re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Gregory Nowak]

Chuck,

Is your web sight going to be reposted somewhere else? And, uhhhm, how many points is that quiz out of (grin)?
Greg



> ----- Original Message -----

>From: Charles Hallenbeck <hallenbeck@valstar.net

>To: Speakup Distribution List <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca

>Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 18:48:17 -0500 (EST)

>Subject: Richard Stallman on Free Software

>Hi gang -

>I have been offline for a few days due to ISP problems, and now

>have a new email address.  If I am in your addressbook, please

>update my entry.

>I mentioned the great two hour lecture by Richard Stallman a

>while back, and Kirk has given me the URL to the compact version

>on the speakup site.  While it is compact, it is still 19 megs

>(the original in two parts was over 100 megs) and is the

>ogg/vorbis format.  I would urge everyone to drop what they are

>doing and read  this thing twice!!!

>ftp://ftp.braille.uwo.ca/pub/linux/goodies/audio-files/rms-nyu.ogg

>There will be a quiz on it next Wednesday.

>Chuck


>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*

>The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (87% of Full)


>_______________________________________________

>Speakup mailing list

>Speakup@braille.uwo.ca

>http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Amanda Lee]

and um what player will play this jewel?  winamp sure doesn't recognize .rms
files.

Amanda

Yeah I know I'm usint the wrong O/S!


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gregory Nowak" <gnowak1@uic.edu>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>; "Speakup Distribution List"
<speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 8:49 PM
Subject: re: Richard Stallman on Free Software


> Chuck,
>
> Is your web sight going to be reposted somewhere else? And, uhhhm, how
many points is that quiz out of (grin)?
> Greg
>
>
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
>
> >From: Charles Hallenbeck <hallenbeck@valstar.net
>
> >To: Speakup Distribution List <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca
>
> >Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 18:48:17 -0500 (EST)
>
> >Subject: Richard Stallman on Free Software
>
> >Hi gang -
>
> >I have been offline for a few days due to ISP problems, and now
>
> >have a new email address.  If I am in your addressbook, please
>
> >update my entry.
>
> >I mentioned the great two hour lecture by Richard Stallman a
>
> >while back, and Kirk has given me the URL to the compact version
>
> >on the speakup site.  While it is compact, it is still 19 megs
>
> >(the original in two parts was over 100 megs) and is the
>
> >ogg/vorbis format.  I would urge everyone to drop what they are
>
> >doing and read  this thing twice!!!
>
> >ftp://ftp.braille.uwo.ca/pub/linux/goodies/audio-files/rms-nyu.ogg
>
> >There will be a quiz on it next Wednesday.
>
> >Chuck
>
>
> >*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
>
> >The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (87% of Full)
>
>
> >_______________________________________________
>
> >Speakup mailing list
>
> >Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>
> >http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Geoff Shang]

Hi:

It's an .ogg file.  You can get the vorbis input plugin from www.vorbis.com
- go to downloads and to windows.

Folks, vorbis is the free, open, patentless, free of royalties lossy audio
compression codec that already out-performs MP3 and is still improving.  If
you aren't equiped to handle this format yet, I highly recommend doing so.
For linux, you can get redhat RPM's from vorbis.com as well as source
tarballs.  You need libogg, libvorbis, libao, vorbis-tools and, if you want
to use the ogg123 player, you need to get curl from elsewhere (this need
isn't documented).  People running Debian Syd can get the vorbis-tools
package and the rest should take care of itself.  If 1.0rc3 hasnt' appeared
in woody yet, it should have by now, it will soon.

Let me know if you have any queries.

Geoff.

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Amanda Lee]

Thanks, I got the winamp pluggin.

Amanda

----- Original Message -----
From: "Geoff Shang" <gshang@uq.net.au>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 10:01 PM
Subject: Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software


> Hi:
>
> It's an .ogg file.  You can get the vorbis input plugin from
www.vorbis.com
> - go to downloads and to windows.
>
> Folks, vorbis is the free, open, patentless, free of royalties lossy audio
> compression codec that already out-performs MP3 and is still improving.
If
> you aren't equiped to handle this format yet, I highly recommend doing so.
> For linux, you can get redhat RPM's from vorbis.com as well as source
> tarballs.  You need libogg, libvorbis, libao, vorbis-tools and, if you
want
> to use the ogg123 player, you need to get curl from elsewhere (this need
> isn't documented).  People running Debian Syd can get the vorbis-tools
> package and the rest should take care of itself.  If 1.0rc3 hasnt'
appeared
> in woody yet, it should have by now, it will soon.
>
> Let me know if you have any queries.
>
> Geoff.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Buddy Brannan]

Get the OGG Vorbis plugin for Winamp...then it should play them OK.

Better yet, get OGG123 or Freeamp :)
-- 
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV/3  | I choose you to take up all of my time.
Email: davros@ycardz.com | I choose you because you're funny and kind
                         | I want easy people from now on.
                         | --the Nields

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Charles Hallenbeck]

Amanda - rms is the man's initials. The file type is .ogg (for
ogg/vorbis). The ogg player in Linux is called ogg123, and
although I am not a windows person, I am told there is a plug in
for winamp that plays ogg/vorbis formats. Unlike mp3, ogg/vorbis
is open source and considerably more efficient too.

Chuck

On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Amanda Lee wrote:

> and um what player will play this jewel?  winamp sure doesn't recognize .rms
> files.
>
> Amanda
>
> Yeah I know I'm usint the wrong O/S!
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Gregory Nowak" <gnowak1@uic.edu>
> To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>; "Speakup Distribution List"
> <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 8:49 PM
> Subject: re: Richard Stallman on Free Software
>
>
> > Chuck,
> >
> > Is your web sight going to be reposted somewhere else? And, uhhhm, how
> many points is that quiz out of (grin)?
> > Greg
> >
> >
> >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> >
> > >From: Charles Hallenbeck <hallenbeck@valstar.net
> >
> > >To: Speakup Distribution List <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca
> >
> > >Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 18:48:17 -0500 (EST)
> >
> > >Subject: Richard Stallman on Free Software
> >
> > >Hi gang -
> >
> > >I have been offline for a few days due to ISP problems, and now
> >
> > >have a new email address.  If I am in your addressbook, please
> >
> > >update my entry.
> >
> > >I mentioned the great two hour lecture by Richard Stallman a
> >
> > >while back, and Kirk has given me the URL to the compact version
> >
> > >on the speakup site.  While it is compact, it is still 19 megs
> >
> > >(the original in two parts was over 100 megs) and is the
> >
> > >ogg/vorbis format.  I would urge everyone to drop what they are
> >
> > >doing and read  this thing twice!!!
> >
> > >ftp://ftp.braille.uwo.ca/pub/linux/goodies/audio-files/rms-nyu.ogg
> >
> > >There will be a quiz on it next Wednesday.
> >
> > >Chuck
> >
> >
> > >*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
> >
> > >The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (87% of Full)
> >
> >
> > >_______________________________________________
> >
> > >Speakup mailing list
> >
> > >Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> >
> > >http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (92% of Full)

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Dan Murphy]

Hi Chuck.  I have the ogg123 player installed on my system, but I don't
understand what the syntax for the command line should be.
For
 instance, if I type "ogg123 rms-nyu.ogg, it says it's playing the file
but I don't hear anything.
If I use the -v option, it tells me
that the plugin is a null device or some such ching and the manpage is
about as clear as mud.  Do I need to install something else, or what?
I'd really like to hear  what the man has to say.  Thanks.
On Sat, 26 Jan
2002,
Charles Hallenbeck wrote:

>
> Amanda - rms is the man's initials. The file type is .ogg (for
> ogg/vorbis). The ogg player in Linux is called ogg123, and
> although I am not a windows person, I am told there is a plug in
> for winamp that plays ogg/vorbis formats. Unlike mp3, ogg/vorbis
> is open source and considerably more efficient too.
>
> Chuck
>
> On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Amanda Lee wrote:
>
> > and um what player will play this jewel?  winamp sure doesn't recognize .rms
> > files.
> >
> > Amanda
> >
> > Yeah I know I'm usint the wrong O/S!
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Gregory Nowak" <gnowak1@uic.edu>
> > To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>; "Speakup Distribution List"
> > <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca>
> > Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 8:49 PM
> > Subject: re: Richard Stallman on Free Software
> >
> >
> > > Chuck,
> > >
> > > Is your web sight going to be reposted somewhere else? And, uhhhm, how
> > many points is that quiz out of (grin)?
> > > Greg
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > >
> > > >From: Charles Hallenbeck <hallenbeck@valstar.net
> > >
> > > >To: Speakup Distribution List <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca
> > >
> > > >Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 18:48:17 -0500 (EST)
> > >
> > > >Subject: Richard Stallman on Free Software
> > >
> > > >Hi gang -
> > >
> > > >I have been offline for a few days due to ISP problems, and now
> > >
> > > >have a new email address.  If I am in your addressbook, please
> > >
> > > >update my entry.
> > >
> > > >I mentioned the great two hour lecture by Richard Stallman a
> > >
> > > >while back, and Kirk has given me the URL to the compact version
> > >
> > > >on the speakup site.  While it is compact, it is still 19 megs
> > >
> > > >(the original in two parts was over 100 megs) and is the
> > >
> > > >ogg/vorbis format.  I would urge everyone to drop what they are
> > >
> > > >doing and read  this thing twice!!!
> > >
> > > >ftp://ftp.braille.uwo.ca/pub/linux/goodies/audio-files/rms-nyu.ogg
> > >
> > > >There will be a quiz on it next Wednesday.
> > >
> > > >Chuck
> > >
> > >
> > > >*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
> > >
> > > >The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (87% of Full)
> > >
> > >
> > > >_______________________________________________
> > >
> > > >Speakup mailing list
> > >
> > > >Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > >
> > > >http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Speakup mailing list
> > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
>
> *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
> The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (92% of Full)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Geoff Shang]

Hi:

ogg123 uses a library called libao for audio output.  Its job is to provide
cross-platform audio output with a number of different devices supported.
But the side effect of this is odd behaviour like this.  If you get it as a
packaged binary, the packager has no idea what audio hardware you have, so
it has to default to the null output driver.

