The day that changed the way we see software (1983)

http://www.gnu.org/gnu/initial-announcement.html

by skbohra123 • 16 years ago

69 12 16 years ago

Luyt• 16 years ago

Maybe he should have announced it as 'Freedom Unix'? That way 'free' wouldn't have been interpreted as in 'free beer' ;-)

hakl• 16 years ago

I think unfettered Unix sounds good.

kleiba• 16 years ago

Note that he addresses that concern in a footnote on the linked website.

jsankey• 16 years ago

I wonder how many people who read this at the time wrote it off as unrealistic. Although there are several stated goals that have still not been reached, the difference between the goals and reality are small in the scheme of things. (Much like the difference between any original plan and the outcome -- just usually plans are not of this scale!)

You have to hand it to the few that believed, and put in the work to reach critical mass...

a_wanderer• 16 years ago

He was referring to GNU/Hurd, of course..

pjscott• 16 years ago

And then his plans switched to GNU/Linux, which had much more success. What's the point of talking about this?

jcnnghm• 16 years ago

Looking back, this is probably one of the most important initiatives in the last 30 years, though I don't usually like Stallman. I've personally found more utility in the BSD and MIT licenses, but the GNU initiative really spawned the free software movement as a whole. It's interesting to think where we would be today if Linux and the GNU userland tools were never created. Would it have been possible to build something like Google without free software, or would it have gotten killed by licensing and vendor fees? In any case, Stallman really did change everything.

acqq• 16 years ago

Stallman made free Emacs, then free GCC. He hasn't managed to make the widely usable free kernel at the time, but he prepared everything but that, which made possible for GNU licensed Linux kernel to become the part of the whole free system. It's an immense feat.

Some other important dates:

March 1985 -- The GNU Manifesto http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html

22 Mar 87 -- first release of GCC http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/History

DougBTX• 16 years ago

Mobile sites which force horizontal scrolling annoy me. Perhaps I'll read this later.

Tichy• 16 years ago

"After this we will add [...] an Empire game"

Interesting - any idea how popular that game still is? Most popular version seems to be from http://www.wolfpackempire.com/ ?

I remember finding that site years ago, but it seemed too complicated to get into back then.

In this 15 minute guide it sounds more comprehensible: http://www.toger.us/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage...

Too bad it seems to require a lot of micromanagement, which is usually not to my taste.

Might be fun/worthwhile to create a JavaScript client?

wtracy• 16 years ago

It basically looks like the precursor to Civilization and friends.

narrator• 16 years ago

For the two most important dates in the history of software, I nominate:

September 26th 1983 : Faulty Soviet software almost ends the world.

September 27th 1983 : Gnu Project announced.

The day that changed the way we see software (1983)

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