When Xerox donated a brand new laser printer to MIT in 1980, the corporate couldn’t have recognized that the machine would ignite a revolution. 

Whereas the early many years of software program growth typically ran on a tradition of open entry, this new printer ran on inaccessible proprietary software program, a lot to the horror of Richard M. Stallman, then a 27-year-old programmer on the college. 

A couple of years later, Stallman launched GNU, an working system designed to be a free various to one of many dominant working programs on the time: Unix. The free-software motion was born, with a easy premise: for the great of the world, all code needs to be open, with out restriction or industrial intervention. 

Forty years later, tech corporations are making billions on proprietary software program, and far of the know-how round us is inscrutable. However whereas Stallman’s motion could appear to be a failed experiment, the free and open-source software program motion will not be solely alive and effectively; it has grow to be a keystone of the tech business. Learn the total story.

—Rebecca Ackermann

Rebecca’s story is from the subsequent upcoming concern of our print journal, which is all about ethics. If you happen to don’t subscribe already, enroll to obtain a replica when it publishes.

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