You can specify your preferred output driver by either using the -d option
or making an .ogg123rc file and puting in a default_device directive.  Note
that ogg123 in RC2 seemed to ignore this.

In either case, you can use oss for the oss driver, alsa for alsa output,
wav for wav output, and a number of other things, depending on what plugins
have been compiled in.  I tend to use oss.  So you can do:

ogg123 -d oss whatever.ogg

or try putting

default_device=oss

in .ogg123rc in your home directory.

Geoff.

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Dan Murphy]

I used os as the output and it worked just fine. .  thanks.

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Amanda Lee]

Hey folks I want my "gnu doormat" and it must have the word "freedom 3" in
braille in jumbo Braille!

Hahahahahahaha!  Beter get 'em beforeGNU becomes a trademark...

Amanda Lee


Amanda Lee

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Charles Hallenbeck]

Dan -
I first began using ogg/vorbis before I upgraded my Slackware
from 7.1 to 8.0, and the first ogg/borbis version I used was
called "RC2" (Release Candidate 2). After upgrading I noticed
that the ogg/vorbis package included in the Slackware 8.0 distro
was only RC1, and I also had trouble making it work on the files
I had created with RC2. I am afraid the answer to your question
is that you need to upgrade your ogg123 and related programs from
RC1 to RC2. I understand there is even an RC3 now, but I have not
gone there yet either.

If anyone wants a binary of the ogg123 player that works on my
system with the Stallman file, I will be glad to attach it to a
private email. Just whistle.
Chuck

On Sat, 26 Jan 2002, Dan Murphy wrote:

> Hi Chuck.  I have the ogg123 player installed on my system, but I don't
> understand what the syntax for the command line should be.
> For
>  instance, if I type "ogg123 rms-nyu.ogg, it says it's playing the file
> but I don't hear anything.
> If I use the -v option, it tells me
> that the plugin is a null device or some such thing and the manpage is
> about as clear as mud.  Do I need to install something else, or what?
> I'd really like to hear  what the man has to say.  Thanks.
> On Sat, 26 Jan
> 2002,
> Charles Hallenbeck wrote:
>
> >
> > Amanda - rms is the man's initials. The file type is .ogg (for
> > ogg/vorbis). The ogg player in Linux is called ogg123, and
> > although I am not a windows person, I am told there is a plug in
> > for winamp that plays ogg/vorbis formats. Unlike mp3, ogg/vorbis
> > is open source and considerably more efficient too.
> >
> > Chuck
> >
> > On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Amanda Lee wrote:
> >
> > > and um what player will play this jewel?  winamp sure doesn't recognize .rms
> > > files.
> > >
> > > Amanda
> > >
> > > Yeah I know I'm usint the wrong O/S!
> > >
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Gregory Nowak" <gnowak1@uic.edu>
> > > To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>; "Speakup Distribution List"
> > > <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca>
> > > Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 8:49 PM
> > > Subject: re: Richard Stallman on Free Software
> > >
> > >
> > > > Chuck,
> > > >
> > > > Is your web sight going to be reposted somewhere else? And, uhhhm, how
> > > many points is that quiz out of (grin)?
> > > > Greg
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > >
> > > > >From: Charles Hallenbeck <hallenbeck@valstar.net
> > > >
> > > > >To: Speakup Distribution List <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca
> > > >
> > > > >Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 18:48:17 -0500 (EST)
> > > >
> > > > >Subject: Richard Stallman on Free Software
> > > >
> > > > >Hi gang -
> > > >
> > > > >I have been offline for a few days due to ISP problems, and now
> > > >
> > > > >have a new email address.  If I am in your addressbook, please
> > > >
> > > > >update my entry.
> > > >
> > > > >I mentioned the great two hour lecture by Richard Stallman a
> > > >
> > > > >while back, and Kirk has given me the URL to the compact version
> > > >
> > > > >on the speakup site.  While it is compact, it is still 19 megs
> > > >
> > > > >(the original in two parts was over 100 megs) and is the
> > > >
> > > > >ogg/vorbis format.  I would urge everyone to drop what they are
> > > >
> > > > >doing and read  this thing twice!!!
> > > >
> > > > >ftp://ftp.braille.uwo.ca/pub/linux/goodies/audio-files/rms-nyu.ogg
> > > >
> > > > >There will be a quiz on it next Wednesday.
> > > >
> > > > >Chuck
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > >*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
> > > >
> > > > >The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (87% of Full)
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > >_______________________________________________
> > > >
> > > > >Speakup mailing list
> > > >
> > > > >Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > >
> > > > >http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Speakup mailing list
> > > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Speakup mailing list
> > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > >
> >
> > *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
> > The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (92% of Full)
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (97% of Full)

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Geoff Shang]

Hi:

In theory at least, RC1 should be able to decode all current and future
vorbis streams.  The decoder has remained pretty much untouched since RC1.
The encoder continues to evolve.

Geoff.

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Steve Holmes]

Hey, that presentation was great! He can be quite the philosopher, can't
he.

About the Vorbis utilities, is there any way to play selective parts of an
ogg file ala trplayer style? Example, I was listening to the lecture
yesterday and wanted to pause it a time or two and cannot do that with
ogg123.  At least with mpg123 and trplayer, you can move around within the
file while playing and you can pause and start up the program at will.
Are there any similar formatted players for Vorbis files?

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Amanda Lee]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1259 bytes --]

Did you look for pluggins for the other players on the Vorbis site?  That's
how I obtained the one for Winamp.

Perhaps I shouldn't do this but I will anyway.  Here's what appears to be
most, if not all of the transcript form this lecture.  I did not remove any
extraneous junk from the file which saved from the web page.


Enjoy!

Amands Lee

Please see the attached file: stallman.txt


----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Holmes" <steve@holmesgrown.com>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2002 5:54 PM
Subject: Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software


> Hey, that presentation was great! He can be quite the philosopher, can't
> he.
>
> About the Vorbis utilities, is there any way to play selective parts of an
> ogg file ala trplayer style? Example, I was listening to the lecture
> yesterday and wanted to pause it a time or two and cannot do that with
> ogg123.  At least with mpg123 and trplayer, you can move around within the
> file while playing and you can pause and start up the program at will.
> Are there any similar formatted players for Vorbis files?
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>

[-- Attachment #2: stallman.txt --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 46164 bytes --]

The GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)The GNU Project
by Richard Stallman
originally published in the book "Open Sources" 
 [ English | French | Indonesian | Italian | Korean | Russian | Spanish ] 
The first software-sharing community
When I started working at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1971, I became 
part of a software-sharing community that had existed for many years. Sharing of 
software was not limited to our particular community; it is as old as computers, 
just as sharing of recipes is as old as cooking. But we did it more than most. 
The AI Lab used a timesharing operating system called ITS (the Incompatible 
Timesharing System) that the lab's staff hackers (1) had designed and written in 
assembler language for the Digital PDP-10, one of the large computers of the 
era. As a member of this community, an AI lab staff system hacker, my job was to 
improve this system. 
We did not call our software "free software", because that term did not yet 
exist; but that is what it was. Whenever people from another university or a 
company wanted to port and use a program, we gladly let them. If you saw someone 
using an unfamiliar and interesting program, you could always ask to see the 
source code, so that you could read it, change it, or cannibalize parts of it to 
make a new program. 
(1) The use of "hacker" to mean "security breaker" is a confusion on the part of 
the mass media. We hackers refuse to recognize that meaning, and continue using 
the word to mean, "Someone who loves to program and enjoys being clever about 
it." 
The collapse of the community
The situation changed drastically in the early 1980s when Digital discontinued 
the PDP-10 series. Its architecture, elegant and powerful in the 60s, could not 
extend naturally to the larger address spaces that were becoming feasible in the 
80s. This meant that nearly all of the programs composing ITS were obsolete. 
The AI lab hacker community had already collapsed, not long before. In 1981, the 
spin-off company Symbolics had hired away nearly all of the hackers from the AI 
lab, and the depopulated community was unable to maintain itself. (The book 
Hackers, by Steve Levy, describes these events, as well as giving a clear 
picture of this community in its prime.) When the AI lab bought a new PDP-10 in 
1982, its administrators decided to use Digital's non-free timesharing system 
instead of ITS. 
The modern computers of the era, such as the VAX or the 68020, had their own 
operating systems, but none of them were free software: you had to sign a 
nondisclosure agreement even to get an executable copy. 
This meant that the first step in using a computer was to promise not to help 
your neighbor. A cooperating community was forbidden. The rule made by the 
owners of proprietary software was, "If you share with your neighbor, you are a 
pirate. If you want any changes, beg us to make them." 
The idea that the proprietary software social system--the system that says you 
are not allowed to share or change software--is antisocial, that it is 
unethical, that it is simply wrong, may come as a surprise to some readers. But 
what else could we say about a system based on dividing the public and keeping 
users helpless? Readers who find the idea surprising may have taken proprietary 
social system as given, or judged it on the terms suggested by proprietary 
software businesses. Software publishers have worked long and hard to convince 
people that there is only one way to look at the issue. 
When software publishers talk about "enforcing" their "rights" or "stopping 
piracy", what they actually *say* is secondary. The real message of these 
statements is in the unstated assumptions they take for granted; the public is 
supposed to accept them uncritically. So let's examine them. 
One assumption is that software companies have an unquestionable natural right 
to own software and thus have power over all its users. (If this were a natural 
right, then no matter how much harm it does to the public, we could not object.) 
Interestingly, the US Constitution and legal tradition reject this view; 
copyright is not a natural right, but an artificial government-imposed monopoly 
that limits the users' natural right to copy. 
Another unstated assumption is that the only important thing about software is 
what jobs it allows you to do--that we computer users should not care what kind 
of society we are allowed to have. 
A third assumption is that we would have no usable software (or, would never 
have a program to do this or that particular job) if we did not offer a company 
power over the users of the program. This assumption may have seemed plausible, 
before the free software movement demonstrated that we can make plenty of useful 
software without putting chains on it. 
If we decline to accept these assumptions, and judge these issues based on 
ordinary common-sense morality while placing the users first, we arrive at very 
different conclusions. Computer users should be free to modify programs to fit 
their needs, and free to share software, because helping other people is the 
basis of society. 
There is no room here for an extensive statement of the reasoning behind this 
conclusion, so I refer the reader to the web page, 
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html. 
A stark moral choice.
With my community gone, to continue as before was impossible. Instead, I faced a 
stark moral choice. 
The easy choice was to join the proprietary software world, signing 
nondisclosure agreements and promising not to help my fellow hacker. Most likely 
I would also be developing software that was released under nondisclosure 
agreements, thus adding to the pressure on other people to betray their fellows 
too. 
I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I 
knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls 
to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place. 
I had already experienced being on the receiving end of a nondisclosure 
agreement, when someone refused to give me and the MIT AI lab the source code 
for the control program for our printer. (The lack of certain features in this 
program made use of the printer extremely frustrating.) So I could not tell 
myself that nondisclosure agreements were innocent. I was very angry when he 
refused to share with us; I could not turn around and do the same thing to 
everyone else. 
Another choice, straightforward but unpleasant, was to leave the computer field. 
That way my skills would not be misused, but they would still be wasted. I would 
not be culpable for dividing and restricting computer users, but it would happen 
nonetheless. 
So I looked for a way that a programmer could do something for the good. I asked 
myself, was there a program or programs that I could write, so as to make a 
community possible once again? 
The answer was clear: what was needed first was an operating system. That is the 
crucial software for starting to use a computer. With an operating system, you 
can do many things; without one, you cannot run the computer at all. With a free 
operating system, we could again have a community of cooperating hackers--and 
invite anyone to join. And anyone would be able to use a computer without 
starting out by conspiring to deprive his or her friends. 
As an operating system developer, I had the right skills for this job. So even 
though I could not take success for granted, I realized that I was elected to do 
the job. I chose to make the system compatible with Unix so that it would be 
portable, and so that Unix users could easily switch to it. The name GNU was 
chosen following a hacker tradition, as a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not 
Unix." 
An operating system does not mean just a kernel, barely enough to run other 
programs. In the 1970s, every operating system worthy of the name included 
command processors, assemblers, compilers, interpreters, debuggers, text 
editors, mailers, and much more. ITS had them, Multics had them, VMS had them, 
and Unix had them. The GNU operating system would include them too. 
Later I heard these words, attributed to Hillel (1): 
  If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
  If I am only for myself, what am I?
  If not now, when? 
The decision to start the GNU project was based on a similar spirit. 
(1) As an Atheist, I don't follow any religious leaders, but I sometimes find I 
admire something one of them has said. 
Free as in freedom
The term "free software" is sometimes misunderstood--it has nothing to do with 
price. It is about freedom. Here, therefore, is the definition of free software: 
a program is free software, for you, a particular user, if: 
  You have the freedom to run the program, for any purpose. 
  You have the freedom to modify the program to suit your needs. (To make this 
  freedom effective in practice, you must have access to the source code, since 
  making changes in a program without having the source code is exceedingly 
  difficult.) 
  You have the freedom to redistribute copies, either gratis or for a fee. 
  You have the freedom to distribute modified versions of the program, so that 
  the community can benefit from your improvements. 
Since "free" refers to freedom, not to price, there is no contradiction between 
selling copies and free software. In fact, the freedom to sell copies is 
crucial: collections of free software sold on CD-ROMs are important for the 
community, and selling them is an important way to raise funds for free software 
development. Therefore, a program which people are not free to include on these 
collections is not free software. 
Because of the ambiguity of "free", people have long looked for alternatives, 
but no one has found a suitable alternative. The English Language has more words 
and nuances than any other, but it lacks a simple, unambiguous, word that means 
"free," as in freedom--"unfettered," being the word that comes closest in 
meaning. Such alternatives as "liberated", "freedom" and "open" have either the 
wrong meaning or some other disadvantage. 
GNU software and the GNU system
Developing a whole system is a very large project. To bring it into reach, I 
decided to adapt and use existing pieces of free software wherever that was 
possible. For example, I decided at the very beginning to use TeX as the 
principal text formatter; a few years later, I decided to use the X Window 
System rather than writing another window system for GNU. 
Because of this decision, the GNU system is not the same as the collection of 
all GNU software. The GNU system includes programs that are not GNU software, 
programs that were developed by other people and projects for their own 
purposes, but which we can use because they are free software. 
Commencing the project
In January 1984 I quit my job at MIT and began writing GNU software. Leaving MIT 
was necessary so that MIT would not be able to interfere with distributing GNU 
as free software. If I had remained on the staff, MIT could have claimed to own 
the work, and could have imposed their own distribution terms, or even turned 
the work into a proprietary software package. I had no intention of doing a 
large amount of work only to see it become useless for its intended purpose: 
creating a new software-sharing community. 
However, Professor Winston, then the head of the MIT AI Lab, kindly invited me 
to keep using the lab's facilities. 
The first steps
Shortly before beginning the GNU project, I heard about the Free University 
Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for "free" is written with a 
V.) This was a compiler designed to handle multiple languages, including C and 
Pascal, and to support multiple target machines. I wrote to its author asking if 
GNU could use it. 
He responded derisively, stating that the university was free but the compiler 
was not. I therefore decided that my first program for the GNU project would be 
a multi-language, multi-platform compiler. 
Hoping to avoid the need to write the whole compiler myself, I obtained the 
source code for the Pastel compiler, which was a multi-platform compiler 
developed at Lawrence Livermore Lab. It supported, and was written in, an 
extended version of Pascal, designed to be a system-programming language. I 
added a C front end, and began porting it to the Motorola 68000 computer. But I 
had to give that up when I discovered that the compiler needed many megabytes of 
stack space, and the available 68000 Unix system would only allow 64k. 
I then realized that the Pastel compiler functioned by parsing the entire input 
file into a syntax tree, converting the whole syntax tree into a chain of 
"instructions", and then generating the whole output file, without ever freeing 
any storage. At this point, I concluded I would have to write a new compiler 
from scratch. That new compiler is now known as GCC; none of the Pastel compiler 
is used in it, but I managed to adapt and use the C front end that I had 
written. But that was some years later; first, I worked on GNU Emacs. 
GNU Emacs
I began work on GNU Emacs in September 1984, and in early 1985 it was beginning 
to be usable. This enabled me to begin using Unix systems to do editing; having 
no interest in learning to use vi or ed, I had done my editing on other kinds of 
machines until then. 
At this point, people began wanting to use GNU Emacs, which raised the question 
of how to distribute it. Of course, I put it on the anonymous ftp server on the 
MIT computer that I used. (This computer, prep.ai.mit.edu, thus became the 
principal GNU ftp distribution site; when it was decommissioned a few years 
later, we transferred the name to our new ftp server.) But at that time, many of 
the interested people were not on the Internet and could not get a copy by ftp. 
So the question was, what would I say to them? 
I could have said, "Find a friend who is on the net and who will make a copy for 
you." Or I could have done what I did with the original PDP-10 Emacs: tell them, 
"Mail me a tape and a SASE, and I will mail it back with Emacs on it." But I had 
no job, and I was looking for ways to make money from free software. So I 
announced that I would mail a tape to whoever wanted one, for a fee of $150. In 
this way, I started a free software distribution business, the precursor of the 
companies that today distribute entire Linux-based GNU systems. 
Is a program free for every user?
If a program is free software when it leaves the hands of its author, this does 
not necessarily mean it will be free software for everyone who has a copy of it. 
For example, public domain software (software that is not copyrighted) is free 
software; but anyone can make a proprietary modified version of it. Likewise, 
many free programs are copyrighted but distributed under simple permissive 
licenses which allow proprietary modified versions. 
The paradigmatic example of this problem is the X Window System. Developed at 
MIT, and released as free software with a permissive license, it was soon 
adopted by various computer companies. They added X to their proprietary Unix 
systems, in binary form only, and covered by the same nondisclosure agreement. 
These copies of X were no more free software than Unix was. 
The developers of the X Window System did not consider this a problem--they 
expected and intended this to happen. Their goal was not freedom, just 
"success", defined as "having many users." They did not care whether these users 
had freedom, only that they should be numerous. 
This lead to a paradoxical situation where two different ways of counting the 
amount of freedom gave different answers to the question, "Is this program 
free?" If you judged based on the freedom provided by the distribution terms of 
the MIT release, you would say that X was free software. But if you measured the 
freedom of the average user of X, you would have to say it was proprietary 
software. Most X users were running the proprietary versions that came with Unix 
systems, not the free version. 
Copyleft and the GNU GPL
The goal of GNU was to give users freedom, not just to be popular. So we needed 
to use distribution terms that would prevent GNU software from being turned into 
proprietary software. The method we use is called "copyleft".(1) 
Copyleft uses copyright law, but flips it over to serve the opposite of its 
usual purpose: instead of a means of privatizing software, it becomes a means of 
keeping software free. 
The central idea of copyleft is that we give everyone permission to run the 
program, copy the program, modify the program, and distribute modified 
versions--but not permission to add restrictions of their own. Thus, the crucial 
freedoms that define "free software" are guaranteed to everyone who has a copy; 
they become inalienable rights. 
For an effective copyleft, modified versions must also be free. This ensures 
that work based on ours becomes available to our community if it is published. 
When programmers who have jobs as programmers volunteer to improve GNU software, 
it is copyleft that prevents their employers from saying, "You can't share those 
changes, because we are going to use them to make our proprietary version of the 
program." 
The requirement that changes must be free is essential if we want to ensure 
freedom for every user of the program. The companies that privatized the X 
Window System usually made some changes to port it to their systems and 
hardware. These changes were small compared with the great extent of X, but they 
were not trivial. If making changes were an excuse to deny the users freedom, it 
would be easy for anyone to take advantage of the excuse. 
A related issue concerns combining a free program with non-free code. Such a 
combination would inevitably be non-free; whichever freedoms are lacking for the 
non-free part would be lacking for the whole as well. To permit such 
combinations would open a hole big enough to sink a ship. Therefore, a crucial 
requirement for copyleft is to plug this hole: anything added to or combined 
with a copylefted program must be such that the larger combined version is also 
free and copylefted. 
The specific implementation of copyleft that we use for most GNU software is the 
GNU General Public License, or GNU GPL for short. We have other kinds of 
copyleft that are used in specific circumstances. GNU manuals are copylefted 
also, but use a much simpler kind of copyleft, because the complexity of the GNU 
GPL is not necessary for manuals. 
(1) In 1984 or 1985, Don Hopkins (a very imaginative fellow) mailed me a letter. 
On the envelope he had written several amusing sayings, including this one: 
"Copyleft--all rights reversed." I used the word "copyleft" to name the 
distribution concept I was developing at the time. 
The Free Software Foundation
As interest in using Emacs was growing, other people became involved in the GNU 
project, and we decided that it was time to seek funding once again. So in 1985 
we created the Free Software Foundation, a tax-exempt charity for free software 
development. The FSF also took over the Emacs tape distribution business; later 
it extended this by adding other free software (both GNU and non-GNU) to the 
tape, and by selling free manuals as well. 
The FSF accepts donations, but most of its income has always come from sales--of 
copies of free software, and of other related services. Today it sells CD-ROMs 
of source code, CD-ROMs with binaries, nicely printed manuals (all with freedom 
to redistribute and modify), and Deluxe Distributions (where we build the whole 
collection of software for your choice of platform). 
Free Software Foundation employees have written and maintained a number of GNU 
software packages. Two notable ones are the C library and the shell. The GNU C 
library is what every program running on a GNU/Linux system uses to communicate 
with Linux. It was developed by a member of the Free Software Foundation staff, 
Roland McGrath. The shell used on most GNU/Linux systems is BASH, the Bourne 
Again Shell(1), which was developed by FSF employee Brian Fox. 
We funded development of these programs because the GNU project was not just 
about tools or a development environment. Our goal was a complete operating 
system, and these programs were needed for that goal. 
(1) "Bourne again Shell" is a joke on the name ``Bourne Shell'', which was the 
usual shell on Unix. 
Free software support
The free software philosophy rejects a specific widespread business practice, 
but it is not against business. When businesses respect the users' freedom, we 
