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+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<!-- Parent-Version: 1.77 -->
+<title>15 Years of Free Software
+- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
+<meta http-equiv="Keywords"
+ content="GNU, FSF, Free Software Foundation, freedom, Richard Stallman, rms, free software movement" />
+<meta http-equiv="Description"
+ content="Richard Stallman discusses the history of the movement to develop a free operating system." />
+
+<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/15-years-of-free-software.translist" -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+
+<h2>15 Years of Free Software</h2>
+
+<p>
+ by <strong>Richard M. Stallman</strong>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ It is now just over 15 years since the beginning of the Free
+ Software Movement and the GNU Project. We have come a long way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ In 1984, it was impossible to use a modern computer without
+ installing a proprietary operating system, which you would have to
+ obtain under a restrictive license. No one was allowed to share
+ software freely with fellow computer users, and hardly anyone could
+ change software to fit his or her own needs. The owners of software
+ had erected walls to divide us from each other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ The GNU Project was founded to change all that. Its first goal: to
+ develop a Unix-compatible portable operating system that would be
+ 100% free software. Not 95% free, not 99.5%, but 100%&mdash;so that
+ users would be free to redistribute the whole system, and free to
+ change and contribute to any part of it. The name of the system,
+ GNU, is a recursive acronym meaning &ldquo;GNU's Not
+ Unix&rdquo;&mdash;a way of paying tribute to the technical ideas of
+ Unix, while at the same
+ time saying that GNU is something different. Technically, GNU is
+ like Unix. But unlike Unix, GNU gives its users freedom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ It took many years of work, by hundreds of programmers, to develop
+ this operating system. Some were paid by the Free Software
+ Foundation and by free software companies; most were volunteers. A
+ few have become famous; most are known mainly within their
+ profession, by other hackers who use or work on their code. All
+ together have helped to liberate the potential of the computer
+ network for all humanity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ In 1991, the last major essential component of a Unix-like system
+ was developed: Linux, the free kernel written by Linus
+ Torvalds. Today, the combination of GNU and Linux is used by
+ millions of people around the world, and its popularity is
+ growing. This month, we announced release 1.0 of
+ <abbr title="GNU Network Object Model Environment">GNOME</abbr>,
+ the GNU graphical desktop, which we hope will make the GNU/Linux
+ system as easy to use as any other operating system.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ But our freedom is not permanently assured. The world does not stand
+ still, and we cannot count on having freedom five years from now,
+ just because we have it today. Free software faces difficult
+ challenges and dangers. It will take determined efforts to preserve
+ our freedom, just as it took to obtain freedom in the first
+ place. Meanwhile, the operating system is just the
+ beginning&mdash;now we need to add free applications to handle the
+ whole range of jobs that users want to do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ In future columns, I will be writing about the specific challenges
+ facing the free software community, and other issues affecting
+ freedom for computer users, as well as developments affecting the
+ GNU/Linux operating system.
+</p>
+
+</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+<div id="footer">
+<div class="unprintable">
+
+<p>Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to
+<a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org">&lt;gnu@gnu.org&gt;</a>.
+There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
+the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
+to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org">&lt;webmasters@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+<p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph,
+ replace it with the translation of these two:
+
+ We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality
+ translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection.
+ Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard
+ to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org">
+ &lt;web-translators@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+ <p>For information on coordinating and submitting translations of
+ our web pages, see <a
+ href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+ README</a>. -->
+Please see the <a
+href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations
+of this article.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to
+ files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should
+ be under CC BY-ND 4.0. Please do NOT change or remove this
+ without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first.
+ Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the
+ document. For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the
+ document was modified, or published.
+
+ If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too.
+ Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying
+ years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable
+ year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including
+ being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system).
+
+ There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers
+ Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. -->
+
+<p>Copyright &copy; 1999, 2014, 2020 Richard M. Stallman</p>
+
+<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
+href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative
+Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
+
+<p class="unprintable">Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2020/07/01 14:25:15 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>