Richard Stallman wrote the piece “The GNU Manifesto” and in it he clarifies the distinction between GNU not being UNIX. Then he goes on to ask for help supporting GNU financially: “GNU, which stands for Gnu’s NOT Unix, is the name for the complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so that I can give it away free to everyone who can use it. Several other volunteers are helping me. Contributions of time, money, programs and equipment are greatly needed” (Stallman 1). This to me sounds confusing. If GNU is free software, than why is Stallman asking for money and equipment? I know it costs money to create software; however, I feel that Stallman should not have to come right out and say that he needs money and equipment to create GNU. If GNU is such a good idea, then the product should speak for itself. People would automatically want to invest in his product and he would not have to ask for the money. This is just my opinion.
In the film, Revolution OS, we saw the rise of some computer software companies that jumped on the bandwagon with the idea of GNU as free software. In addition to the rise of the computer software companies, some of them went out of business. Which makes you ask the question: is the idea of free software a really good idea? For the business that went out of business in the film I believe no. During the time that GNU was at its prime though, these companies made millions of dollars. So at the time GNU was a good idea. I guess the idea of free software is a hit or miss sort of thing. While it’s hot it’s hot and when it’s not it’s not.
Before I viewed the film Revolution OS and read the article “The GNU Manifesto” I had no idea that GNU was free software and what free software was about. I mean I heard of GNU before, but had no idea what is stood for. Now that I do know what GNU is and what free software is, does that mean that GNU is like some of the free download software such as LimeWire for instance? In society today the idea of something such as software being “free” or “shared” is looked down upon as something criminal and needs to be cracked down on. I believe this is the reason why so many GNU following software companies went out of business. Not to say that there are not any GNU software companies in existence today, but they are very few. Due to the constant changing in software it seems like every year, people have to constantly go out and re-buy software and this can become quite expensive. Maybe in the future, the solution for this will be making all software free and thus becoming the norm, but who’s to say. Just a thought.
Works Cited
Stallman, Richard. “The GNU Manifesto: GNU’s Not Unix-Free Software, Free Society.” 1985. 24 April 2007. <http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html>. 1.
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