wish them success. 
Selling copies of Emacs demonstrates one kind of free software business. When 
the FSF took over that business, I needed another way to make a living. I found 
it in selling services relating to the free software I had developed. This 
included teaching, for subjects such as how to program GNU Emacs and how to 
customize GCC, and software development, mostly porting GCC to new platforms. 
Today each of these kinds of free software business is practiced by a number of 
corporations. Some distribute free software collections on CD-ROM; others sell 
support at levels ranging from answering user questions, to fixing bugs, to 
adding major new features. We are even beginning to see free software companies 
based on launching new free software products. 
Watch out, though--a number of companies that associate themselves with the term 
"open source" actually base their business on non-free software that works with 
free software. These are not free software companies, they are proprietary 
software companies whose products tempt users away from freedom. They call these 
"value added", which reflects the values they would like us to adopt: 
convenience above freedom. If we value freedom more, we should call them 
"freedom subtracted" products. 
Technical goals
The principal goal of GNU was to be free software. Even if GNU had no technical 
advantage over Unix, it would have a social advantage, allowing users to 
cooperate, and an ethical advantage, respecting the user's freedom. 
But it was natural to apply the known standards of good practice to the 
work--for example, dynamically allocating data structures to avoid arbitrary 
fixed size limits, and handling all the possible 8-bit codes wherever that made 
sense. 
In addition, we rejected the Unix focus on small memory size, by deciding not to 
support 16-bit machines (it was clear that 32-bit machines would be the norm by 
the time the GNU system was finished), and to make no effort to reduce memory 
usage unless it exceeded a megabyte. In programs for which handling very large 
files was not crucial, we encouraged programmers to read an entire input file 
into core, then scan its contents without having to worry about I/O. 
These decisions enabled many GNU programs to surpass their Unix counterparts in 
reliability and speed. 
Donated computers
As the GNU project's reputation grew, people began offering to donate machines 
running UNIX to the project. These were very useful, because the easiest way to 
develop components of GNU was to do it on a UNIX system, and replace the 
components of that system one by one. But they raised an ethical issue: whether 
it was right for us to have a copy of UNIX at all. 
UNIX was (and is) proprietary software, and the GNU project's philosophy said 
that we should not use proprietary software. But, applying the same reasoning 
that leads to the conclusion that violence in self defense is justified, I 
concluded that it was legitimate to use a proprietary package when that was 
crucial for developing free replacement that would help others stop using the 
proprietary package. 
But, even if this was a justifiable evil, it was still an evil. Today we no 
longer have any copies of Unix, because we have replaced them with free 
operating systems. If we could not replace a machine's operating system with a 
free one, we replaced the machine instead. 
The GNU Task List
As the GNU project proceeded, and increasing numbers of system components were 
found or developed, eventually it became useful to make a list of the remaining 
gaps. We used it to recruit developers to write the missing pieces. This list 
became known as the GNU task list. In addition to missing Unix components, we 
listed added various other useful software and documentation projects that, we 
thought, a truly complete system ought to have. 
Today, hardly any Unix components are left in the GNU task list--those jobs have 
been done, aside from a few inessential ones. But the list is full of projects 
that some might call "applications". Any program that appeals to more than a 
narrow class of users would be a useful thing to add to an operating system. 
Even games are included in the task list--and have been since the beginning. 
Unix included games, so naturally GNU should too. But compatibility was not an 
issue for games, so we did not follow the list of games that Unix had. Instead, 
we listed a spectrum of different kinds of games that users might like. 
The GNU Library GPL
The GNU C library uses a special kind of copyleft called the GNU Library General 
Public License, which gives permission to link proprietary software with the 
library. Why make this exception? 
It is not a matter of principle; there is no principle that says proprietary 
software products are entitled to include our code. (Why contribute to a project 
predicated on refusing to share with us?) Using the LGPL for the C library, or 
for any library, is a matter of strategy. 
The C library does a generic job; every proprietary system or compiler comes 
with a C library. Therefore, to make our C library available only to free 
software would not have given free software any advantage--it would only have 
discouraged use of our library. 
One system is an exception to this: on the GNU system (and this includes 
GNU/Linux), the GNU C library is the only C library. So the distribution terms 
of the GNU C library determine whether it is possible to compile a proprietary 
program for the GNU system. There is no ethical reason to allow proprietary 
applications on the GNU system, but strategically it seems that disallowing them 
would do more to discourage use of the GNU system than to encourage development 
of free applications. 
That is why using the Library GPL is a good strategy for the C library. For 
other libraries, the strategic decision needs to be considered on a case-by-case 
basis. When a library does a special job that can help write certain kinds of 
programs, then releasing it under the GPL, limiting it to free programs only, is 
a way of helping other free software developers, giving them an advantage 
against proprietary software. 
Consider GNU Readline, a library that was developed to provide command-line 
editing for BASH. Readline is released under the ordinary GNU GPL, not the 
Library GPL. This probably does reduce the amount Readline is used, but that is 
no loss for us. Meanwhile, at least one useful application has been made free 
software specifically so it could use Readline, and that is a real gain for the 
community. 
Proprietary software developers have the advantages money provides; free 
software developers need to make advantages for each other. I hope some day we 
will have a large collection of GPL-covered libraries that have no parallel 
available to proprietary software, providing useful modules to serve as building 
blocks in new free software, and adding up to a major advantage for further free 
software development. 
Scratching an itch?
Eric Raymond says that "Every good work of software starts by scratching a 
developer's personal itch." Maybe that happens sometimes, but many essential 
pieces of GNU software were developed in order to have a complete free operating 
system. They come from a vision and a plan, not from impulse. 
For example, we developed the GNU C library because a Unix-like system needs a C 
library, the Bourne-Again Shell (bash) because a Unix-like system needs a shell, 
and GNU tar because a Unix-like system needs a tar program. The same is true for 
my own programs--the GNU C compiler, GNU Emacs, GDB and GNU Make. 
Some GNU programs were developed to cope with specific threats to our freedom. 
Thus, we developed gzip to replace the Compress program, which had been lost to 
the community because of the LZW patents. We found people to develop LessTif, 
and more recently started GNOME and Harmony, to address the problems caused by 
certain proprietary libraries (see below). We are developing the GNU Privacy 
Guard to replace popular non-free encryption software, because users should not 
have to choose between privacy and freedom. 
Of course, the people writing these programs became interested in the work, and 
many features were added to them by various people for the sake of their own 
needs and interests. But that is not why the programs exist. 
Unexpected developments
At the beginning of the GNU project, I imagined that we would develop the whole 
GNU system, then release it as a whole. That is not how it happened. 
Since each component of the GNU system was implemented on a Unix system, each 
component could run on Unix systems, long before a complete GNU system existed. 
Some of these programs became popular, and users began extending them and 
porting them---to the various incompatible versions of Unix, and sometimes to 
other systems as well. 
The process made these programs much more powerful, and attracted both funds and 
contributors to the GNU project. But it probably also delayed completion of a 
minimal working system by several years, as GNU developers' time was put into 
maintaining these ports and adding features to the existing components, rather 
than moving on to write one missing component after another. 
The GNU Hurd
By 1990, the GNU system was almost complete; the only major missing component 
was the kernel. We had decided to implement our kernel as a collection of server 
processes running on top of Mach. Mach is a microkernel developed at Carnegie 
Mellon University and then at the University of Utah; the GNU HURD is a 
collection of servers (or ``herd of gnus'') that run on top of Mach, and do the 
various jobs of the Unix kernel. The start of development was delayed as we 
waited for Mach to be released as free software, as had been promised. 
One reason for choosing this design was to avoid what seemed to be the hardest 
part of the job: debugging a kernel program without a source-level debugger to 
do it with. This part of the job had been done already, in Mach, and we expected 
to debug the HURD servers as user programs, with GDB. But it took a long time to 
make that possible, and the multi-threaded servers that send messages to each 
other have turned out to be very hard to debug. Making the HURD work solidly has 
stretched on for many years. 
Alix
The GNU kernel was not originally supposed to be called the HURD. Its original 
name was Alix--named after the woman who was my sweetheart at the time. She, a 
Unix system administrator, had pointed out how her name would fit a common 
naming pattern for Unix system versions; as a joke, she told her friends, 
"Someone should name a kernel after me." I said nothing, but decided to surprise 
her with a kernel named Alix. 
It did not stay that way. Michael Bushnell (now Thomas), the main developer of 
the kernel, preferred the name HURD, and redefined Alix to refer to a certain 
part of the kernel--the part that would trap system calls and handle them by 
sending messages to HURD servers. 
Ultimately, Alix and I broke up, and she changed her name; independently, the 
HURD design was changed so that the C library would send messages directly to 
servers, and this made the Alix component disappear from the design. 
But before these things happened, a friend of hers came across the name Alix in 
the HURD source code, and mentioned the name to her. So the name did its job. 
Linux and GNU/Linux
The GNU Hurd is not ready for production use. Fortunately, another kernel is 
available. In 1991, Linus Torvalds developed a Unix-compatible kernel and called 
it Linux. Around 1992, combining Linux with the not-quite-complete GNU system 
resulted in a complete free operating system. (Combining them was a substantial 
job in itself, of course.) It is due to Linux that we can actually run a version 
of the GNU system today. 
We call this system version GNU/Linux, to express its composition as a 
combination of the GNU system with Linux as the kernel. 
Challenges in our future
We have proved our ability to develop a broad spectrum of free software. This 
does not mean we are invincible and unstoppable. Several challenges make the 
future of free software uncertain; meeting them will require steadfast effort 
and endurance, sometimes lasting for years. It will require the kind of 
determination that people display when they value their freedom and will not let 
anyone take it away. 
The following four sections discuss these challenges. 
Secret hardware
Hardware manufactures increasingly tend to keep hardware specifications secret. 
This makes it difficult to write free drivers so that Linux and XFree86 can 
support new hardware. We have complete free systems today, but we will not have 
them tomorrow if we cannot support tomorrow's computers. 
There are two ways to cope with this problem. Programmers can do reverse 
engineering to figure out how to support the hardware. The rest of us can choose 
the hardware that is supported by free software; as our numbers increase, 
secrecy of specifications will become a self-defeating policy. 
Reverse engineering is a big job; will we have programmers with sufficient 
determination to undertake it? Yes--if we have built up a strong feeling that 
free software is a matter of principle, and non-free drivers are intolerable. 
And will large numbers of us spend extra money, or even a little extra time, so 
we can use free drivers? Yes, if the determination to have freedom is 
widespread. 
Non-free libraries
A non-free library that runs on free operating systems acts as a trap for free 
software developers. The library's attractive features are the bait; if you use 
the library, you fall into the trap, because your program cannot usefully be 
part of a free operating system. (Strictly speaking, we could include your 
program, but it won't run with the library missing.) Even worse, if a program 
that uses the proprietary library becomes popular, it can lure other 
unsuspecting programmers into the trap. 
The first instance of this problem was the Motif toolkit, back in the 80s. 
Although there were as yet no free operating systems, it was clear what problem 
Motif would cause for them later on. The GNU Project responded in two ways: by 
asking individual free software projects to support the free X toolkit widgets 
as well as Motif, and by asking for someone to write a free replacement for 
Motif. The job took many years; LessTif, developed by the Hungry Programmers, 
became powerful enough to support most Motif applications only in 1997. 
Between 1996 and 1998, another non-free GUI toolkit library, called Qt, was used 
in a substantial collection of free software, the desktop KDE. 
Free GNU/Linux systems were unable to use KDE, because we could not use the 
library. However, some commercial distributors of GNU/Linux systems who were not 
strict about sticking with free software added KDE to their systems--producing a 
system with more capabilities, but less freedom. The KDE group was actively 
encouraging more programmers to use Qt, and millions of new "Linux users" had 
never been exposed to the idea that there was a problem in this. The situation 
appeared grim. 
The free software community responded to the problem in two ways: GNOME and 
Harmony. 
GNOME, the GNU Network Object Model Environment, is GNU's desktop project. 
Started in 1997 by Miguel de Icaza, and developed with the support of Red Hat 
Software, GNOME set out to provide similar desktop facilities, but using free 
software exclusively. It has technical advantages as well, such as supporting a 
variety of languages, not just C++. But its main purpose was freedom: not to 
require the use of any non-free software. 
Harmony is a compatible replacement library, designed to make it possible to run 
KDE software without using Qt. 
In November 1998, the developers of Qt announced a change of license which, when 
carried out, should make Qt free software. There is no way to be sure, but I 
think that this was partly due to the community's firm response to the problem 
that Qt posed when it was non-free. (The new license is inconvenient and 
inequitable, so it remains desirable to avoid using Qt.) 
[Subsequent note: in September 2000, Qt was rereleased under the GNU GPL, which 
essentially solved this problem.] 
How will we respond to the next tempting non-free library? Will the whole 
community understand the need to stay out of the trap? Or will many of us give 
up freedom for convenience, and produce a major problem? Our future depends on 
our philosophy. 
Software patents
The worst threat we face comes from software patents, which can put algorithms 
and features off limits to free software for up to twenty years. The LZW 
compression algorithm patents were applied for in 1983, and we still cannot 
release free software to produce proper compressed GIFs. In 1998, a free program 
to produce MP3 compressed audio was removed from distribution under threat of a 
patent suit. 
There are ways to cope with patents: we can search for evidence that a patent is 
invalid, and we can look for alternative ways to do a job. But each of these 
methods works only sometimes; when both fail, a patent may force all free 
software to lack some feature that users want. What will we do when this 
happens? 
Those of us who value free software for freedom's sake will stay with free 
software anyway. We will manage to get work done without the patented features. 
But those who value free software because they expect it to be techically 
superior are likely to call it a failure when a patent holds it back. Thus, 
while it is useful to talk about the practical effectiveness of the "cathedral" 
model of development, and the reliability and power of some free software, we 
must not stop there. We must talk about freedom and principle. 
Free documentation
The biggest deficiency in our free operating systems is not in the software--it 
is the lack of good free manuals that we can include in our systems. 
Documentation is an essential part of any software package; when an important 
free software package does not come with a good free manual, that is a major 
gap. We have many such gaps today. 
Free documentation, like free software, is a matter of freedom, not price. The 
criterion for a free manual is pretty much the same as for free software: it is 
a matter of giving all users certain freedoms. Redistribution (including 
commercial sale) must be permitted, on-line and on paper, so that the manual can 
accompany every copy of the program. 
Permission for modification is crucial too. As a general rule, I don't believe 
that it is essential for people to have permission to modify all sorts of 
articles and books. For example, I don't think you or I are obliged to give 
permission to modify articles like this one, which describe our actions and our 
views. 
But there is a particular reason why the freedom to modify is crucial for 
documentation for free software. When people exercise their right to modify the 
software, and add or change its features, if they are conscientious they will 
change the manual too--so they can provide accurate and usable documentation 
with the modified program. A manual which does not allow programmers to be 
conscientious and finish the job, does not fill our community's needs. 
Some kinds of limits on how modifications are done pose no problem. For example, 
requirements to preserve the original author's copyright notice, the 
distribution terms, or the list of authors, are ok. It is also no problem to 
require modified versions to include notice that they were modified, even to 
have entire sections that may not be deleted or changed, as long as these 
sections deal with nontechnical topics. These kinds of restrictions are not a 
problem because they don't stop the conscientious programmer from adapting the 
manual to fit the modified program. In other words, they don't block the free 
software community from making full use of the manual. 
However, it must be possible to modify all the *technical* content of the 
manual, and then distribute the result in all the usual media, through all the 
usual channels; otherwise, the restrictions do obstruct the community, the 
manual is not free, and we need another manual. 
Will free software developers have the awareness and determination to produce a 
full spectrum of free manuals? Once again, our future depends on philosophy. 
We must talk about freedom
Estimates today are that there are ten million users of GNU/Linux systems such 
as Debian GNU/Linux and Red Hat Linux. Free software has developed such 
practical advantages that users are flocking to it for purely practical reasons. 

