Richard Stallman founded the GNU Project in 1984, and the Free Software Foundation in 1985. He also originally authored a number of well known and highly used development tools, including the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), the GNU symbolic debugger (GDB) and GNU Emacs.
To better understand Richard Stallman and the GNU project, I recommend you begin by reviewing their philosophy page. On it you will find a wealth of information.
We began this interview via email, but later had to finish by telephone after Richard Stallman fell and broke his arm. He was kind enough to speak with me at length, discussing his first contact with computers, his time in the AI lab, the current state of the GNU Hurd, his current role in the Free Software Foundation, the problems with non-free software, and much more. The following words offer much insight into how we got here, and what challenges we still face.
Jeremy Andrews: When did you first start working with computers?
Richard Stallman: I first read manuals and wrote programs on paper in 1962 or so. 1969 was when I first saw and used a real computer.
JA: What types of programs were you writing prior to actually seeing and using a real computer?
Richard Stallman: They were pretty trivial, like things to add up a
vector of numbers. About the time I first started with a real computer I designed a computer language based on string substitution. In some ways like SNOBOL, although I'd never used SNOBOL.
And then, the first thing I started writing when I had a real computer to use--I'd seen the language PL/I and I was thrilled by how many features it had. But there was a feature it didn't have: it didn't have the summation convention used in tensor analysis. So I started to write a pre-processor for PL/I that would implement the summation convention. I didn't ever finish it, but I actually got some parts of it to work. I wrote it first in PL/I, and then we discovered that even one pass of it wouldn't fit in the machine that was available. (I had actually written a lot of parts of this in PL/I on paper by that point.) Then I started rewriting it in assembler language, but I only rewrote a few passes of it in assembler language. And then I learned about things like lists and about Lisp, and lost interest in languages
like PL/I.
JA: When you graduated from Harvard in 1974 with a BA in physics, how did you intend to use your degree?
Richard Stallman: I thought I would become a theoretical physicist; however, the pleasure of programming, where I could make real progress and see results, gradually grew and overtook the pleasure of learning physics.
Life In The AI Lab:
JA: What tasks occupied your time at the AI Lab through the 1970s?
Richard Stallman: Mostly operating system development, but I did one AI research project with Professor Sussman; we developed dependency-directed backtracking.
JA: What is dependency-directed backtracking?
Richard Stallman: You make some assumptions, and with those together with some given facts you draw a conclusion. You may reach a contradiction; if so, at least one of your assumptions that led to that contradiction must be wrong. You also record which combination of assumptions actually related to the contradiction, so you can deduce that that combination of assumptions cannot all be true. Then you backtrack by changing assumptions, but you never try a set of assumptions that includes the combination that you know are contradictory. Now, this is a technique that people had used for a long time in thinking. It's also known as proof analysis. But it hadn't been used in computerized reasoning.
JA: What was the result of this research project?
Richard Stallman: We published a paper. The technique got used by other people later, so apparently it became part of AI.
Also, I learned how to understand electrical circuits better. The program that we wrote, which used this technique, was a program for understanding electrical circuits. By imitating the program, I could understand circuits better than I could before.
The GNU Project And The Free Software Foundation:
JA: The story of your encounter with non-free printer software in the early 80's is very well known. This incident ultimately resulted in your founding the GNU Project in 1984, and the Free Software Foundation in 1985. You have remained quite active in this movement ever since, as a public speaker and a prolific author of free software. Of which of your many achievements in the past two decades are you the most proud?
Richard Stallman: What I am proud of is that we have built a community where people can use computers and work together in freedom.
JA: What are the largest challenges you're facing today?
Richard Stallman: Software patents. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The broadcast flag. Cards with secret specifications. Non-free Java platforms.
In other words, organized efforts by people with power to put an end to our freedom.
JA: Is there a plan for addressing these issues?
Richard Stallman: Regarding the laws, not much of one, in the US. In other countries that do not yet have these laws, we can try to prevent them.
JA: That's a bit scary.
Richard Stallman: It is.
