to install certain programs. I was
very much inspired by this.

Finally, the overhead of considering who owns the system software and what one is
or is not entitled to do with it will be lifted.

Arrangements to make people pay for using a program, including licensing of copies,
always incur a tremendous cost to society through the cumbersome mechanisms necessary
to figure out how much (that is, which programs) a person must pay for. And only a
police state can force everyone to obey them. Consider a space station where air must
be manufactured at great cost: charging each breather per liter of air may be fair,
but wearing the metered gas mask all day and all night is intolerable even if everyone
can afford to pay the air bill. And the TV cameras everywhere to see if you ever take
the mask off are outrageous. It's better to support the air plant with a head tax and
chuck the masks.

Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as breathing, and as
productive. It ought to be as free.

Some Easily Rebutted Objections to GNU's Goals

"Nobody will use it if it is free, because that means they can't rely on any support."
"You have to charge for the program to pay for providing the support."

  If people would rather pay for GNU plus service than get GNU free without service,
  a company to provide just service to people who have obtained GNU free ought to
  be profitable [4].

  We must distinguish between support in the form of real programming work and mere
  handholding. The former is something one cannot rely on from a software vendor.
  If your problem is not shared by enough people, the vendor will tell you to get lost.

  If your business needs to be able to rely on support, the only way is to have all
  the necessary sources and tools. Then you can hire any available person to fix your
  problem; you are not at the mercy of any individual. With Unix, the price of sources
  puts this out of consideration for most businesses. With GNU this will be easy. It
  is still possible for there to be no available competent person, but this problem
  cannot be blamed on distribution arrangements. GNU does not eliminate all the world's
  problems, only some of them.

  Meanwhile, the users who know nothing about computers need handholding: doing things
  for them which they could easily do themselves but don't know how.

  Such services could be provided by companies that sell just handholding and repair
  service. If it is true that users would rather spend money and get a product with
  service, they will also be willing to buy the service having got the product free.
  The service companies will compete in quality and price; users will not be tied to
  any particular one. Meanwhile, those of us who don't need the service should be
  able to use the program without paying for the service.

"You cannot reach many people without advertising, and you must charge for the program
to support that."
"It's no use advertising a program people can get free."

  There are various forms of free or very cheap publicity that can be used to inform
  numbers of computer users about something like GNU. But it may be true that one can
  reach more microcomputer users with advertising. If this is really so, a business
  which advertises the service of copying and mailing GNU for a fee ought to be
  successful enough to pay for its advertising and more. This way, only the users
  who benefit from the advertising pay for it.

  On the other hand, if many people get GNU from their friends, and such companies
  don't succeed, this will show that advertising was not really necessary to spread
  GNU. Why is it that free market advocates don't want to let the free market decide
  this? [5]

"My company needs a proprietary operating system to get a competitive edge."

  GNU will remove operating system software from the realm of competition. You will
  not be able to get an edge in this area, but neither will your competitors be able
  to get an edge over you. You and they will compete in other areas, while benefiting
  mutually in this one. If your business is selling an operating system, you will
  not like GNU, but that's tough on you. If your business is something else, GNU
  can save you from being pushed into the expensive business of selling operating
  systems.

  I would like to see GNU development supported by gifts from many manufacturers
  and users, reducing the cost to each [6].

"Don't programmers deserve a reward for their creativity?"

  If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution. Creativity can be a social
  contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. If programmers
  deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they
  deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs.

"Shouldn't a programmer be able to ask for a reward for his creativity?"

  There is nothing wrong with wanting pay for work, or seeking to maximize one's
  income, as long as one does not use means that are destructive. But the means
  customary in the field of software today are based on destruction.

  Extracting money from users of a program by restricting their use of it is destructive
  because the restrictions reduce the amount and the ways that the program can be
  used. This reduces the amount of wealth that humanity derives from the program.
  When there is a deliberate choice to restrict, the harmful consequences are deliberate
  destruction.

  The reason a good citizen does not use such destructive means to become wealthier
  is that, if everyone did so, we would all become poorer from the mutual destructiveness.
  This is Kantian ethics; or, the Golden Rule. Since I do not like the consequences
  that result if everyone hoards information, I am required to consider it wrong for
  one to do so. Specifically, the desire to be rewarded for one's creativity does not
  justify depriving the world in general of all or part of that creativity.

"Won't programmers starve?"