The good consequences of this are evident: more interest in developing free 
software, more customers for free software businesses, and more ability to 
encourage companies to develop commercial free software instead of proprietary 
software products. 
But interest in the software is growing faster than awareness of the philosophy 
it is based on, and this leads to trouble. Our ability to meet the challenges 
and threats described above depends on the will to stand firm for freedom. To 
make sure our community has this will, we need to spread the idea to the new 
users as they come into the community. 
But we are failing to do so: the efforts to attract new users into our community 
are far outstripping the efforts to teach them the civics of our community. We 
need to do both, and we need to keep the two efforts in balance. 
"Open Source"
Teaching new users about freedom became more difficult in 1998, when a part of 
the community decided to stop using the term "free software" and say "open 
source software" instead. 
Some who favored this term aimed to avoid the confusion of "free" with 
"gratis"--a valid goal. Others, however, aimed to set aside the spirit of 
principle that had motivated the free software movement and the GNU project, and 
to appeal instead to executives and business users, many of whom hold an 
ideology that places profit above freedom, above community, above principle. 
Thus, the rhetoric of "open source" focuses on the potential to make high 
quality, powerful software, but shuns the ideas of freedom, community, and 
principle. 
The "Linux" magazines are a clear example of this--they are filled with 
advertisements for proprietary software that works with GNU/Linux. When the next 
Motif or Qt appears, will these magazines warn programmers to stay away from it, 
or will they run ads for it? 
The support of business can contribute to the community in many ways; all else 
being equal, it is useful. But winning their support by speaking even less about 
freedom and principle can be disastrous; it makes the previous imbalance between 
outreach and civics education even worse. 
"Free software" and "open source" describe the same category of software, more 
or less, but say different things about the software, and about values. The GNU 
Project continues to use the term "free software", to express the idea that 
freedom, not just technology, is important. 
Try!
Yoda's philosophy ("There is no `try'") sounds neat, but it doesn't work for me. 
I have done most of my work while anxious about whether I could do the job, and 
unsure that it would be enough to achieve the goal if I did. But I tried anyway, 
because there was no one but me between the enemy and my city. Surprising 
myself, I have sometimes succeeded. 
Sometimes I failed; some of my cities have fallen. Then I found another 
threatened city, and got ready for another battle. Over time, I've learned to 
look for threats and put myself between them and my city, calling on other 
hackers to come and join me. 
Nowadays, often I'm not the only one. It is a relief and a joy when I see a 
regiment of hackers digging in to hold the line, and I realize, this city may 
survive--for now. But the dangers are greater each year, and now Microsoft has 
explicitly targeted our community. We can't take the future of freedom for 
granted. Don't take it for granted! If you want to keep your freedom, you must 
be prepared to defend it. 


