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\markright{\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\Richard Stallman: The Organizer
  Of Free Software} 
\author{Feng Liu\\\\\\\\Academic Writing\\\\\\Nancy
  Chislett} 
\date{November 24, 2007}
\title{Richard Stallman:\\The  Organizer Of Free Software}
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\begin{abstract}
  The Internet has became a most important part of our life
  today. Free software had colonized most hosts which have
  served us for a long time. It was Richard Stallman who
  created the word ``free software'' and who spread the idea
  of making software free. Today, we can say without Richard
  Stallman, the Internet may never be able to work as well
  as what it is like today. The free software movement also
  helped lots of students to learn software effectively.
  These are the reasons why Richard Stallman is so
  significant in the field of software.
\end{abstract}

\section{Introduction}

The Internet has became a most important part of our life
today. Yet free softwares works as the bases of the
Internet. For instance, a statistic from Netcraft Inc.
\cite{netcrafthttp}, showed the record of the widely-used
http server software on the Internet, from August 1995 to
November 2007, there were about 68,155,320 (47.73\%) hosts
who ran a free http server software named Apache. Only about
53,017,735 (37.13\%) hosts runs a commercial http server
software from Microsoft.

One of the most important factors which led to the success
of the Internet was the contribution from the Free Software
Foundation, a non-commercial group founded by Richard
Stallman. Stallman, as one of the most honorable ``heroes''
in the discipline of non-commercial software, created the
definition of free software and the law for protecting free
softwares. His work did not only made the Internet better,
but also improved the development of software.

\section{Free Software}

To understand what Stallman has done, we must understand the
definition of the term ``Free Software''. Free software is
the software which is published under the protection of the
GNU General Public License. The term ``free'' doesn't mean
``free of charge'', but means users have some freedoms.
According to Stallman~\cite{freesoftwaredef}, users have
rights(1) to run the program, for any purpose; (2) to study
how the program works, and adapt it to [their] needs; (3) to
redistribute copies; (4) to improve the program, and release
[their] improvements to the public~(Stallman, 2002, p. 49). The
term ``Free Software'' was created by Richard Stallman.

\section{A breaf history of software developing}

When Richard Stallman worked at the Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory of MIT\footnote{also been called MIT's AI Lab.},
the whole field of computer science believed in a
``hacker\footnote{the term ``hacker'' here means persons who
  are very interested in computer and play with the computer
  programs. It has no relationship to the term ``hacker''
  used by the popular media which means persons who crack
  the security system.}'' culture. Being affected by this
culture, programmers did development work just for fun. They
shared the source codes of software so others could learn
from the source codes and easily fix the mistakes in the
software and add some new functions. Naturally, people who
made any invention or innovation to a software would be very
happy to publish their achievement to the public.

Later, being impacted by the commercialization, a lot of
people from the MIT's AI Lab left the laboratory to cash in
their knowledge for money. But they still published software
with source codes. In early 1982, some of those people
started to publish their softwares without source codes for
more profit.

Stallman liked the earlier mode, which meant earning money
while contributing to society. He was very angry at the guys
who didn't share their codes. As Raymond~\cite{raymond2000}
said, ``It's around this time that Levy wrote
\emph{Hackers}. One of his prime informants was Richard M.
Stallman (inventor of EMACS), a leading figure at the Lab
and its most fanatical holdout against the commercialization
of Lab technology''~(Raymond, 2000).

Stallman wanted to convert the situation. He started the
Free Software Foundation. What he wanted was to develop a
bunch of free software to substitute for the commercial
softwares. He really had the talent of software developing.
His products were much better than products from commercial
companies. All of the Linux Operating Systems and some of
the free UNIX Operating Systems distributions today contain
the tools from Free Software Foundation.

\section{Stallman's work developed the Internet}

When the American government built the Internet, a big
problem was the communication between machines. Because they
couldn't rely on a single computer provider, they bought
different models of computers. But at that time, different
computers had different operating systems. Then the solution
they got was to use a hardware-independent operating system.
According to McKusick's~(1999) article~\cite{mckusick1999}:
\begin{spacing}{1.0}
\begin{quotation}
  Choosing a single hardware vendor was impractical because
  of the widely varying computing needs of the research
  groups and the undesirability of depending on a single
  manufacturer. Thus, the planners at DARPA decided that the
  best solution was to unify at the operating systems level.
  After much discussion, Unix was chosen as a standard
  because of its proven portability.
\end{quotation}
\end{spacing}
After that, UNIX had been the most important operating
system on the Internet and became a monopoly. In 1980s, the
price of UNIX was \$43,000.

