note for course 3 about RMS

syllabus/3_stallman_and_free_software.md

+# The Freedom of Richard Stallman
+
+The software paradigm was born on the concept of sharing knowledge. Being immaterial, you could not prevent scientists and engineers to exchange ideas and information. Who would like to prevent them anyway?
+
+UNIX was created and developed that way, most software were developed by sharing and copying. The computer industry was willing to encourage that fact as more software equated with more computers sold.
+
+Only a handful of developers were considering the strange idea that code should not be copied. Amongst them a young programmer called Bill Gates. Unlike many, Bill Gates had only a business vision of the software world. His father, a famous and rich lawyer, probably transmitted him his legalese and business ideology. With his partner Paul Allen, Bill Gates had developed a BASIC interpreter and was selling it through their company called Micro-Soft (two words at the time). It should be noted that they hired multiple programmers to help them at a time where the company didn’t seem to have clear revenue and without clear investments. The most obvious explanation is that the company probably had access to capital coming from the rich father of Bill Gates.
+
+In 1976, Bill Gates wrote "An Open Letter to Hobbyists" where he claimed that developing software cost time, money and that people should not steal software.
+
+Reactions were mitigated with Apple running an ad to tell that they were providing free software with their computer and the community of programmers, amongst theme Jim Warren, noting that it copying software make them more popular in the long term. He also noted that people were not trying to "steal" but that buying software was way harder than simply copying it from friends.
+
+This Open Letter to Hobbyists is an important landmark because it illustrates how common copying and sharing were. It also illustrates that a business oriented minority was trying to advertise a new ideology in which "sharing is stealing". Spoiler alert: they managed to make that ideology so successful that the "poor" Bill Gates became the richest man on earth only twenty years later and that, nowadays, lot of students and professor are afraid of sharing knowledge.
+
+While the Open Letter to Hobbyists was quickly dismissed, time were changing. AT&T was starting to try to get a grip on the UNIX trademark and copyright. In 1980, the United States Congress added computer software to the copyright code. In 1983, it was clarified that a computer software could be considered as litterary work and thus could not be copied or modified without the author’s consent. At that point, software vendors explained that they never sold their software but only an utilisation license, exactly like an editor doesn’t sell you the content of the book but only the right to read it. (TODO : Since when?).
+
+Oblivious to that trend, a programmer called Richard Stallman was happily hacking in the MIT artificial intelligence lab where he started in 1971. "Hacking" was the word they used at MIT to describe "solving a hard problem". The problem itself didn’t have to be serious. The spirit at the time was to make complex practical joke. Everything in life had to be considered as a problem to be solved with the most original solution. Sharing ideas was a strong part of that culture. As computer ressources were rare and expensive, it was seen as counter-productive to keep a computer sleeping. If a computer was locked in a room for the night, Richard Stallman and his fellow coworkers made it a mission to free it in order to run programs on it. Freeing computers involved lock picking, crawling in the ceilings. Having fun.
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+Richard Stallman was a true mathematician genius. (TODO: the grant story) But he had a hard time with social interactions. He found his call in front of a computer. Not only was he good with computers, he also had lot of nice social interactions with fellow computer geeks. He was happy.
+
+TODO : the LISP machine story
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+Everything comes to an end. One by one, Richard’s coworkers left for two big companies. They were doing exactly the same job as before but, suddenly, they could not share it. Both companies were in competitions to improve the product.
+
+Refusing to be hired to not share code, Richard started to implement all the features the companies developed without having access at their code. Alone, he managed to code as much as two dedicated teams.
+
+TODO : printer story
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+TODO : 4 freedoms/GNU project/implementing all Unix alone