[ English | French | Indonesian | Italian | Korean | Russian | Spanish ] 
Return to GNU's home page. 
Please send FSF & GNU inquiries & questions to gnu@gnu.org. There are also other 
ways to contact the FSF. 
Please send comments on these web pages to webmasters@gnu.org, send other 
questions to gnu@gnu.org. 
Copyright (C) 1998, 2001 Richard Stallman. 
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any 
medium, provided this notice is preserved. 
Updated: $Date: 2001/12/28 00:09:59 $ $Author: mitya $ 

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Charles Hallenbeck]

I think it is an excellent talk, a real motivator.

Jim Danley has a patch for RC2 that adds keystroke control a lot
like trplayer. You have to get the patch and the RC2 sources and
compile it, or you could borrow my copy of ogg123 with the patch
built in. Either that or you could convert it to mp3 and then use
trplayer to read it as an mp3 file. Realaudio works great with
mp3 files, and the keystroke controls are superior.
But then that sort of flies in the face of the whole point,
doesn't it?


On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Steve Holmes wrote:

> Hey, that presentation was great! He can be quite the philosopher, can't
> he.
>
> About the Vorbis utilities, is there any way to play selective parts of an
> ogg file ala trplayer style? Example, I was listening to the lecture
> yesterday and wanted to pause it a time or two and cannot do that with
> ogg123.  At least with mpg123 and trplayer, you can move around within the
> file while playing and you can pause and start up the program at will.
> Are there any similar formatted players for Vorbis files?
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (99% of Full)

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Steve Holmes]

Well, I thought about converting it too:).  I don't know if I can go
directly to mp3 or not.  I suppose I could pipe to the input side of the
lame encoder to do this?

Yes, trplayer's command set is quite good and responsive.