  I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us cannot manage
  to get any money for standing on the street and making faces. But we are not, as
  a result, condemned to spend our lives standing on the street making faces, and
  starving. We do something else.

  But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner's implicit assumption:
  that without ownership of software, programmers cannot possibly be paid a cent.
  Supposedly it is all or nothing.

  The real reason programmers will not starve is that it will still be possible for
  them to get paid for programming; just not paid as much as now.

  Restricting copying is not the only basis for business in software. It is the most
  common basis [7] because it brings in the most money. If it were prohibited, or
  rejected by the customer, software business would move to other bases of organization
  which are now used less often. There are always numerous ways to organize any kind
  of business.

  Probably programming will not be as lucrative on the new basis as it is now. But
  that is not an argument against the change. It is not considered an injustice that
  sales clerks make the salaries that they now do. If programmers made the same, that
  would not be an injustice either. (In practice they would still make considerably
  more than that.)

"Don't people have a right to control how their creativity is used?"

  "Control over the use of one's ideas" really constitutes control over other people's
  lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.

  People who have studied the issue of intellectual property rights [8] carefully
  (such as lawyers) say that there is no intrinsic right to intellectual property.
  The kinds of supposed intellectual property rights that the government recognizes
  were created by specific acts of legislation for specific purposes.

  For example, the patent system was established to encourage inventors to disclose
  the details of their inventions. Its purpose was to help society rather than to help
  inventors. At the time, the life span of 17 years for a patent was short compared
  with the rate of advance of the state of the art. Since patents are an issue only
  among manufacturers, for whom the cost and effort of a license agreement are small
  compared with setting up production, the patents often do not do much harm. They do
  not obstruct most individuals who use patented products.

  The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied
  other authors at length in works of nonfiction. This practice was useful, and is
  the only way many authors' works have survived even in part. The copyright system
  was created expressly for the purpose of encouraging authorship. In the domain for
  which it was invented -- books, which could be copied economically only on a printing
  press -- it did little harm, and did not obstruct most of the individuals who read
  the books.

  All intellectual property rights are just licenses granted by society because it was
  thought, rightly or wrongly, that society as a whole would benefit by granting them.
  But in any particular situation, we have to ask: are we really better off granting
  such license? What kind of act are we licensing a person to do?

  The case of programs today is very different from that of books a hundred years ago.
  The fact that the easiest way to copy a program is from one neighbor to another, the
  fact that a program has both source code and object code which are distinct, and the
  fact that a program is used rather than read and enjoyed, combine to create a
  situation in which a person who enforces a copyright is harming society as a whole
  both materially and spiritually; in which a person should not do so regardless of
  whether the law enables him to.

"Competition makes things get done better."

  The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone
  to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its
  defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way. If the runners forget
  why the reward is offered and become intent on winning, no matter how, they may
  find other strategies -- such as, attacking other runners. If the runners get into
  a fist fight, they will all finish late.

  Proprietary and secret software is the moral equivalent of runners in a fist fight.
  Sad to say, the only referee we've got does not seem to object to fights; he just
  regulates them ("For every ten yards you run, you can fire one shot"). He really
  ought to break them up, and penalize runners for even trying to fight.

"Won't everyone stop programming without a monetary incentive?"

  Actually, many people will program with absolutely no monetary incentive. Programming
  has an irresistible fascination for some people, usually the people who are best
  at it. There is no shortage of professional musicians who keep at it even though
  they have no hope of making a living that way.

  But really this question, though commonly asked, is not appropriate to the situation.
  Pay for programmers will not disappear, only become less. So the right question is,
  will anyone program with a reduced monetary incentive? My experience shows that
  they will.

  For more than ten years, many of the world's best programmers worked at the Artificial
  Intelligence Lab for far less money than they could have had anywhere else. They
  got many kinds of nonmonetary rewards: fame and appreciation, for example. And
  creativity is also fun, a reward in itself.

  Then most of them left when offered a chance to do the same interesting work for a
  lot of money.

  What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but
  if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand
  it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but
  they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned.

"We need the programmers desperately. If they demand that we stop helping our neighbors,
we have to obey."

  You're never so desperate that you have to obey this sort of demand. Remember: millions
  for defense, but not a cent for tribute!

"Programmers need to make a living somehow."

