Free Software and Open Knowledge

In the late 1970s, MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory had a problem. Their only printer suffered from frequent paper jams! As a solution, a scientist in the group named Richard M. Stallman made a modification to the code of the printer, so that it sent a notification to users whenever their print failed. This solution remained in usage until 1980.

In 1980, the laboratory acquired a brand new Xerox laser printer. However, when Stallman asked Xerox for the source code so he could implement his fix again, Xerox refused and told him their software was proprietary. Moreover, when Stallman asked the source code from a fellow researcher in Carnegie Mellon University who had previously acquired it for research, his friend refused him as well because of legal necessities, citing a non-disclosure agreement he made with Xerox. Stallman recalls:

Now, this was my first, direct encounter with a non-disclosure agreement, and it taught me an important lesson — a lesson that’s important because most programmers never learn it. You see, this was my first encounter with a non-disclosure agreement, and I was the victim. I, and my whole lab, were the victims. And the lesson it taught me was that non-disclosure agreements have victims. They’re not innocent. They’re not harmless. ¹

This experience and others like it prompted Stallman to launch the GNU Project in 1983 and found the Free Software Foundation in 1985.

As the name implies, our community buFOSS was born out of similar concerns as Stallman’s and also believes in free software and open knowledge. This section of the guidebook details what free software and open knowledge are, why they are important, and how they’re exercised.

1. Stallman’s speech on 29 May 2001 at New York University. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt ↩