WORLDWITHOUTGNU

Vintage article written by me: Marco "kpanic/beatpanic" Milanesi in 2007 ;)

*What would the world be like without GNU?*

What would the world be like without Nutella?

Surely we would have one less definition of 'sweet', one less happy moment for
all generations of children.
But maybe more creative and tasty sweets... but we all know: Nutella is always
The Nutella! (or so we believe, because it exists)

But... What the world without GNU would be?

The GNU project was born in 1984 -- a strong symbolic year from a literary
perspective for who has read Orwell's novel -- thanks to Richard M.
Stallman. The man who gave light to the idea of a 'Free Software License' that
could subvert the growing conception arriving in the 80s: the proprietary
software mindset.

Therefore software has to reacquire it's state of stolen liberty and come back
to it's state as a collective work, community shared.  Not an obscure black box
that can't be changed.
Of course, who would buy a car knowing that he could not put his hands on to,
hack it or bring it to a trusted friendly mechanic for repair, but only take to
a corporation-authorized mechanic?

GNU/Linux is now professional recognized world class operating system that
feeds (both monetarily and creatively) a lot of people and it's a source of
innovation endorsed by a large number of corporations.

All this thanks to Mr. Stallman perseverance. He has worked hard to make
it a global economical success, but especially he has spread again the concept
that the software has to be shared socially due to a value that it seemed to be
lost: Liberty

So the question is: "What would the world be like after 1984 without GNU?

The key formula in the 80s was the freeware/shareware (not to be confused with
Free Software).
The BBS world in the pre-mass-internet-era was overflowing with it, the
community was vibrant and the people were happy to use freeware and
shareware software.

It's natural to ask ourselves if freeware/shareware could have given rise to a
totally free (as in beer) operating system.
And if this system would have had the same remarkable impact that GNU/Linux,
especially in this Internet age, or if the majority of people would have
settled for a proprietary OS (MacOS,Windows) with some minor freeware
utilities.

Personally I believe  the latter. Without a global movement of sensitization
on Liberty and sharing the dream of a Free (as in Freedom) operating systems
could not have be realized and neither the Free (as in Beer only) operating
system.

Following these considerations, 'important' questions arise. In a world without
GNU we will surely use proprietary systems for connecting to the Internet,
reading email, and download files.

The more pervasive OS would be Windows in any of it's incarnations, mainly
because "IBM compatible" hardware would still be more wide spread and the
Macintosh would still be more expensive and based on proprietary hardware.

We could live in a world where data formats could be almost completely *not*
interchangeable and at every operating system or application update, for
example in the case of a word processor, we could have to convert our files to
the new version hoping that content (specific formatting, etc. is not lost --
something that happens even today).

The Internet could be dominated by Microsoft, Google could not be what it is
today, because GNU/Linux could never exist (Google's robustness and power is
GNU/Linux based). Yahoo, Altavista, Excite, Hotbot (do you remember them?) they
could contend the market hoping to be not stifled by Microsoft's search engine.
MacOSX would never been existed in it's actual incarnation because the Free
BSDs, without the Free Software movement, would not have the shape that have
today.

We would have programming tools produced only by software houses that would
sell the operating system. The big hand of Microsoft (and in minor part of
Apple) would have the complete monopoly of defining between good and bad
weather on the development of software and small/medium companies would have
been suffocated by the bureaucracy and would have to compromise for every
little detail with Microsoft/Apple. DRM, a reality, already totally
integrated with all operating systems and the interoperability between them
would be strongly reduced

From the point of view of the corporations in this imaginary
'Dickian/Orwellian' world the user could be profiled totally, user tastes, net
behaviors and people behaviors, a perfect world for the corporations and
perfect for the perfect consumer.

The only thing missing in this vision is the value that Richard M. Stallman
wanted to bring forward since 1984: the Liberty of Software.

But how we can verify in this stylized vision that I have described, that
Software Freedom has its effects on programs, but also on the relationships
between people, on the ideas that we think and share, and how we behave and how
we are controlled?

The entire society, without freedom of software, will be in peril.

I feel the need to thank Richard M. Stallman for starting in 1984 the Utopian
project that inspired millions of people all over the world to produce Free
Software and to share knowledge.

So "Thank you GNU!" for the idea of a free society that you are bringing on,
and also thanks to everyone who believed and worked at the construction of this
ideal.

It would be interesting to know your opinion on:

What would the world be like without GNU?

--

Copyright (C) Marco Milanesi
Twitter: @_beatpanic

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5