The GNU project is a world-wide project created by Richard Stallman in early years of 80′ to promote softwares according to the Free Softwares Foundation philosophy.

Among it’s numerous productions, we can cite the very popular Emacs code editor, the Linux OS kernel and the mythic GCC (GNU C Compiler) used to build applications from the source code.

The documentary video we present in this article relates the story of the GNU-Linux system which is commonly called Linux by reference to Torvald Linus, the creator of the Linux kernel.

Watch the video:

The Code Linux (english)

Nom de code Linux (french)

However, we can object against the supposed huge contribution which is attributed to Linus in the “Linux phenomena”.

Verily, the role of Stallman and the FSF (Free Software Foundation) were strategic in the movements of Free Sofware and Open Source. It is sure that Linux wouldn’t have been free without them for these reasons :

  • Linus wasn’t inspired by the Free Software philosophy at the time he created the Linux kernel. He was about to put it under a proprietary/privative licence. The lobbying of some members of the FSF on Linus had a positive result for putting the Linux kernel inside the public domain (GNU Licence).
  • Linux kernel was compiled using the GCC which makes it automatically under the GNU Licence. So if Linus wanted to put it under a privative licence, it would have required from him to recompile his kernel sources with an other C compiler.
  • Linus was a great software developer, however, he wasn’t a great defender of the Free Software philosophy and is neither a convinced man in this path.
Indeed, it is a great mistake to think that Linus is the “God of Linux”, because Linux itself is only a piece of the GNU project on which everything is based. Too much people awarded him and forgot most of time the pioneers. It was one of the reasons that caused separations inside the free software community.

I propose know the reading of a book that I consider important to be read by every computer science students, by every developers and by every persons who are interested by matters of science and the question of the intellectual property :

Free Software, Free Society (pdf)

A french-written version of the book also exists :

Richard Stallman, la révolution du logiciel libre (pdf)

The benefits of reading this book are multiple :

  1. Understanding the contribution of the GNU Project to the humanity patrimony in 3 fields :
    • Free softwares.
    • World wide collaboration thrue the web.
    • Hackers ethic and knwoledge sharing.
  2. Putting in mind that computer sciences have great social implications which can be beneficial or problematic.
  3. Discovering a man’s life who, even if he present’s himself as an atheist, is a real believer, believing in virtuous ideas, believing in honesty against hypocrisy, believing in the common interest which is the best gardian of Freedom. He is a nephew of Moses and he is the Moses of the software, full of courage and patience. Doesn’t his look make us think to Moses ?
  4. Understanding the power of having goal oriented ideas implemented by goal oriented actions. This was one of the power engine of the FSF and his founder.
I will stop at this point. The only thing I can say know is that this book is so well written that I was reading it in some nights during more than 3 continuous hours !
I gave earlier in this article links to the pdf versions (english and french) of the book in order to have idea about it’s quality, however I really advice you to buy the paper version (even in the occasion/ second hand market), avoiding the inconvenient to read it on electronic screens and by the same way supporting the FSF
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“Science without conscience is the destruction of the soul.”
Rabelais. 
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