"Free Software" vs. "Open Source":
JA: You regularly have to explain the differences between "free
software" and "open source software", and yet the media continues to confuse these terms. For our readers that may therefor be confused themselves, can you explain the differences, and why it is important to get it right?
Richard Stallman: Free software and open source are the slogans of two different movements with different philosophies. In the free software movement, our goal is to be free to share and cooperate. We say that non-free software is antisocial because it tramples the users' freedom, and we develop free software to escape from that.
The open source movement promotes what they consider a technically superior development model that usually gives technically superior results. The values they cite are the same ones Microsoft appeals to: narrowly practical values.
Free software and open source are also both criteria for software licenses. These criteria are written in very different ways but the licenses accepted are almost the same. The main difference is the difference in philosophy.
Why does the philosophy matter? Because people who don't value their freedom will lose it. If you give people freedom but don't teach them to value it, they won't hold on to it for long. So it is not enough to spread free software. We have to teach people to demand freedom, to fight for freedom. Then we may be able to overcome the problems that today I see no way to solve.
"GNU/Linux":
JA: Another frequent area of confusion is the name 'GNU/Linux'. Why is the GNU project's contribution significant enough that it should be in the name of the operating system, especially compared to other large pieces of any Linux-kernel based operating system, such as XFree86?
Richard Stallman: It's no coincidence that the code we wrote for the GNU system is the largest single contribution to the GNU/Linux system today. Many other people and projects have developed free software programs now used in the system; TeX, BSD code, X11, Linux, and Apache are noteworthy examples. But it was the GNU Project that set out to develop a complete free operating system. The combined system we use today is founded on GNU.
JA: In talking about GNU Linux...
Richard Stallman: I prefer to pronounce it GNU-slash-Linux, or GNU-plus-Linux. The reason is that when you say GNU-Linux it is very much prone to suggest a misleading interpretation. After all, we have GNU Emacs which is the version of Emacs which was developed for GNU. If you say "GNU Linux", people will think it means a version of Linux that was developed for GNU. Which is not the fact.
JA: You're trying to point out instead that it's a combination of the two.
Richard Stallman: Exactly. It's GNU plus Linux together.
JA: Which makes up the GNU+Linux operating system that everyone uses.
Richard Stallman: Exactly.
JA: What is gained by people using the term GNU/Linux?
Richard Stallman: People know that Linus Torvalds wrote his program Linux to have fun. And people know that Linus Torvalds did not say that it's wrong to stop users for sharing and changing the software they use. If they think that our system was started by him and primarily owes existence to him, they will tend to follow his philosophy, and that weakens our community.
It's an interesting anecdote to think that the whole operating system exists because an undergraduate thought that it was a fun project. But the real story is that this system exists because of people who were determined to fight for freedom and willing to work for years if that's what it took. That's a story that teaches people something worth learning.
When people forget that, they start drifting toward the practical but superficial values shared by the open source movement and Microsoft: the idea that the only thing that matters about your software is whether it gets your jobs done and what it costs.
JA: Which begins to answer my next question, what is lost when people refuse to use the term GNU/Linux?
Richard Stallman: What's lost is an opportunity to teach people. The software is equally free regardless of whatever name you call it--if, that is, the distro you're using really is free. But the only free GNU/Linux distro I know of is UTUTO. Most versions of the GNU/Linux system are not entirely free software. All the commercial distributors put in non-free software. And then there's Debian which keeps all the non-free software clearly separated, but does distribute it. And those who sell Debian GNU/Linux often add a few non-free programs as a "bonus"... They invite you to think it's a bonus you're getting that your freedom is no longer complete.
If you happen to be running a version of GNU/Linux which doesn't have the non-free software, then the situation is not materially changed by the name you use. But the situation we're likely to find ourselves in five years from now depends on what we teach each other today.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but if you called it an onion you'd get cooks very confused.
GNU/Hurd:
JA: The GNU Hurd has been under development for over a decade. There was talk of a 1.0 release over a year ago, but this was delayed due to a couple of lacking features. What is the current status of this project?
