Richard Stallman, Free Software, and 25 Years

In an article on TechRadar, the GNU founder and SourceForge supporter, Richard Stallman states his views of his now 25 year old program with GNU to help support and develop free software for all, his criteria for what he considers free software, and why Tivo sucks. (And that barely get the article going.)

What is surprising to me is that the bulk of some of we consider today to be free still comes with some proprietary software packaged in courtesy of NVIDIA and the likes for hardware and other needs. The proprietary bit of code comes with licenses, and handling the legal aspects alone while developing open source software can be difficult. Can Linux distros ever really compete and become popularized while competing in a market stacked against them? If it is up to Richard Stallman and people like Steven Fry, maybe.

Projects like OpenOffice are always helping the cause for free software, but the recent release of 3.0 was not as ground breaking as the release of Firefox 3.0. And While Android is carving a niche for itself in the cellphone world, there are still some people completely clueless to this “open source thing” that is finally starting to stumble awkwardly into the spotlight.

It is a bit old, but you can view a video of Steven Fry discussing the GNU project’s 25th anniversary here. (http://www.gnu.org/fry/)

25 years after Stallman first set the GNU project in motion, what have these ideals achieved, and what can we do to ensure the future of free software? Linux Format spoke to him to find out.

While Linux Torvalds gets most of the plaudits nowadays for the Linux kernel, it was Stallman who originally posted plans for a new, and free, operating system. Free had nothing to do with the cost of the operating system, but with the implicit rights of those who were using the software to do with it exactly as they pleased.