On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Charles Hallenbeck wrote:

>
> I think it is an excellent talk, a real motivator.
>
> Jim Danley has a patch for RC2 that adds keystroke control a lot
> like trplayer. You have to get the patch and the RC2 sources and
> compile it, or you could borrow my copy of ogg123 with the patch
> built in. Either that or you could convert it to mp3 and then use
> trplayer to read it as an mp3 file. Realaudio works great with
> mp3 files, and the keystroke controls are superior.
> But then that sort of flies in the face of the whole point,
> doesn't it?
>
>
> On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Steve Holmes wrote:
>
> > Hey, that presentation was great! He can be quite the philosopher, can't
> > he.
> >
> > About the Vorbis utilities, is there any way to play selective parts of an
> > ogg file ala trplayer style? Example, I was listening to the lecture
> > yesterday and wanted to pause it a time or two and cannot do that with
> > ogg123.  At least with mpg123 and trplayer, you can move around within the
> > file while playing and you can pause and start up the program at will.
> > Are there any similar formatted players for Vorbis files?
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
>
> *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
> The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (99% of Full)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[rmann]

If you use freeamp you can go back 10 seconds or go forward 10 seconds.


On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Steve Holmes wrote:

> Hey, that presentation was great! He can be quite the philosopher, can't
> he.
>
> About the Vorbis utilities, is there any way to play selective parts of an
> ogg file ala trplayer style? Example, I was listening to the lecture
> yesterday and wanted to pause it a time or two and cannot do that with
> ogg123.  At least with mpg123 and trplayer, you can move around within the
> file while playing and you can pause and start up the program at will.
> Are there any similar formatted players for Vorbis files?
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Geoff Shang]

Hi:

Our own Jim Danley has a patch for ogg123 RC2 which will do a lot of what
trplayer will do.  Unfortunately, it won't patch against RC3.  Hopefully
Jim will bring it up to date, finish it off and commit it to the vorbis
project.

As someone else has stated, you can use freeamp to play Vorbis files.
There is also a realplayer plugin floating around somewhere, not sure where
though, which would allow trplayer to play vorbis files too.

Geoff.

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Dan Murphy]

Hi Chuck.  Although I found it confusing, I finally got it working by
usinng the -doss option for the output and it played just fine.
Thanks again.

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Gregory Nowak]

I have slackware 8. However, I have not yet had a chance to download the files. So, if the binary that comes with slackware 8.0 won't work with the files, then could you please send me that binary Chuck? Thanks.
Greg


On Sun, Jan 27, 2002 at 06:57:05AM -0500, Charles Hallenbeck wrote:
> Dan -
> I first began using ogg/vorbis before I upgraded my Slackware
> from 7.1 to 8.0, and the first ogg/borbis version I used was
> called "RC2" (Release Candidate 2). After upgrading I noticed
> that the ogg/vorbis package included in the Slackware 8.0 distro
> was only RC1, and I also had trouble making it work on the files
> I had created with RC2. I am afraid the answer to your question
> is that you need to upgrade your ogg123 and related programs from
> RC1 to RC2. I understand there is even an RC3 now, but I have not
> gone there yet either.
> 
> If anyone wants a binary of the ogg123 player that works on my
> system with the Stallman file, I will be glad to attach it to a
> private email. Just whistle.
> Chuck
> 
> On Sat, 26 Jan 2002, Dan Murphy wrote:
> 
> > Hi Chuck.  I have the ogg123 player installed on my system, but I don't
> > understand what the syntax for the command line should be.
> > For
> >  instance, if I type "ogg123 rms-nyu.ogg, it says it's playing the file
> > but I don't hear anything.
> > If I use the -v option, it tells me
> > that the plugin is a null device or some such thing and the manpage is
> > about as clear as mud.  Do I need to install something else, or what?
> > I'd really like to hear  what the man has to say.  Thanks.
> > On Sat, 26 Jan
> > 2002,
> > Charles Hallenbeck wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Amanda - rms is the man's initials. The file type is .ogg (for
> > > ogg/vorbis). The ogg player in Linux is called ogg123, and
> > > although I am not a windows person, I am told there is a plug in
> > > for winamp that plays ogg/vorbis formats. Unlike mp3, ogg/vorbis
> > > is open source and considerably more efficient too.
> > >
> > > Chuck
> > >
> > > On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Amanda Lee wrote:
> > >
> > > > and um what player will play this jewel?  winamp sure doesn't recognize .rms
> > > > files.
> > > >
> > > > Amanda
> > > >
> > > > Yeah I know I'm usint the wrong O/S!
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: "Gregory Nowak" <gnowak1@uic.edu>
> > > > To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>; "Speakup Distribution List"
> > > > <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca>
> > > > Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 8:49 PM
> > > > Subject: re: Richard Stallman on Free Software
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > Chuck,
> > > > >
> > > > > Is your web sight going to be reposted somewhere else? And, uhhhm, how
> > > > many points is that quiz out of (grin)?
> > > > > Greg
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > >
> > > > > >From: Charles Hallenbeck <hallenbeck@valstar.net
> > > > >
> > > > > >To: Speakup Distribution List <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca
> > > > >
> > > > > >Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 18:48:17 -0500 (EST)
> > > > >
> > > > > >Subject: Richard Stallman on Free Software
> > > > >
> > > > > >Hi gang -
> > > > >
> > > > > >I have been offline for a few days due to ISP problems, and now
> > > > >
> > > > > >have a new email address.  If I am in your addressbook, please
> > > > >
> > > > > >update my entry.
> > > > >
> > > > > >I mentioned the great two hour lecture by Richard Stallman a
> > > > >
> > > > > >while back, and Kirk has given me the URL to the compact version
> > > > >
> > > > > >on the speakup site.  While it is compact, it is still 19 megs
> > > > >
> > > > > >(the original in two parts was over 100 megs) and is the
> > > > >
> > > > > >ogg/vorbis format.  I would urge everyone to drop what they are
> > > > >
> > > > > >doing and read  this thing twice!!!
> > > > >
> > > > > >ftp://ftp.braille.uwo.ca/pub/linux/goodies/audio-files/rms-nyu.ogg
> > > > >
> > > > > >There will be a quiz on it next Wednesday.
> > > > >
> > > > > >Chuck
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > >*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
> > > > >
> > > > > >The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (87% of Full)
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > >_______________________________________________
> > > > >
> > > > > >Speakup mailing list
> > > > >
> > > > > >Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > > >
> > > > > >http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > Speakup mailing list
> > > > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Speakup mailing list
> > > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > > >
> > >
> > > *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
> > > The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (92% of Full)
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Speakup mailing list
> > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> 
> *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
> The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (97% of Full)
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Charles Hallenbeck]

Greg -
I will be happy to, but first try it with the -doss option like
Dan and Geoff have suggested and it will probably do the trick.
If that does not work, let me know and I will send you what I
use.
Chuck


On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Gregory Nowak wrote:

> I have slackware 8. However, I have not yet had a chance to download the files. So, if the binary that comes with slackware 8.0 won't work with the files, then could you please send me that binary Chuck? Thanks.
> Greg
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 27, 2002 at 06:57:05AM -0500, Charles Hallenbeck wrote:
> > Dan -
> > I first began using ogg/vorbis before I upgraded my Slackware
> > from 7.1 to 8.0, and the first ogg/borbis version I used was
> > called "RC2" (Release Candidate 2). After upgrading I noticed
> > that the ogg/vorbis package included in the Slackware 8.0 distro
> > was only RC1, and I also had trouble making it work on the files
> > I had created with RC2. I am afraid the answer to your question
> > is that you need to upgrade your ogg123 and related programs from
> > RC1 to RC2. I understand there is even an RC3 now, but I have not
> > gone there yet either.
> >
> > If anyone wants a binary of the ogg123 player that works on my
> > system with the Stallman file, I will be glad to attach it to a
> > private email. Just whistle.
> > Chuck
> >
> > On Sat, 26 Jan 2002, Dan Murphy wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Chuck.  I have the ogg123 player installed on my system, but I don't
> > > understand what the syntax for the command line should be.
> > > For
> > >  instance, if I type "ogg123 rms-nyu.ogg, it says it's playing the file
> > > but I don't hear anything.
> > > If I use the -v option, it tells me
> > > that the plugin is a null device or some such thing and the manpage is
> > > about as clear as mud.  Do I need to install something else, or what?
> > > I'd really like to hear  what the man has to say.  Thanks.
> > > On Sat, 26 Jan
> > > 2002,
> > > Charles Hallenbeck wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Amanda - rms is the man's initials. The file type is .ogg (for
> > > > ogg/vorbis). The ogg player in Linux is called ogg123, and
> > > > although I am not a windows person, I am told there is a plug in
> > > > for winamp that plays ogg/vorbis formats. Unlike mp3, ogg/vorbis
> > > > is open source and considerably more efficient too.
> > > >
> > > > Chuck
> > > >
> > > > On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Amanda Lee wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > and um what player will play this jewel?  winamp sure doesn't recognize .rms
> > > > > files.
> > > > >
> > > > > Amanda
> > > > >
> > > > > Yeah I know I'm usint the wrong O/S!
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > > From: "Gregory Nowak" <gnowak1@uic.edu>
> > > > > To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>; "Speakup Distribution List"
> > > > > <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca>
> > > > > Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 8:49 PM
> > > > > Subject: re: Richard Stallman on Free Software
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > Chuck,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Is your web sight going to be reposted somewhere else? And, uhhhm, how
> > > > > many points is that quiz out of (grin)?
> > > > > > Greg
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >From: Charles Hallenbeck <hallenbeck@valstar.net
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >To: Speakup Distribution List <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 18:48:17 -0500 (EST)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >Subject: Richard Stallman on Free Software
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >Hi gang -
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >I have been offline for a few days due to ISP problems, and now
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >have a new email address.  If I am in your addressbook, please
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >update my entry.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >I mentioned the great two hour lecture by Richard Stallman a
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >while back, and Kirk has given me the URL to the compact version
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >on the speakup site.  While it is compact, it is still 19 megs
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >(the original in two parts was over 100 megs) and is the
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >ogg/vorbis format.  I would urge everyone to drop what they are
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >doing and read  this thing twice!!!
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >ftp://ftp.braille.uwo.ca/pub/linux/goodies/audio-files/rms-nyu.ogg
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >There will be a quiz on it next Wednesday.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >Chuck
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (87% of Full)
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >_______________________________________________
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >Speakup mailing list
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > Speakup mailing list
> > > > > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > > > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > Speakup mailing list
> > > > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
> > > > The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (92% of Full)
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Speakup mailing list
> > > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Speakup mailing list
> > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > >
> >
> > *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
> > The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (97% of Full)
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (98% of Full)