Richard Stallman: The Hurd runs, and missing features are gradually being added. However, for practical use today, you would use a Linux-based version of GNU.
JA: Do you have any predictions as to when we're going to see a 1.0 release?
Richard Stallman: No, I'm afraid I don't, I'm sad to say. A lot of the Hurd developers seem to have decided that they should re-write it to work with a different micro-kernel (L4). I was disappointed to hear this, but now it looks like it will be some more years before the Hurd is usable.
At least we do have a free kernel that works with GNU.
JA: Will the GNU Project focus solely on a GNU system built around the GNU Hurd when it is released, or will it continue to support a widening range of free-software kernels?
Richard Stallman: We will keep supporting Linux-based versions of the GNU system for as long as they remain popular.
JA: How will we refer to a Hurd-based operating system? Is it GNU Hurd, or GNU slash Hurd?
Richard Stallman: It's the GNU operating system, and the Hurd is its kernel. But because it's so common for people to use version of GNU that are based on Linux as the kernel, it's useful to contrast the two, and talk about GNU/Linux and GNU/Hurd, which are two different versions of the GNU system with different kernels.
JA: What would the advantages of using a GNU/Hurd system be over say a GNU/Linux system?
Richard Stallman: There's probably no gigantic advantage that jumps out at the user's face if you're not writing interesting programs. The Hurd offers interesting, powerful capabilities. For instance, you can write your own filesystem, so you could implement any sort of behavior you want and package it as a file. It offers the possibility of implementing sandboxes, where you can run a program but have another program monitoring all its I/O to make sure it doesn't start writing in files it wasn't expected to.
These things may be doable with a kernel that doesn't have the Hurd's architecture, but with the Hurd it's trivial and the most natural thing in the world.
Writing Code vs. Management:
JA: How much source code do you write these days?
Richard Stallman: I myself? Only a little, on Emacs. I was
involuntarily self-promoted into management.
JA: That's an interesting description. How did this happen?
Richard Stallman: The amount of management and activism that had to be done got more and more, and so I had to find other people to take over more and more of my programming responsibilities.
JA: Do you miss the programming?
Richard Stallman: Yes. It's fun.
JA: Is the management/activist role something you desire to remain in?
Richard Stallman: I wouldn't say I desire to, but it's necessary that I do so. At the moment we don't have anyone to replace me. We're actually thinking about how we we could try and develop people who could do this, so that I will not be indispensable.
JA: What is your role these days?
Richard Stallman: Partly it is being a very firm and determined leader. Partly it is being an orator. Partly it is advising other people on how to be activists or how to contribute to free software. I've learned something that a lot of people could usefully know: how to be extremely persistent and whenever one avenue was blocked find another.
I've also learned the spirit of what you do when you're fighting for freedom. When it's a fight that you can't ever give up as lost.
JA: Many of the programs you were the original author for are key components of much software development today (free and non-free alike), such as the GNU Compiler Collection (gcc), the GNU symbolic debugger (gdb), and GNU Emacs. All of these projects have remained under constant development over the years. How closely have you followed the many projects you've started, and how do you feel about the directions they've taken?
Richard Stallman: I don't follow GCC and GDB in technical detail nowadays--other people now have that responsibility. I still supervise Emacs development.
GNU Emacs:
JA: Then you are still working on Emacs at a code level?
Richard Stallman: Yes, although now with my broken arm I really have no time to program anything. I will when my arm is better and I can type for myself again.
JA: May I ask what happened to your arm?
Richard Stallman: I fell and broke my arm, and I needed surgery. It hurts, and I think it will never be normal again. But I think it will work for typing. (Later: it works fine for typing, but it tingles all the time.)
JA: I'm sorry to hear about your arm, and I wish you a speedy recovery.
I recently reread Cliff Stoll's "The Cuckoo's Egg". Are you familiar with the book?
Richard Stallman: I have a vague memory of it.
JA: A quick summary, he talks about a spy that breaks into a university computer system, initially using a security hole in GNU Emacs...
