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Splitting up this section: Decline of MIT hacker culture

1. I was researching something else (history of text editors), and ran across this portion of the article. There are some deficiencies I'd like to correct; in particular, as mentioned by Gronky above, the section-title is misleading ("decline" is not an NPOV word-choice). Below is the current content of the sections in question, as of 2013-09-09. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:21, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

[Section -- Early Years] ... As a first-year student at Harvard University, Stallman was known for his strong performance in Math 55.[1] In 1971 he became a programmer at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and became a regular in the hacker community, where he was usually known by his initials, rms (which was the name of his computer accounts).[2] Stallman graduated from Harvard magna cum laude earning an AB in Physics in 1974.[3]

Stallman enrolled as a graduate student at MIT, but then ended his pursuit of a doctorate in physics to focus on his programming at the MIT AI Laboratory.

While a graduate student at MIT, Stallman published a paper with Gerald Jay Sussman on an AI truth maintenance system, called dependency-directed backtracking.[4] This paper was an early work on the problem of intelligent backtracking in constraint satisfaction problems. As of 2003, the technique Stallman and Sussman introduced is still the most general and powerful form of intelligent backtracking.[5] The technique of constraint recording, wherein partial results of a search are recorded for later reuse, was also introduced in this paper.[5]

As a hacker in MIT's AI laboratory, Stallman worked on software projects such as TECO, Emacs, and the Lisp machine operating system. He would become an ardent critic of restricted computer access in the lab, which at that time was funded primarily by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. When MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) installed a password control system in 1977, Stallman found a way to decrypt the passwords and sent users messages containing their decoded password, with a suggestion to change it to the empty string (that is, no password) instead, to re-enable anonymous access to the systems. Around 20% of the users followed his advice at the time, although passwords ultimately prevailed. Stallman boasted of the success of his campaign for many years afterward.[6]



[Section] Decline of MIT hacker culture.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the hacker culture that Stallman thrived on began to fragment. To prevent software from being used on their competitors' computers, most manufacturers stopped distributing source code and began using copyright and restrictive software licenses to limit or prohibit copying and redistribution. Such proprietary software had existed before, and it became apparent that it would become the norm. This shift in the legal characteristics of software can be regarded as a consequence triggered by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, as stated by Stallman's MIT fellow Brewster Kahle.[7]

When Brian Reid in 1979 placed time bombs in the Scribe markup language and word processing system to restrict unlicensed access to the software, Stallman proclaimed it "a crime against humanity."[8] He clarified, years later, that it is blocking the user's freedom that he believes is a crime, not the issue of charging for the software.[9]

In 1980, Stallman and some other hackers at the AI Lab were refused access to the source code for the software of a newly installed laser printer, the Xerox 9700. Stallman had modified the software for the Lab's previous laser printer (the XGP, Xerographic Printer), so it electronically messaged a user when the person's job was printed, and would message all logged-in users waiting for print jobs if the printer was jammed. Not being able to add these features to the new printer was a major inconvenience, as the printer was on a different floor from most of the users. This experience convinced Stallman of people's need to be free to modify the software they use.[10]

Richard Greenblatt, a fellow AI Lab hacker, founded Lisp Machines, Inc. (LMI) to market Lisp machines, which he and Tom Knight designed at the lab. Greenblatt rejected outside investment, believing that the proceeds from the construction and sale of a few machines could be profitably reinvested in the growth of the company. In contrast, the other hackers felt that the venture capital-funded approach was better. As no agreement could be reached, hackers from the latter camp founded Symbolics, with the aid of Russ Noftsker, an AI Lab administrator. Symbolics recruited most of the remaining hackers including notable hacker Bill Gosper, who then left the AI Lab. Symbolics also forced Greenblatt to resign by citing MIT policies. While both companies delivered proprietary software, Stallman believed that LMI, unlike Symbolics, had tried to avoid hurting the lab's community. For two years, from 1982 to the end of 1983, Stallman worked by himself to clone the output of the Symbolics programmers, with the aim of preventing them from gaining a monopoly on the lab's computers.[6]

Stallman argues that software users should have the freedom to share with their neighbor and to be able to study and make changes to the software that they use. He maintains that attempts by proprietary software vendors to prohibit these acts are antisocial and unethical.[11] The phrase "software wants to be free" is often incorrectly attributed to him, and Stallman argues that this is a misstatement of his philosophy.[12] He argues that freedom is vital for the sake of users and society as a moral value, and not merely for pragmatic reasons such as possibly developing technically superior software. Eric S. Raymond, creator of the open source movement, argues that moral arguments, rather than pragmatic ones, alienate potential allies and hurts the end goal of removing code secrecy.[13]

In February 1984, Stallman quit his job at MIT to work full-time on the GNU project, which he had announced in September 1983.

