Bonum Certa Men Certa

Stephen Fry Explains GNU and Free Software

Note: This was recorded when GNU was turning 25. RMS is turning 70 later then year and then the GNU Manifesto turns 40.



Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

Transcript:



Computers. I‘ve loved them since I've been able to afford to have my own, back in the beginning of the modern home computer era, the 1980s. And I‘ve owned a large number of different kinds of computer and I‘ve expressed, publicly, loyalty to this kind or that kind. But recently my mind has turned, as many people‘s have, to this whole business of Free Software. There is a lot of confusion about what this means and I‘d like to help clear it up because this happens to be a year of celebration, and I want to help us all celebrate it and to look forward to the future of Free Software.

If you have - I don‘t know - plumbing in your house, it may be that you don‘t understand it, but you may have a friend who does and they may suggest you move a pipe here, a stopcock there, or a valve somewhere else. And you‘re not breaking the law by doing that, are you? Because it‘s your house and you own the plumbing. You can‘t do that with your computer. You can‘t actually fiddle with your operating system, and you certainly can‘t share any ideas you have about your operating system with other people because Apple and Microsoft, who run the two most popular operating systems, are very firm about that fact that they own that and no one else can have anything to do with it.

Now this may seem natural to you: “Why shouldn't they?” But actually, why can‘t you do with it what you like? And why can‘t the community, at large, alter, and improve, and share? That's how science works, after all... all knowledge is free, and all knowledge is shared in good science. If it isn't -- it's bad science and it's a kind of tyranny.

And this is, really, where it all started. A man called Richard Stallman, who decided 25 years ago, almost to this very day, to write a whole new operating system from the ground up. He called it GNU, which stands for “GNU is Not Unix” because it isn't. It is similar to Unix, in many ways, but every element of it, every module, every little section of the code (and it‘s a gigantic code because it's to run on many many platforms) is run by the community, is run by coders “out there” who are welcomed in to the GNU community, to help improve the software. Every “distro”, as they are called, every distribution of GNU, is tested, and worked upon, and refined by people whose only interest is in creating the perfect operating system that can be used across the spectrum of platforms and by as many users as possible.

Now, there came a time when the kernel, which is the central part of an operating system, needed to be written. And a man called Linus Torvalds, of whom you may have heard, wrote the kernel and it was named after his name, Linux (line-ucks) or Linux (Lin-ucks) as some people pronounce it. And Linux is the kernel that runs within GNU and I‘m here simply to remind you that GNU and Linux are the twin pillars of the Free Software community: people who believe, and this is the important part, that software should be Free, that the using community should be allowed to adapt it, and adopt it, to change it, to improve it, and to spread those improvements around the community, like science. That‘s basically what it is saying. In the same way that good scientists share everything and all knowledge is open and free, so it should be with an operating system.

So, if you‘re a supporter of GNU, if you‘re a supporter of Linux, and the Free Software Foundation, “Well, what can I do?”, you are probably wondering. The most obvious thing you can do is use a GNU/Linux operating system on your own computer. It‘s a lot easier than you might think. Go to gnu.org and see if you can find a distribution that suits you. Probably, if you like a good graphical user-interface, something like g-New-Sense, gNewSense. You'll see it there on gnu.org. Or, if you're a really smart cookie, you might want to do your own coding. You might want to contribute to the sum of knowledge that makes GNU and Linux what they are.

Either way, I hope you will join me in wishing GNU a very happy twenty-fifth birthday. Lets do that now actually...

So, “Happy birthday, GNU!” Twenty-five years old. The operating system of the future. Freedom!

Chocolaty good. The tastiest operating system in the world... and it‘s all free.

Recent Techrights' Posts

BASIC Predates Microsoft by Over a Decade, Microsoft-Controlled Sites Like The Register MS Don't Want You to Know This
The state of the media is really bad when it relies a lot on oligarchs' money and is appointing editors who are working for oligarchs
Brian Kernighan, "Only Third to Dennis Richie and Ken Thompson" (UNIX), Agreed With Someone Who Said Rust Was Just Hype, Should Not Replace C
17 hours ago
Reminder: Microsoft's "Secure Boot" Certificate for "Linux" Will be Expired in One Week
Many PCs won't manage to 'rotate' to another certificate
 