Richard Stallman: Well, whether it's really a security hole, or whether he had made a mistake by installing a certain program setuid is subject to argument.
JA: That's exactly what I was curious about, just what your reaction would have been to the book when it came out.
Richard Stallman: His book made it sound like Emacs, or actually movemail I think it was... His book made it sound like it was normal to install movemail setuid. I think some people sometimes did that, as there was a certain problem you could get around by doing that, but that wasn't the normal way to install it. So in fact, people installing Emacs the usual way would not have had that problem.
On the other hand, it certainly was useful to make Emacs more bulletproof, so that that problem couldn't happen even if you installed movemail as setuid.
That was ages ago.
Non-Free Software:
JA: What is your reaction to tools such as gcc, gdb and GNU Emacs being used for the development of non-free software?
Richard Stallman: Any development of non-free software is harmful and unfortunate, whether it uses GNU tools or other tools. Whether it is good or bad, in the long term, for the future of computer users' freedom that one can use these tools to develop non-free software is a question whose answer I could only guess at.
JA: How do you react to the opinion that non-free software is justified as a means for raising dollars that can then be put into the development of completely new software, money that otherwise may not have been available, and thus creating software that may have never been developed?
Richard Stallman: This is no justification at all. A non-free program systematically denies the users the freedom to cooperate; it is the basis of an antisocial scheme to dominate people. The program is available lawfully only to those who will surrender their freedom. That's not a contribution to society, it's a social problem. It is better to develop no software than to develop non-free software.
So if you find yourself in that situation, please don't follow that path. Please don't write the non-free program--please do something else instead. We can wait till someone else has the chance to develop a free program to do the same job.
JA: What about the programmers...
Richard Stallman: What about them? The programmers writing non-free software? They are doing something antisocial. They should get some other job.
JA: Such as?
Richard Stallman: There are thousands of different jobs people can have in society without developing non-free software. You can even be a programmer. Most paid programmers are developing custom software--only a small fraction are developing non-free software. The small fraction of proprietary software jobs are not hard to avoid.
JA: What is the distinction there?
Richard Stallman: Non-free software is meant to be distributed to the public. Custom software is meant to be used by one client. There's no ethical problem with custom software as long as you're respecting your client's freedom.
The next point is that programmers are a tiny fraction of employment in the computer field. Suppose somebody developed an AI and no programmers were needed anymore. Would this be a disaster? Would all the people who are now programmers be doomed to unemployment for the rest of their lives? Obviously not, but this doesn't stop people from exaggerating the issue.
And what if there aren't any programming jobs in the US anymore?
JA: You mean what if all the programming jobs were outsourced to foreign countries?
Richard Stallman: Yes, what if they all go? This may actually happen. When you start thinking about things like total levels of employment, you've got think about all the factors that affect it, not blame it all on one factor. The cause of unemployment is not someone or society deciding that software should be free. The cause of the problem is largely economic policies designed to benefit only the rich. Such as driving wages down.
You know, it's no coincidence that we're having all this outsourcing. That was carefully planned. International treaties were designed to make this happen so that people's wages would be reduced.
JA: Can you cite specific examples?
Richard Stallman: FTAA. The World Trade Organization. NAFTA. These treaties are designed to reduce wages by making it easy for a company to say to various countries, "which of you will let us pay people the least? That's were we're headed." And if any country starts having a somewhat increased standard of living, companies say "oh, this is a bad labor climate here. You're not making a good climate for business. All the business is going to go away. You better make sure that people get paid less. You're following a foolish policy arranging for workers of your country to be paid more. You've got to make sure that your workers are the lowest paid anywhere in the world, then we'll come back. Otherwise we're all going to run away and punish you."
Businesses very often do it, they move operations out of a country to punish that country. And I've recently come to the conclusion that frictionless international trade is inherently a harmful thing, because it makes it too easy for companies to move from one country to another. We have to make that difficult enough that each company can be stuck in some country that can regulate it.