References

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference freeasinfreedom-chap4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference initials was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference homepage was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference AI9 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference russell was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Levy was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Cringely was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference freeasinfreedom-Chap6 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference unplugged was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference freeasinfreedom-Chap1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference OpenSources was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Salus was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference esr was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

2. The first portion above is from 'early years' (but also actually covers seven years of his time at MIT -- 1971 to 1977) and the bulk of the quote is from 'decline of MIT hacker culture' which covers from 1979 through February 1984, along the way giving portions of RMS's philosophy... most of which he came up with long afterward. My suggested rewrite would look something like the outline below. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:21, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

[Section] Early Years: New York City Existing section, but I'm splitting out some of the content. Now covers 1953 through summer of 1971, ending with departure for Harvard. Existing text (not shown in excerpt above) looks fine, except I'm not positive when RMS graduated from high school: did he really enroll in his first year of college in the fall of 1971? He graduated from Harvard in 1974, which suggests he either graduated a year early from high school in NYC, or a year early from Harvard. Or maybe my math is just off.  :-)

[Section] Early Years: MIT New section-split. Covers 1971 through 1984, from when he was hired at the MIT AI Lab (including the period from 1974-1977orMaybeLater when he was an employee and simultaneously a grad student) through the point when he left to work fulltime on GNU. Sticks to the facts, no philosophy-insertions. Covers passwd in 77, scribe in 79, xerox printer in 80, and the invention-then-commercialization of the LISP machine from 1974 through 1982 (plus it would be good to add some background on CTSS/ITS/TENEX/TECO history).

[Section] Background: events leading to GNU == New section-split. Discusses the *general* hardware situation of the 1970s and early 1980s, the traditional ways software distribution-slash-licensing worked in the 1970s and early 1980s, the changes in copyright law of 1976 (and the lawsuits of 1980 which finalized the meaning of the statute), and how these wider events had an impact on RMS, MIT AI Lab, and the nascent LISP machine industry, which by 1983 included big names like TI from Texas and Xerox from California. Simultaneously, we need to give a bit of historical background on BSD and Sun Microsystems and Guy Steele, which was a west-coast parallel to the LispM and Symbolics and David Moon and Dan Weinreb experience which RMS saw first-hand on the east-coast (note in particular that by 1985 the goal of the GNU project was a UNIX-like operating system -- as opposed to a LispM-like operating system!). Explain, in NPOV fashion, why RMS did what he did.

[Section] GNU project Existing section, not shown in excerpt above, mostly fine as-is in the original article. Would be good to give additional details on Xemacs-nee-LucidEmacs-cf-EpochEmacs, since that contentious fork of EMACS/Xemacs in 1989-1994+ was indirectly related to the contentious reverse-fork of EMACS/ZMACS-ZWEI-EINE in the 1976-1983 era (Symbolics of the early 1980s was a LispM hardware&software company ... Lucid of the early 1990s was a LispM/etc software-only company).

3. Note that the only thing I'm suggesting here is *titles* for the new sections, with an overview of their contents (existing content in existing sections will be reorganized under the new section-names but nothing will be deleted). Anybody have thoughts on this new approach to organizing the sections, before I wade in and make the edit? Thanks. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:21, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

 Done as of a few minutes ago in the main article. The initial split, at least, plus a few of the edits mentioned -- RMS skipped a grade in HS, so he was attending Harvard in fall 1970, and started working at the AI Lab down the river sometime in spring of 1971 (certainly by summer). TBD: flesh out the background-section with relevant material about LispM commercialization e.g. Symbolics/LMI/XPARC/TI/Lucid, commodity UNIX and commercialization of BSD e.g. SunOS-to-Solaris, and copyright law with regard to software (invention of GPL as a self-protecting alternative to BSD) and to user interfaces (RMS was involved in fighting look-n-feel lawsuits e.g. Lotus 123). 74.192.84.101 (talk) 00:48, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Mention This Historical Event

Hey, you guys should mention this historical event [1] which brought India's senior most politician L.K. Advani and RMS together. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Two2face (talk • contribs) 11:05, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi, yes, meeting very influential people is worth mentioning. For people outside of India, can you explain why Advani is influential? If RMS met a president or a king, everyone would understand why that is important, but what does "India's senior most politician" mean? Is that your opinion? Or is he just the oldest politician in the country? Or does have have a very senior rank in the government?
Can you try mentioning this in the article (probably near paragraphs 6 or 7 of the Activism section, or can you suggest some text here for discussion? Thanks. Gronky (talk) 18:33, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

"Stories"

The article here describes "The Right to Read" and other articles on gnu.org as "science-fiction stories". I believe this is misleading, and factually incorrect. Those articles are listed under philosophy/, not stories/, and they are very similar in tone to technical use-cases, for example, those in cryptography which feature characters such as Alice and Bob. These are philosophical allegories, at the very least, and not intended as simple science fiction. I elieve this should be corrected. 94.4.113.249 (talk) 16:03, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

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Unsubstantiated / Outdated claims

In the opening header, "... most notably the GNU General Public License (GPL), the most widely used free software license."

Really? Says who? The stats in the reference link are from 2002. This seems unlike nowadays. If I had to guess I'd say MIT or Apache.

IMHO, "the most widely used free software license" should be removed.

mj1856 (talk) 22:28, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

@mj1856 "Unsubstantiated..." the methodology is provided (unlike others which are opaque black boxes); "Outdated..." LWN in 2013 say 58%; "Really? Says who?": the cited source; "If I had to guess... [&&] IMHO..." doesn't matter, we need evidence. -- dsprc [talk] 11:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
@Dsprc Searching for current information, I found BlackDuck's list, which shows MIT in first place with 26%, and GitHub's blog showing MIT at 44.69%. Both of these are newer than the current cited source. Anyway, I don't think that's what this article is about, so it should be removed or rephrased. mj1856 (talk) 04:43, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
this is addressed in the lwn article; blackduck is an unverifiable black box. the license blurb is fine for inclusion. -- dsprc [talk] 03:50, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
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