That harmed the benefit of users. Stallman used the free
software to fight against the monopoly. The Free Software
Foundation, combined lots of hackers around the world,
developed an operating system named Linux. Linux was
compatible with UNIX, and even better. According to
Stallman~(2002)~\cite{gnumanifesto}, ``We will make all
improvements that are convenient, based on our experience
with other operating systems. In particular, we plan to have
longer file names, file version numbers, a crashproof file
system, file name completion perhaps, terminal-independent
display support, and perhaps eventually a Lisp-based window
system through which several Lisp programs and ordinary Unix
programs can share a screen''~(p. 33).

Since Linux was free software, people who wanted to build
their site on the Internet would choose Linux rather than
UNIX. Also because Linux was much cheaper, there was more
people who were able to build their sites. That was a very
important reason why we had such a large amount of resources
on the Internet. Linux is just one of the examples of free
software. Actually, there are thousands of free software
now. A lot of them are the indispensable tools for building
a website.

\section{Stallman's work improved the development of
  software}

Stallman didn't only use GNU GPL to protect the softwares he
wrote. He advertised the idea of sharing the softwares to
the public. Stallman believed to open the secret in software
was the best way to improve software. First, if there are
any mistakes in the software, other programmers can easily
repair it if they have the source code. Second, students are
much easier to learn the principle of softwares. To practice
is a much effective way to learn software than just reading
books.

Someone didn't believe there were people who were willing to
help to make the free software better. In the book
\emph{Hackers: Heroes Of The Computer Revolution}, Levy
(2001)~\cite{levy2001} even said Richard Stallman was the
last true hacker. But he was wrong. Stallman
(2002)~\cite{gnumanifesto} said many programmers were
unhappy about the commercialization of system software since
it made them feel in conflict with other programmers~
(Stallman, 2002, p.35). And Stallman had found a lot of
programmers to help him to make the free software better.

Some people are afraid that other companies may get the
source code and make some changes then sell the software as
their own work. Stallman's GNU GPL solved this problem
perfectly. The whole things was a law document named GNU
General Public License\footnote{also known as GNU GPL}. This
document defines the meaning of free software and the rights
and the responsibilities of people who write and use free
softwares. GNU GPL set the seal on the basics of free
software today.

\section{Conclusion}

Based on the factors we have talked about, we know Richard
Stallman helped developing the Internet developed, and
improved the development of software. He is really a
significant person in the field of software.

\newpage

%\bibliography{RMS}

\begin{thebibliography}{99}
\bibitem{netcrafthttp}Netcraft Inc.(2007), ``November 2007
  web server survey'', \texttt
  http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/11/23/november\_2007\_web\_server\_survey.html.

\bibitem{freesoftwaredef}Stallman R.(2002), ``Free software
  definition'', In \emph{Free software, free society:
    selected essays of Richard M. Stallman}, GNU Press,
  Boston, Massachusetts.

\bibitem{raymond2000}Raymond, E.(2000), ``A brief history of
  hackerdom'', \texttt
  http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/hacker-history/hacker-history.html

\bibitem{mckusick1999}McKusick, M.(1999), ``Twenty years of
  Berkeley Unix: From AT\&T-owned to freely
  redistributable'', In Chris DiBona, Sam Ockman, and Mark
  Stone~(Eds), \emph{Open Sources: Voices from the Open
    Source Revolution}, O'Reilly and Associates, Cambridge,
  Massachusetts

\bibitem{gnumanifesto}Stallman, R.(2002), ``Gnu manifesto'',
  In \emph{Free software, free society: selected essays
    of Richard M. Stallman}, GNU Press, Boston,
  Massachusetts

\bibitem{levy2001}Levy, S.(2001), \emph{Hackers: heroes
    of the computer revolution}, Penguin Books, New York
\end{thebibliography}


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