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Born
Richard Matthew Stallman was born on March 16th, 1953 in New York, New York. -
Graduated Harvard with Bachelor's of Physics
RMS earned a bachelor's degress in physics from Harvard University in 1974. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Stallman -
Emacs First Implemented by David A. Moon
Emacs was originally implemented at MIT on the ITS, Incompatible Timesharing System. In this form, Emacs was not its own editor, rather a sets of macros for the TECO editor that made using the system more streamlined. -
MIT CS Department Deploys Passwords Security
To the discontent of RMS, MIT's AI lab began to deploy password security on their computers in 1977. This marked the begging of Stallman's feud with password protection on MIT machines, resulting the protection being repeatedly defeated by Stallman. -
Greenblat and Noftsker Part Ways in Forming LISP Machine Companies
The MIT hackers are known for their creation of LISP and ITS (Incompatible Timesharing Service), and knew that they would eventually want to commercialize their creation. The two men at the forefront of this initiative were Greenblat and Noftsker, who had a disagreement in the hypothetical company's structure in 1979. This lead the men to part ways and create different ventures; Greenblat's LMI and Noftker's Symbolics. Symbolics would go on to hire nearly all of the MIT hackers, frustrating RMS. -
Symbolics Ends Agreement to Cooperate and RMS Reverse Engineers Changes Made to ITS
Since both LMI and Symbolics utilized ITS and were spawned out of the hacker culture at MIT, they initially shared source code when developing their products. In 1982 Symbolics decided to end this unspoken agreement and retain their code as proprietary works. Stallman saw this as an oppertunity to seek revenge on Symbolics. Their systems were purchased by MIT, meaning that RMS had easy access to their machines and software. For two years, RMS would reverse engineer their code and distribute it. -
RMS Anounces GNU Project
Stallman announces the GNU project, which is intended was intended to a completely free version of Unix that would run on all Unix machines. This marks the begging of a new chapter of Stallman's life after MIT and ITS. https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-history.en.html -
GNU Emacs Written
While Emacs was not originally conceived of and written by Richard Stallman, his version is certainly the most ubiquitous today. Before GNU Emacs' release, the most prevalent version of Emacs was the one written by James Gosling. This version was freely available for a while, until Gosling decided to sell the rights to a company. This caused RMS to reverse engineer Gosling's version and write his own LISP interpreter. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/further-information.html -
RMS Leaves MIT
After his two year long warpath to reverse engineer Symbolics software, RMS would leave MIT as this task being completed by a one man team was not sustainable. He would then go on to explore other ways to proliferate the hacker ethic, like GNU and the FSF. https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.en.html -
GNU Manifesto Published
RMS published the GNU manifesto which better defines the intent of the GNU project. RMS also describes the basics of the utility of the GNU project and free software after witnessing the downfall of the "Emacs Commune."
https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.en.html -
FSF is Incorporated
The Free Software Foundation is incorporated, which serves as the steward of the GNU project; including GNU software and GPL. The FSF is a nonprofit organization. https://www.fsf.org/history/ -
GCC Beta Released
GCC, then known as the GNU C Compiler, is initially released. After attempting to use components from other C compilers for GNU when initially writing the software package for the Motorola 68000, RMS released that none were suitable because of their requirements for stack memory. Instead, he decided to write his own compiler from scratch; GCC. This would go on to be one of the most widely used C compilers in the world; the basis for GNU and Linux. https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/History -
glibc Initially Released By Roland McGrath
glibc or the GNU C library is an important component of the GNU project. It provides many APIs that are integral to writing C on a GNU system, like open, read, write, malloc, printf, exit and more. Its release marked a major milestone in the GNU project, a step towards the GNU OS being as ubiquitous as it is today. https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/ https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/Glibc%20Timeline -
GPL Announced
The initial version of the GNU General Public License is announced. This marked a pivotal moment in the concept of copyleft; RMS' first attempt utilizing the Copyright system to ensure software does not become the private property of one individual. -
GPL V2 Announced
After realizing potential legal issues with the initial release of the GPL, RMS decided to release an updated version that incorporated legal and developer feedback. This version of the GPL is still widely used today, most notoriously by the Linux kernel. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt -
Linus Torvalds Announces Linux Kernel
The Linux kernel is announced by Linux Torvalds at the University of Hellsinki, in Hellsinki Finland. The Linux kernel would be licensed with the GNU GPL V2. This marks a another pivotal moment for the GNU project as Linux would act as the missing piece of the GNU operating system, finally making it a somewhat complete usable system. https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/25-years-linux -
Free as In Freedom Published
An incomplete synopsis of Richard Stallman's works titled "Free as in Freedom" is published, authored by Sam Williams. This book follows Stallman through his years at MIT through the creation of GNU and provides keen insights into some of the most pivotal moment of RMS' life. -
GPL V3 Announced
The third and most current version of the GNU GPL is released. This version included refinement of legal language in order to make the license's intentions more clear when interpreted by the law. It also introduces new rules about DRM, patents and hardware restrictions in order to make the license more consumer friendly. It also adds a mechanism for additional permissions to be granted, making it possible to be more compatible with other licenses. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html