  In the short run, this is true. However, there are plenty of ways that programmers
  could make a living without selling the right to use a program. This way is customary
  now because it brings programmers and businessmen the most money, not because it is
  the only way to make a living. It is easy to find other ways if you want to find
  them. Here are a number of examples.

  A manufacturer introducing a new computer will pay for the porting of operating
  systems onto the new hardware.

  The sale of teaching, handholding and maintenance services could also employ
  programmers.

  People with new ideas could distribute programs as freeware [9], asking for donations
  from satisfied users, or selling handholding services. I have met people who are
  already working this way successfully.

  Users with related needs can form users' groups, and pay dues. A group would contract
  with programming companies to write programs that the group's members would like
  to use.

  All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax:

  Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the price as a software
  tax. The government gives this to an agency like the NSF to spend on software development.

  But if the computer buyer makes a donation to software development himself, he can
  take a credit against the tax. He can donate to the project of his own choosing --
  often, chosen because he hopes to use the results when it is done. He can take a
  credit for any amount of donation up to the total tax he had to pay.

  The total tax rate could be decided by a vote of the payers of the tax, weighted
  according to the amount they will be taxed on.

  The consequences:

  * The computer-using community supports software development.
  * This community decides what level of support is needed.
  * Users who care which projects their share is spent on can choose this for
  themselves.

                                      - - -

In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the postscarcity world, where
nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote
themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary
ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair
and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able to make a living from
programming.

We have already greatly reduced the amount of work that the whole society must do for
its actual productivity, but only a little of this has translated itself into leisure
for workers because much nonproductive activity is required to accompany productive
activity. The main causes of this are bureaucracy and isometric struggles against
competition. Free software will greatly reduce these drains in the area of software
production. We must do this, in order for technical gains in productivity to translate
into less work for us.

Footnotes

1. The wording here was careless. The intention was that nobody would have to pay
   for permission to use the GNU system. But the words don't make this clear, and
   people often interpret them as saying that copies of GNU should always be distributed
   at little or no charge. That was never the intent; later on, the manifesto mentions
   the possibility of companies providing the service of distribution for a profit.
   Subsequently I have learned to distinguish carefully between "free" in the sense
   of freedom and "free" in the sense of price. Free software is software that users
   have the freedom to distribute and change. Some users may obtain copies at no charge,
   while others pay to obtain copies -- and if the funds help support improving the
   software, so much the better. The important thing is that everyone who has a copy
   has the freedom to cooperate with others in using it.

2. The expression "give away" is another indication that I had not yet clearly separated
   the issue of price from that of freedom. We now recommend avoiding this expression
   when talking about free software. See "Confusing Words and Phrases" for more explanation.

3. This is another place I failed to distinguish carefully between the two different
   meanings of "free." The statement as it stands is not false -- you can get copies
   of GNU software at no charge, from your friends or over the net. But it does suggest
   the wrong idea.

4. Several such companies now exist.

5. Although it is a charity rather than a company, the Free Software Foundation for
   10 years raised most of its funds from its distribution service. You can order
   things from the FSF to support its work.

6. A group of computer companies pooled funds around 1991 to support maintenance of
   the GNU C Compiler.

7. I think I was mistaken in saying that proprietary software was the most common basis
   for making money in software. It seems that actually the most common business model
   was and is development of custom software. That does not offer the possibility of
   collecting rents, so the business has to keep doing real work in order to keep
   getting income. The custom software business would continue to exist, more or less
   unchanged, in a free software world. Therefore, I no longer expect that most paid
   programmers would earn less in a free software world.

8. In the 1980s I had not yet realized how confusing it was to speak of "the issue"
   of "intellectual property." That term is obviously biased; more subtle is the fact
   that it lumps together various disparate laws which raise very different issues.
   Nowadays I urge people to reject the term "intellectual property" entirely, lest
   it lead others to suppose that those laws form one coherent issue. The way to be
   clear is to discuss patents, copyrights, and trademarks separately. See further
   explanation of how this term spreads confusion and bias.

9. Subsequently we learned to distinguish between "free software" and "freeware."
   The term "freeware" means software you are free to redistribute, but usually you
   are not free to study and change the source code, so most of it is not free software.
   See "Confusing Words and Phrases" for more explanation.

Copyright (c) 1985, 1993, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2014 Free Software
Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
of this document, in any medium, provided that the copyright notice and permission
notice are preserved, and that the distributor grants the recipient permission for
further redistribution as permitted by this notice.

Modified versions may not be made.

Source: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html