The book No Logo explains that the Philippines have laws that protect labor standards, but these laws count for nothing any more. They decided to set up "enterprise zones" - that's the euphemism they used for "sweat shop zones" - where companies are exempt from these rules for the first two years. And as a result, no company lasts for more than two years. When their exemption runs out, the owners shut it down and they start another.
JA: How does free software address this?
Richard Stallman: Free software doesn't address this. Free software addresses the issue of how computer users can have freedom to cooperate and to control their own computers. This is the larger issue that becomes relevant when you start talking about "How are people going to have jobs that pay them decently?" The answer is: in the world of the low wage treaties, they're not going to.
It's inconsistent and future to subject millions of people to the loss of freedom that non-free software imposes, just so that a tiny segment of society will have better paying jobs, when we're ignoring all the rest of society with their lousy jobs.
If you want to start doing something about that problem, do it at the right level, which is the level of the power balance between
corporations and countries. Corporations are too powerful now. We have to knock them down. I don't believe in abolishing business or even in abolishing corporations, but we've got to make sure that no corporation is powerful enough that it can say to all the countries in the world, "I'll punish any country that doesn't obey."
That is the way it works now. And it was deliberately set up by people such as Reagan, and Clinton, and Bush and Bush.
New Technologies:
JA: I have read that the free software model tends to imitate existing software, rather than blaze new trails and developing completely new technologies.
Richard Stallman: To speak of a free software "model" is somewhat misleading. The open source movement speaks of a "development model", but our concern is for the user's freedom, not how the program is developed.
Free software doesn't always imitate, but often it does. There's a good reason for this: freedom is the main goal, and innovation is secondary.
Our goal is to develop free software so that we can use computers exclusively with free software. In 1984, we started with nearly zero (we had TeX, nothing else). We had a lot of catching up to do, so we have done it. Even if GNU/Linux had no technical innovations compared with Unix, it would be completely superior because it respects your freedom as Unix does not.
JA: Do you believe that free software has caught up with non-free software?
Richard Stallman: To a large extent, but not totally.
JA: Would you say that we're going to start seeing a lot of technical innovations originating from free software as things are catching up?
Richard Stallman: We already have. We already have seen a technical innovations in free software. A lot of them help make up the world wide web.
Richard Stallman(이하 RMS)은 1984년에 GNU Project를 1985년에 Free Software Foundation(이하 FSF)을 출범시켰다. 그는 또한 GNU Compiler Collection(GCC), the GNU symbolic debugger(GDB)나 GNU Emacs 같은 널리 쓰이는 유명한 개발 툴들의 원작자이다.
To better understand Richard Stallman and the GNU project, I recommend you begin by reviewing their philosophy page. On it you will find a wealth of information.
이곳(http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/)을 방문한다면 RMS에 대한 보다 많은 많은 정보를 얻을 수 있을 것이다.
We began this interview via email, but later had to finish by telephone after Richard Stallman fell and broke his arm. He was kind enough to speak with me at length, discussing his first contact with computers, his time in the AI lab, the current state of the GNU Hurd, his current role in the Free Software Foundation, the problems with non-free software, and much more. The following words offer much insight into how we got here, and what challenges we still face.
이 인터뷰는 email을 통해서 시작했으나 RMS가 넘어져서 팔이 부러진 후에는 전화통화를 통해서 이루어졌다. 그는 친절하게도 컴퓨터를 처음 접했을 때, AI lab에서 보낸 시간, GNU Hurd의 현황, FSF에서의 그의 역할, non-free software가 가진 문제점들, 그 외의 여러가지 주제에 대해서 대화를 나눌 수 있을 정도로 충분히 긴 시간을 할애해 주었다. 이어지는 글들은 우리가 어떻게 여기까지 왔으며 무엇을 해결해야하는지 좀 더 풍부한 견해를 보여 줄 것이다.
PS. 내용이 길어서 1,2부로 나누어서 올립니다. TT에선 아무리 쌩쇼를 해도 하나의 글로는 안되는군요 ;;
Background:
배경
Jeremy Andrews: When did you first start working with computers?
처음 컴퓨터를 사용하신게 언제입니까?
