Free as in Freedom

Free as in Freedom
Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software.

By

4.3333333333333
(3 Reviews)
Free as in Freedom by Sam Williams

Published:

2002

Pages:

268

ISBN:

0596002874

Downloads:

7,464

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Free as in Freedom
Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software.

By

4.3333333333333
(3 Reviews)
copyright (c) 2002 Sam Williams. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

Book Excerpt

red up a major gap in its software infrastructure. Stallman even added a few features not found in the original Harvard program, making the program even more useful. "We wound up using it for several years," Stallman says.

From the perspective of a 1970s-era programmer, the transaction was the software equivalent of a neighbor stopping by to borrow a power tool or a cup of sugar from a neighbor. The only difference was that in borrowing a copy of the software for the AI Lab, Stallman had done nothing to deprive Harvard hackers the use of their original program. If anything, Harvard hackers gained in the process, because Stallman had introduced his own additional features to the program, features that hackers at Harvard were perfectly free to borrow in return. Although nobody at Harvard ever came over to borrow the program back, Stallman does recall a programmer at the private engineering firm, Bolt, Beranek & Newman, borrowing the program and adding a few additional features, which Stallman eventua

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