faif-2.0

Chapter 7
A Stark Moral Choice
On September 27, 1983, computer programmers logging on to the
Usenet newsgroup net.unix-wizards encountered an unusual message.
Posted in the small hours of the morning, 12:30 a.m. to be exact,
and signed by rms@mit-oz, the message’s subject line was terse but
attention-grabbing. “New UNIX implementation,” it read. Instead of
introducing a newly released version of Unix, however, the message’s
opening paragraph issued a call to arms:
Starting this Thanksgiving I am going to write a complete
Unix-compatible software system called GNU (for Gnu’s
Not Unix), and give it away free to everyone who can use
it. Contributions of time, money, programs and equipment
are greatly needed. 1
To an experienced Unix developer, the message was a mixture of
idealism and hubris. Not only did the author pledge to rebuild the
already mature Unix operating system from the ground up, he also
proposed to improve it in places. The new GNU system, the author
predicted, would carry all the usual components – a text editor, a shell
program to run Unix-compatible applications, a compiler, “and a few
other things.” 2 It would also contain many enticing features that other
Unix systems didn’t yet offer: a graphic user interface based on the
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