So why did Torvalds ???give away??? Linux to anyone who wanted it? Why didn??™t
he follow the standard corporate development model and make a mountain of
money? To understand this, you need to be familiar with the GNU??™s Not UNIX
(GNU) movement. In the early 1980s a programmer named Richard Stallman at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology proposed an alternative to the standard
corporate software development model. He objected to the proprietary nature of the
process and the product.
In 1983, Stallman launched the GNU Project. GNU is centered around the
idea that the source code for applications and operating systems should be freely
8 Chapter 1: Introducing Linux
distributable to anyone who wants it. He felt that the source code for programs
should be free from all restrictions that prevent copying, modification, and
redistribution. Stallman hoped that allowing programmers around the world to
modify an application??™s source code would result in higher-quality software.
The GNU Project slowly took hold. Many useful applications, such as the GNU
C Compiler (gcc) were developed under GNU. Torvalds was heavily influenced by
the GNU Project and released the source code for his Linux operating system kernel
to the world as a result.
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