Genini Links 05/09/2025: Community, ROOPHLOCH, and PITkit
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Vaccine Sceptics Poison the Well, Two Exploited Vulnerabilities Patched in Android
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/09/2025: Logitech Lift and DIY Gemini Servers
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Sainsbury's Caught Spying on In-Store Shoppers and Microsoft "OpenAI is Using Legal Threats to Harass its Critics"
Links for the day
Analogies for "Memory Safety" in Rust
Don't worry, it's Rust! It can do anything!
"Many of the Red Hat Employees Are Still Looking for Work"
Shame on IBM's CEO
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 04, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 04, 2025
Microsoft Started With Code Literally From The Trash, Nothing Has Improved Since
The reality is, there are systems and code that are reliable. But they're not Microsoft's.
Hypothesis That New McKinsey/Microsoft Executive Inside Red Hat Will Outsource Research and Development Operations to India (Like They Do in IBM)
IBM is floundering
Slopwatch: Scams, Fake Articles About "Linux", Plagiarism, and Worse
Perhaps some time soon the LLMs or the "Big LLMs" will run out of money (to borrow) and go offline, leaving those slopfarms in a tough place
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Means of Production and Rusting Out
Links for the day
Links 04/09/2025: Science, Hardware, and Eyes on China
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Digital Minimalism and Social Control Media
Links for the day
IBM's GNU/Linux Divestment, Based on Hard But Anecdotal Evidence (IBM Fails to Recognise How Much Money It Made and Can Still Make From "Linux")
Love us or hate us, a lot of what we've been saying about Red Hat under IBM turns out to be rather accurate
Links 04/09/2025: Massive Microsoft Staff Cuts (Barely Reported), "Strange Conspiracy Theory Is Reportedly Spreading Inside OpenAI"
Links for the day
Activists Can Win, But Keep an Eye on the Ball and on the Trophy
GitHub is dying, it was a loss-making trap, not free hosting
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Katrina Remembered, Distracted Driving, and Virtual Economics
Links for the day
At This Point It's No Longer Matthew Garrett But People Who Fund Matthew Garrett (or Companies That Fund His SLAPPs Against My Wife and I)
The only thing worse than misogynists are misogynists who fail to respect other people's right to go on holiday
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 03, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 03, 2025
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VI - This Serious Harm Was Planned for Over a Decade, Not an Accident or Merely Some Misfortune
The term "Serious Harm" is legally meaningful here
GNOME Unfit for Diversity and Inclusion
GNOME's leadership is using "bad words"
Brodie Robertson Addressing the Recently-Discovered Comments
Most people probably knew nothing about this until he wrote a response
Red Hat QA Team "Had Shrunk by Half Over the Past Year." (After IBM Divestment)
If Red Hat's workforce is being moved to the East, then RHEL can become a national security problem
Slopwatch: "Open Source" and "Linux" News Faked, Made by Bots and Entered Into Google News
Spam combined with slop about "Linux" has entered Google News
Links 03/09/2025: Microsoft Causes Mass Layoffs Outside Microsoft Also, "Google Can Keep Paying for Firefox Search Deal"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/09/2025: calendar.txt, Alhena 5.3.1, and ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
The Theory That the Man From McKinsey, Whom Red Hat Took From Microsoft a Month Ago as Executive, Wants 'Efficiency' (Lower Salaries)
So far... no "official" word
When Your Site's Articles Are Being 'Cheapened' by Slop as Feature Images
Dr. Farnell should become an advisor to The Register MS
Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Drops to Only Half a Dozen Capsules and 0.2% of the Whole in Geminispace, Self-Signed is the Way to Go
It used to have hundreds, according to Lupa
Doing to Red Hat What They Already Did (and Still Do) to IBM
there seems to be a drive to hire cheaper staff, and it may be led by somebody Red Hat hired from Microsoft
Links 03/09/2025: Salesforce's Latest Mass Layoffs, 93% in Large Poll at The Register MS Say UK Government Should Dump Microsoft
Links for the day
Preparations for Our 19th Anniversary Have Already Begun
When we get back we'll probably sort out some balloons and venue for the next party
Pleased After 2 Years With team.blue
Moving from a Content Management System (CMS, dynamic) to a Static Site Generator (SSG) was a wise decision that made life so much easier
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is Being Attacked by Organisations Jealous of Its Principled Stance and Longevity
Nobody is perfect, but imperfection does not instantaneously imply sinister intent
If You Reject the Google Verdict in the US, Then You Should Also Reject the "Modern" Web (Do Something About It)
Gemini Protocol is still open; it cannot be hijacked or subverted because it's frozen by design and by intention
Open Source Initiative IRS Filing: Almost All the Money is Corporate, Stefano Maffuli (Executive Director) Takes About a Quarter of That Money for Openwashing of "AI" Ponzi Scheme
OSI is currently little but a PR/marketing agency of Microsoft
Many People Are "Leaving" Red Hat, Even High-Level Managers
Something is definitely going on at Red Hat
Techrights Has Been Subjected to Calls of Violence (and Death Threats), It Never Condoned Violence
I have no sympathy for people who call violence "free speech" and then get in trouble
Condoning Violent Behaviour and "Free Speech"
perhaps Microsoft Lunduke lost touch with what constitutes violence
Takeaway From the Google Verdict: GAFAM Has Too Much Control (Even Over the US Government and Courts With Government Appointees)
Many people feel disappointed but hardly surprised by the verdict
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 in One Month
As noted a few days ago, several times in fact, many people now recognise the importance of the FSF's mission, even if most people don't know what the FSF is
Many Microsoft "Assets" Are Fabricated Baloney (to Game the Numbers)
At times it seems like what we deal with are many weak patents (on algorithms), valuations or speculations based on hype ("hey hi"), and stocks held by Microsoft and its own staff
"Voluntary" Layoffs at Microsoft (to Game the Numbers, Sugar-Coating a Crisis)
"Employees interested have until the end of October to volunteer."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 02, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 02, 2025