re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Charles Hallenbeck]

<smile> - the quiz will be pass-fail.

The old web site will be moving soon, but will remain available
as is for a few weeks. Mary and I shared the old ISP for email
and we have to transition cautiously.

Chuck


On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Gregory Nowak wrote:

> Chuck,
>
> Is your web sight going to be reposted somewhere else? And, uhhhm, how many points is that quiz out of (grin)?
> Greg
>
>
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
>
> >From: Charles Hallenbeck <hallenbeck@valstar.net
>
> >To: Speakup Distribution List <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca
>
> >Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 18:48:17 -0500 (EST)
>
> >Subject: Richard Stallman on Free Software
>
> >Hi gang -
>
> >I have been offline for a few days due to ISP problems, and now
>
> >have a new email address.  If I am in your addressbook, please
>
> >update my entry.
>
> >I mentioned the great two hour lecture by Richard Stallman a
>
> >while back, and Kirk has given me the URL to the compact version
>
> >on the speakup site.  While it is compact, it is still 19 megs
>
> >(the original in two parts was over 100 megs) and is the
>
> >ogg/vorbis format.  I would urge everyone to drop what they are
>
> >doing and read  this thing twice!!!
>
> >ftp://ftp.braille.uwo.ca/pub/linux/goodies/audio-files/rms-nyu.ogg
>
> >There will be a quiz on it next Wednesday.
>
> >Chuck
>
>
> >*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
>
> >The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (87% of Full)
>
>
> >_______________________________________________
>
> >Speakup mailing list
>
> >Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>
> >http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (92% of Full)

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Gregory Nowak]

Sure do, thanks for telling us how to find out.  I'll be downloading those files as soon as my broadband is back on.  It's been down since last evening, and I've got to resort to doing e-mail with the braillenote over good old dial-up.
Greg



> ----- Original Message -----

>From: Geoff Shang <gshang@uq.net.au

>To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca

>Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 15:35:44 +1000

>Subject: Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

>Hi:

>To see if you've got vorbis-tools installed, see if you have ogg123.  this

>is the standalone vorbis player.

>Geoff.



>_______________________________________________

>Speakup mailing list

>Speakup@braille.uwo.ca

>http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Gregory Nowak]

I think I saw something about vorbis tools in slackware 8.0 setup.  How can I tell if I can just play the files without needing to download anything? Thanks.
Greg



> ----- Original Message -----

>From: Geoff Shang <gshang@uq.net.au

>To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca

>Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 13:01:12 +1000

>Subject: Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

>Hi:

>It's an .ogg file.  You can get the vorbis input plugin from www.vorbis.com

>- go to downloads and to windows.

>Folks, vorbis is the free, open, patentless, free of royalties lossy audio

>compression codec that already out-performs MP3 and is still improving.  If

>you aren't equiped to handle this format yet, I highly recommend doing so.

>For linux, you can get redhat RPM's from vorbis.com as well as source

>tarballs.  You need libogg, libvorbis, libao, vorbis-tools and, if you want

>to use the ogg123 player, you need to get curl from elsewhere (this need

>isn't documented).  People running Debian Syd can get the vorbis-tools

>package and the rest should take care of itself.  If 1.0rc3 hasnt' appeared

>in woody yet, it should have by now, it will soon.

>Let me know if you have any queries.

>Geoff.


>_______________________________________________

>Speakup mailing list

>Speakup@braille.uwo.ca

>http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Amanda Lee]

I'd think that if it doesn't play when you load it, there's a possibility it
isn't supported in your audio player.   Since it isn't a standard file type
that is recognized, you'd need some sort of pluggin.  I went looking through
the ones supported by winamp and .ogg definitely wasn't shown.  Since I
don't know the Linux equivalent audio players, if there's a way to show
which types are supported, then look through that list.  If .ogg isn't
supported, there's your answer.

Amanda Lee

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gregory Nowak" <gnowak1@uic.edu>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 10:58 PM
Subject: Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software


> I think I saw something about vorbis tools in slackware 8.0 setup.  How
can I tell if I can just play the files without needing to download
anything? Thanks.
> Greg
>
>
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
>
> >From: Geoff Shang <gshang@uq.net.au
>
> >To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>
> >Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 13:01:12 +1000
>
> >Subject: Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software
>
> >Hi:
>
> >It's an .ogg file.  You can get the vorbis input plugin from
www.vorbis.com
>
> >- go to downloads and to windows.
>
> >Folks, vorbis is the free, open, patentless, free of royalties lossy
audio
>
> >compression codec that already out-performs MP3 and is still improving.
If
>
> >you aren't equiped to handle this format yet, I highly recommend doing
so.
>
> >For linux, you can get redhat RPM's from vorbis.com as well as source
>
> >tarballs.  You need libogg, libvorbis, libao, vorbis-tools and, if you
want
>
> >to use the ogg123 player, you need to get curl from elsewhere (this need
>
> >isn't documented).  People running Debian Syd can get the vorbis-tools
>
> >package and the rest should take care of itself.  If 1.0rc3 hasnt'
appeared
>
> >in woody yet, it should have by now, it will soon.
>
> >Let me know if you have any queries.
>
> >Geoff.
>
>
> >_______________________________________________
>
> >Speakup mailing list
>
> >Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>
> >http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>

Re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Geoff Shang]

Hi:

To see if you've got vorbis-tools installed, see if you have ogg123.  this
is the standalone vorbis player.

Geoff.

re: Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Gregory Nowak]

Chuck,

Is your web sight going to be reposted somewhere else? And, uhhhm, how many points is that quiz out of (grin)?
Greg



> ----- Original Message -----

>From: Charles Hallenbeck <hallenbeck@valstar.net

>To: Speakup Distribution List <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca

>Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 18:48:17 -0500 (EST)

>Subject: Richard Stallman on Free Software

>Hi gang -

>I have been offline for a few days due to ISP problems, and now

>have a new email address.  If I am in your addressbook, please

>update my entry.

>I mentioned the great two hour lecture by Richard Stallman a

>while back, and Kirk has given me the URL to the compact version

>on the speakup site.  While it is compact, it is still 19 megs

>(the original in two parts was over 100 megs) and is the

>ogg/vorbis format.  I would urge everyone to drop what they are

>doing and read  this thing twice!!!

>ftp://ftp.braille.uwo.ca/pub/linux/goodies/audio-files/rms-nyu.ogg

>There will be a quiz on it next Wednesday.

>Chuck


>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*

>The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (87% of Full)


>_______________________________________________

>Speakup mailing list

>Speakup@braille.uwo.ca

>http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Richard Stallman on Free Software

[Charles Hallenbeck]

Hi gang -

I have been offline for a few days due to ISP problems, and now
have a new email address. If I am in your addressbook, please
update my entry.

I mentioned the great two hour lecture by Richard Stallman a
while back, and Kirk has given me the URL to the compact version
on the speakup site. While it is compact, it is still 19 megs
(the original in two parts was over 100 megs) and is the
ogg/vorbis format. I would urge everyone to drop what they are
doing and read  this thing twice!!!

ftp://ftp.braille.uwo.ca/pub/linux/goodies/audio-files/rms-nyu.ogg

There will be a quiz on it next Wednesday.

Chuck


*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*
The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (87% of Full)