
<title>BYTE Interview with Richard Stallman
- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
<!--#include virtual="/gnu/po/byte-interview.translist" -->
<h2>BYTE Interview with Richard Stallman</h2>

<p>Conducted by David Betz and Jon Edwards</p>

<h3>Richard Stallman discusses his public-domain Unix-compatible
                    software system with BYTE editors (July 1986) </h3>

<p>Richard Stallman has undertaken probably the most ambitious free
software development project to date, the GNU system.  In his GNU
Manifesto, published in the March 1985 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal,
Stallman described GNU as a “complete Unix-compatible software
who can use it…  Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to
obtain good system software free, just like air.” (GNU is an
acronym for GNU's Not Unix; the “G” is pronounced.)</p>

<p>Stallman is widely known as the author of EMACS, a powerful text
editor that he developed at the <abbr title="Massachusetts Institute
of Technology">MIT</abbr> Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.  It is
no coincidence that the first piece of software produced as part of
the GNU project was a new implementation of EMACS.  GNU EMACS has
already achieved a reputation as one of the best implementations of
EMACS currently available at any price.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: We read your GNU Manifesto in the March 1985
issue of Dr. Dobb's.  What has happened since?  Was that really the
beginning, and how have you progressed since then?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: The publication in Dr. Dobb's wasn't the beginning of the
nearly finished the optimizing C compiler and all the other software that
that has many features that the other source-level debuggers on Unix don't
printed out, making it tremendously easier to chase around list structures.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: You have finished an editor that is now widely distributed and you
are about to finish the compiler.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: I expect that it will be finished this October.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: What about the kernel?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: I'm currently planning to start with the kernel that was written
at <abbr>MIT</abbr> and was released to the public recently with the idea that I would
still need to add compatibility for a lot of the features of Unix which it
scheme to reconcile version numbers with the way people usually use Unix.
these both need to work with ordinary Unix programs that have not been
really does the job.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Do you have a brief description you can give us as to how GNU as a
to produce something that is compatible with Unix.  But at least in the area
of file systems you have already said that you are going to go beyond Unix
and produce something that is better.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: The C compiler will produce better code and run faster.  The
getting the benefit of reimplementation, which makes many systems much
characters appearing in them.  The Unix system is very bad in that regard.
It's not anything new as a principle of software engineering that you
writing Unix to put those in all the time, possibly just because they were
data and there is no place to keep it all.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: And that isn't likely to be hit if you've got virtual memory.  You may
just take forever to come up with the solution.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: Actually these limits tend to hit in a time long before you take
forever to come up with the solution.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Can you say something about what types of machines and environments
VAXes; has it migrated in any form to personal computers?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: I'm not sure what you mean by personal computers.  For example, is
compilers, almost any machine with virtual memory and running a fairly
recent version of Unix will run GNU EMACS, and most of them currently do.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Has anyone tried to port it to Ataris or Macintoshes?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: The Atari 1040ST still doesn't have quite enough memory.  The next
additional challenge of making it run in the currently constrained
to put in virtual memory; I think it is totally essential.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: I think people don't really view it as being necessary for
single-user machines.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: They don't understand that single user doesn't mean single
program.  Certainly for any Unix-like system it's important to be able to
memory, but you couldn't run the rest of the GNU system very well or a Unix
system very well.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: How much of LISP is present in GNU EMACS?  It occurred to me that it
may be useful to use that as a tool for learning LISP.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: You can certainly do that.  GNU EMACS contains a complete,
things that LISP needs to have.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Do you have any predictions about when you would be likely to
workstations, we could actually get reasonable work done without using
anything other than code that you distribute?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: It's really hard to say.  That could happen in a year, but of
thought I wouldn't have to do that at all.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Tell us about your distribution scheme.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: I don't put software or manuals in the public domain, and the
they'll make them free.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: And how do you go about guaranteeing that?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: I do this by copyrighting the programs and putting on a notice
giving people explicit permission to copy the programs and change them but
of my programs—you can just do it for yourself, and you don't have to give
have to do it under the same terms that I use.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Do you obtain any rights over the executable code derived from the C

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: The copyright law doesn't give me copyright on output from the
stop them from developing them with this compiler, so I am not going to.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Do your restrictions apply if people take pieces of your code to
produce other things as well?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: Yes, if they incorporate with changes any sizable piece.  If it
when he distributes software encourages other people to share it further.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: In a sense you are enticing people into this mode of thinking by
buy into your philosophy.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: Yes.  You could also see it as using the legal system that
public from them.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Given that manufacturers haven't wanted to fund the project, who do
you think will use the GNU system when it is done?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: I have no idea, but it is not an important question.  My purpose
person who perceives the unpleasantness of the terms of proprietary
computer.  Well, I am going to give him a comfortable alternative.</p>