Richard Stallman: I first read manuals and wrote programs on paper in 1962 or so. 1969 was when I first saw and used a real computer.
1962년경에 처음 매뉴얼을 읽고 종이에 프로그램을 써봤습니다. 진짜 컴퓨터를 처음 본건 1969년이군요.
JA: What types of programs were you writing prior to actually seeing and using a real computer?
진짜 컴퓨터를 사용하기 전에 쓰신 프로그램은 어떤 건가요?
Richard Stallman: They were pretty trivial, like things to add up a
vector of numbers. About the time I first started with a real computer I designed a computer language based on string substitution. In some ways like SNOBOL, although I'd never used SNOBOL.
벡터값들의 합을 구하는 것같은 아주 사소한 겁니다. 진짜 컴퓨터를 사용하기 시작할 즈음에는 문자열 치환에 기초한 컴퓨터 언어를 설계했죠. NOBOL 같은 거죠, 저는 SNOBOL을 써본 적이 없지만.
And then, the first thing I started writing when I had a real computer to use--I'd seen the language PL/I and I was thrilled by how many features it had. But there was a feature it didn't have: it didn't have the summation convention used in tensor analysis. So I started to write a pre-processor for PL/I that would implement the summation convention. I didn't ever finish it, but I actually got some parts of it to work. I wrote it first in PL/I, and then we discovered that even one pass of it wouldn't fit in the machine that was available. (I had actually written a lot of parts of this in PL/I on paper by that point.) Then I started rewriting it in assembler language, but I only rewrote a few passes of it in assembler language. And then I learned about things like lists and about Lisp, and lost interest in languages
like PL/I.
그리고, 처음으로 컴퓨터를 가질 때는 제가 PL/I을 접하고 그 다양한 기능에 흥미를 가질 때였는데. 그런데 PL/I에는 tensor analysis에서 쓰이는 공식이 없었습니다. 해서 저는 그 공식을 구현하기위한 PL/I용 전처리기를 작성하기 시작했습니다. 이 일을 마무리 짓지는 않았지만 부분적으로 실행을 해볼 수는 있었습니다. 처음에는 PL/I으로 작성을 했었지만 실행해볼 수있는 시스템에서는 한 pass도 수행해 볼 수가 없었습니다. (그 때는 많은 부분을 PL/I을 이용해서 종이에 작성했었습니다.) 해서 저는 assembly어를 이용해서 재구현을 시작했습니다만 몇몇 pass만을 재작성 했을 뿐입니다. 그 즈음에 저는 리스트와 Lisp에 대해서 배우기 시작했고 곧 PL/I 같은 언어에 흥미를 잃어버렸지요.
JA: When you graduated from Harvard in 1974 with a BA in physics, how did you intend to use your degree?
1974년에 하바드에서 물리학학사로 졸업을 하셨는데요, 전공에 대해 어떤 생각을 가지고 계셨나요?
Richard Stallman: I thought I would become a theoretical physicist; however, the pleasure of programming, where I could make real progress and see results, gradually grew and overtook the pleasure of learning physics.
저는 제가 이론물리학자가 될 것이라고 생각했었습니다만, 내가 진정한 진보를 이루고 결과를 기대할 수 있다는 프로그래밍이 주는 기쁨이 점차 물리학을 배우는 기쁨을 앞질렀습니다.
Life In The AI Lab:
AI 랩에서의 생활
JA: What tasks occupied your time at the AI Lab through the 1970s?
1970년대 AI lab에서는 어떤 일을 하셨습니까?
Richard Stallman: Mostly operating system development, but I did one AI research project with Professor Sussman; we developed dependency-directed backtracking.
대부분 OS 개발을 했지만 Sussman 교수와 dependency-directed backtracking에 관한 AI 프로젝트도 하나 수행했습니다.
주1) dependency-directed backtracking: CS(Constraint Satisfaction) Problem을 해결하는 방식 중 하나.
