It was twenty years ago today that I quit my job at MIT to begin developing a free software operating system, GNU. While we have never released a complete GNU system suitable for production use, a variant of the GNU system is now used by tens of millions of people who mostly are not aware it is such.

Free software does not mean "gratis"; it means that users are free to run the program, study the source code, change it, and redistribute it either with or
without changes, either gratis or for a fee.

My hope was that a free operating system would open a path to escape forever from the system of subjugation which is proprietary software. I had experienced the ugliness of the way of life that non-free software imposes on its users, and I was determined to escape and give others a way to escape.

Non-free software carries with it an antisocial system that prohibits cooperation and community. You are typically unable to see the source code; you cannot tell
what nasty tricks, or what foolish bugs, it might contain. If you don't like it, you are helpless to change it. Worst of all, you are forbidden to share it with anyone else. To prohibit sharing software is to cut the bonds of society. >full article *The Free Software Community After 20 Years: With great but incomplete success, what now? by Richard Stallman*. January 5, 2004

related context
> about the gnu project.
> free software and richard stallman. from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
> open-source practices in software engineering.december 12, 2003
> a fan of freedom: thoughts on the biography of rms by eric s. raymond. november 11, 2003
> free as in freedom: the life story of richard stallman. june 25, 2002

imago
> cook the code book - free reflections and recipies