Richard Stallman
1953–
“I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.”
This is, famously, a meme. It is also completely correct.
The Four Freedoms
In 1983, Stallman announced the GNU Project and began writing a free Unix-compatible operating system from scratch. In 1985, he wrote the GNU Manifesto. From this came the definition of free software — four freedoms that must be preserved:
- The freedom to run the program as you wish.
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it.
- The freedom to redistribute copies.
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions.
Free as in freedom, not as in beer. The distinction matters because software that you cannot study, modify, or share is software that controls you. You use it on the vendor’s terms, for the vendor’s purposes, for as long as the vendor permits.
Copyleft
The mechanism Stallman invented to protect these freedoms is copyleft: the GPL (GNU General Public License). It uses copyright law against itself. You can use and modify GPL software freely — but any distribution of a modified version must also be GPL. Freedom propagates. You cannot take a commons and enclose it.
This is the legal architecture that made Linux and most of the internet’s infrastructure possible.
Why the Naming Pedantry Is Right
The insistence on “GNU/Linux” looks like pettiness. It isn’t. If you call the system “Linux,” you erase the political project that made it possible — the years of GNU tools, the GPL that prevented enclosure, the philosophy that software freedom is a prerequisite for other freedoms. “Linux” sounds like a tech story. “GNU/Linux” is a story about autonomy.
Key Works
- GNU Manifesto (1985) — the founding document
- Free Software, Free Society (2002) — collected essays
- GPL v2 (1991), GPL v3 (2007) — the legal architecture
Connections
- free-software-movement — the tradition he founded
- appropriate-technology — software freedom as appropriate technology
- conviviality — the GPL as a convivial legal structure
- Vitalik Buterin — descendant tradition, different mechanisms
- Robin Sloan — home-cooked software only possible because of free tools
“Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech,’ not as in ‘free beer.‘”