Constraint Satisfaction Problem: 제한된 조건을 준수하는 관계들로 표현 가능한 문제. 십자말 맞추기에 들어갈 단어를 찾는 문제의 경우 찾는 단어들은 모두 자신이 들어갈 칸수와 인접한 글자칸의 글자와의 관계로 표현가능한다. 따라서 십자말 맞추기 만들기는 CS Problem 이다.
주1) dependency-directed backtracking: CS(Constraint Satisfaction) Problem을 해결하는 방식 중 하나.
Constraint Satisfaction Problem: 제한된 조건을 준수하는 관계들로 표현 가능한 문제. 십자말 맞추기에 들어갈 단어를 찾는 문제의 경우 찾는 단어들은 모두 자신이 들어갈 칸수와 인접한 글자칸의 글자와의 관계로 표현가능한다. 따라서 십자말 맞추기 만들기는 CS Problem 이다.
JA: What is dependency-directed backtracking?
dependency-directed backtracking이 뭡니까?
Richard Stallman: You make some assumptions, and with those together with some given facts you draw a conclusion. You may reach a contradiction; if so, at least one of your assumptions that led to that contradiction must be wrong. You also record which combination of assumptions actually related to the contradiction, so you can deduce that that combination of assumptions cannot all be true. Then you backtrack by changing assumptions, but you never try a set of assumptions that includes the combination that you know are contradictory. Now, this is a technique that people had used for a long time in thinking. It's also known as proof analysis. But it hadn't been used in computerized reasoning.
몇가지 가정과 주어진 사실을 가지고 결론을 내리는데. 그 과정에서 모순에 다다를 수 있는데; 만약 그렇다면 모순을 유발한 가정은 틀린게 분명해집니다. 또, 어떤 가정의 조합이 모순과 관계있는지 기록을 해서 특정조합의 가정이 모두 참이 아님을 추론할 수 있습니다. 이렇게 해서 모순을 일으키는 가정들을 피하면서 가정의 조합을 역추적할 수 있는데. 사실 이건 오래전부터 사람들이 생각을 하거나 사실관계 분석을 수행할 때 사용해온 방법입니다. 하지만 이를 전산화된 지적작업에 적용한 적은 없었죠.
JA: What was the result of this research project?
연구과제 수행결과는 어땠나요?
Richard Stallman: We published a paper. The technique got used by other people later, so apparently it became part of AI.
논문을 편찬했고 나중에 그 기술은 다른 사람들에 의해 채택되어 당당히 AI의 한분야가 되었습니다.
Also, I learned how to understand electrical circuits better. The program that we wrote, which used this technique, was a program for understanding electrical circuits. By imitating the program, I could understand circuits better than I could before.
또, 저는 전자회로에 대해서 좀 더 많은 걸 배웠습니다. 우리가 이 기술을 적용해서 작성했던 프로그램이 전자회로를 이해하기 위한 프로그램이었거든요. 이 프로그램을 가구현하는 동안 전자회로에 대해 보다 많은 이해를 가질 수 있었습니다.
The GNU Project And The Free Software Foundation:
GNU Project와 자유소프트웨어 재단(이하 FSF)
JA: The story of your encounter with non-free printer software in the early 80's is very well known. This incident ultimately resulted in your founding the GNU Project in 1984, and the Free Software Foundation in 1985. You have remained quite active in this movement ever since, as a public speaker and a prolific author of free software. Of which of your many achievements in the past two decades are you the most proud?
80년대 초기에 있었던 비자유 프린터 소프트웨어와 선생님의 조우는 아주 유명한데요. 이 사건이 결국 1984년에 GNU Project를, 1985년에 FSF 설립하는 것으로 이어졌죠. 그 이후로 계속해서 자유소프트웨어운동의 대중 연설가이자 주요저자로서 왕성하게 활동을 하고 계신데요. 지난 20년간의 수많은 성과들 중에서 가장 자랑스럽게 여기시는 것은 어떤 것인지요?
Richard Stallman: What I am proud of is that we have built a community where people can use computers and work together in freedom.
사람들이 자유를 누리며 컴퓨터를 사용하고 함께 일을 할 수 있는 공동체를 우리가 건설했다는 것이 자랑스럽습니다.