<p>Other people may use the GNU system simply because it is technically

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Then it is fairly important to you that people adopt GNU.  It is not
people.  You hope it will change the way the software industry operates.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: Yes.  Some people say no one will ever use it because it doesn't
so this is what I have to do.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Can you address the implications?  You obviously feel that this is an
important political and social statement.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: It is a change.  I'm trying to change the way people approach
people get rewards for writing free software and for encouraging other
proprietary software because that is not really a contribution to society.
producing things and thereby are encouraged to do what is useful,
information is different from material objects like cars and loaves of
can't just put your loaf of bread into a bread copier.  You can't make
copy it—it's impossible.</p>

<p>Books were printed only on printing presses until recently.  It was
was forbidden by copyright.</p>

<p>But this isn't true for computer programs.  It's also not true for
made copyright harmless and acceptable is changing to a situation
where copyright will become destructive and intolerable.  So the
people who are slandered as “pirates” are in fact the
people who are trying to do something useful that they have been
forbidden to do.  The copyright laws are entirely designed to help
people take complete control over the use of some information for
make sure that the information is accessible to the public and stop
others from depriving the public.  I think that the law should
about it.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: But aren't pirates interested in getting copies of programs because
knowledge to produce something better?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: I don't see that that's the important distinction.  More people
have a loaf of bread that could be eaten either once or a million times.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Some users buy commercial software to obtain support.  How does your
distribution scheme provide support?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: I suspect that those users are misled and are not thinking
the software being proprietary, at that point they are confusing
themselves.  There is no guarantee that proprietary software will receive
support that consists of my fixing bugs people report to me and
names and phone numbers and what they charge to provide support.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Do you collect their bug fixes?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: Well, they send them to me.  I asked all the people who wanted to
GNU software as part of that support.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: So you can't have people competing to provide support based on their
knowing the solution to some problem that somebody else doesn't know.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: No.  They can compete based on their being clever and more likely
but they cannot actively impede their competitors.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: I suppose it's like buying a car.  You're not forced to go back to the
original manufacturer for support or continued maintenance.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: Or buying a house—what would it be like if the only person who
originally?  That is the kind of imposition that's involved in proprietary
software.  People tell me about a problem that happens in Unix.  Because
manufacturers sell improved versions of Unix, they tend to collect fixes
really get fixed.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: They're all duplicating effort trying to solve bugs independently.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: Yes.  Here is another point that helps put the problem of
proprietary information in a social perspective.  Think about the liability
stupid and inefficient way of helping out people who are victims of
in large cardboard packages that cost more than the pen—just to make sure
will become more and more important and will ultimately make the difference
much time replicating what the next fellow is doing.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Like typing in copyright notices on the software.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: More like policing everyone to make sure that they don't have
forbidden copies of anything and duplicating all the work people have
already done because it is proprietary.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: A cynic might wonder how you earn your living.</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: From consulting.  When I do consulting, I always reserve the right
making a living by consulting I think that's the best way.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: What is currently included in the official GNU distribution tape?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: Right now the tape contains GNU EMACS
(one version fits all computers); Bison, a program that
replaces <acronym title="Yet Another Compiler
Compiler">YACC</acronym>; <abbr>MIT</abbr> Scheme, which is Professor
Sussman's super-simplified dialect of LISP; and Hack, a
dungeon-exploring game similar to Rogue.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: Does the printed manual come with the tape as well?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: No.  Printed manuals cost $15 each or copy them yourself.  Copy
this interview and share it, too.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: How can you get a copy of that?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: Write to the Free Software Foundation, 675 Massachusetts Ave.,
Cambridge, MA 02139.</p>

<p>[The current address (since 2005) is:
     Free Software Foundation
     51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor
     Boston, MA  02110-1301,  USA
     Voice:  +1-617-542-5942
     Fax:    +1-617-542-2652]

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: What are you going to do when you are done with the GNU system?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: I'm not sure.  Sometimes I think that what I'll go on to do is the
same thing in other areas of software.</p>

<p><strong>BYTE</strong>: So this is just the first of a whole series of assaults on the
software industry?</p>

<p><strong>Stallman</strong>: I hope so.  But perhaps what I'll do is just live a life of ease
around with or learn to do things that I don't know how to do.</p>

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<p class="unprintable">Updated:
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$Date: 2014/11/28 22:00:23 $
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