GNU License for Hardware

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Richard Stallman (rms at gnu.org):

> It is a question of fact and interpretation.  Here are
> several reasons, which I think are more than sufficient.
> 
> 1. We launched the project to develop a complete free operating system
>    like this one.
> 2. All the other projects that wrote programs now in the system
>    aimed to write a program to do this or that specific job.
>    We alone proposed the goal of a whole system, and did whatever
>    was necessary to achieve that goal.

I have personally heard Kirk McKusick credit Richard Stallman
and the FSF for directly inspiring the effort to create a free
version of 4.x BSD.  This was during his two-hour talk to
the Silicon Valley Linux User Group, earlier this year.

One of my employees is currently taking a class from McKusick
at Berkeley, and I'm going to request that she ask Kirk to 
confirm this in writing, to Richard.  I suspect he'll be delighted
to do so, as he has considerable respect for the GNU Project.

In the meanwhile, perhaps this e-mail will help.

-- 
Cheers,                 "Heedless of grammar, they all cried 'It's him!'"
Rick Moen                       -- R.H. Barham, _Misadventure at Margate_
rick at hugin.imat.com