JA: What are the largest challenges you're facing today?
근래에 당면한 과제들은 어떤게 있습니까?
Richard Stallman: Software patents. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The broadcast flag. Cards with secret specifications. Non-free Java platforms.
소프트웨어 특허들, Digital Millennium Copyright Act(DMCA), broadcast flag, 폐쇄스펙을 가진 카드들, 비자유 java 플랫폼
주2) DMCA는 망사업자들을 통해서 사용자들이 저작권을 침해할 가능성을 제약하기 위한 법률.
주3) broadcast flag는 digita tv를 위한 복제방지방안.
HDTV demodulator의 생산과 판매를 제약하는 FCC 규약.
주2) DMCA는 망사업자들을 통해서 사용자들이 저작권을 침해할 가능성을 제약하기 위한 법률.
주3) broadcast flag는 digita tv를 위한 복제방지방안.
HDTV demodulator의 생산과 판매를 제약하는 FCC 규약.
In other words, organized efforts by people with power to put an end to our freedom.
달리 표현하자면 우리의 자유를 끝장내기 위해 권력을 가진자들이 기울이는 조직적 노력들이 바로 우리에게 닥친 과제입니다.
JA: Is there a plan for addressing these issues?
이 이슈들에 대해 대처하실 계획은요?
Richard Stallman: Regarding the laws, not much of one, in the US. In other countries that do not yet have these laws, we can try to prevent them.
그 법을 고려하면 미국에서는 많지 않습니다. 하지만 이런 법들을 가지지 못한 다른 나라에서는 우리가 그들을 막을 수 있을 것 입니다.
JA: That's a bit scary.
무섭군요.
Richard Stallman: It is.
정말 그렇죠.
"Free Software" vs. "Open Source":
자유소프트웨어 vs open source
JA: You regularly have to explain the differences between "free
software" and "open source software", and yet the media continues to confuse these terms. For our readers that may therefor be confused themselves, can you explain the differences, and why it is important to get it right?
선생님께서는 기회가 있을 때마다 자유소프트웨어와 open source 소프트웨어의 차이에 대해서 언급을 하시는데요, 여전히 언론에서는 이들을 혼동해서 다루고 있습니다. 독자들을 위해서 이 둘의 차이점과 그 차이점을 명확히 하는 것이 왜 중요한지 설명을 해주세겠습니까?
Richard Stallman: Free software and open source are the slogans of two different movements with different philosophies. In the free software movement, our goal is to be free to share and cooperate. We say that non-free software is antisocial because it tramples the users' freedom, and we develop free software to escape from that.
자유소프트웨어와 open source는 다른 철학을 가진 서로 다른 두 운동의 슬로건입니다. 자유소프트웨어 운동에서 우리의 목표는 공유와 협동을 위한 자유를 쟁취하는 것입니다. 우리는 비자유 소프트웨어가 사용자의 자유를 박살내기 때문에 반사회적이고 주장하며 이들의 시도를 피하고자 자유소프트웨어를 개발하고 있습니다.
The open source movement promotes what they consider a technically superior development model that usually gives technically superior results. The values they cite are the same ones Microsoft appeals to: narrowly practical values.
open source 운동은 그들이 기술적인 측면에서 나은 결과를 가져다주는 기술적으로 우월한 개발모델을 추구합니다. 그들이 추구하는 가치들은 마이크로소프트의 그것과 같아 보입니다.:협의의 실용적인 가치들.
Free software and open source are also both criteria for software licenses. These criteria are written in very different ways but the licenses accepted are almost the same. The main difference is the difference in philosophy.
또한 자유소프트웨어와 open source는 모두 소프트웨어 라이선스를 위한 규범을 가집니다. 이 규범들은 매우 다른 방법으로 쓰였졌지만 라이선스 자체는 거의 같은 것으로 받아들여집니다. 주요한 차이점은 철학적인 차이죠.
Why does the philosophy matter? Because people who don't value their freedom will lose it. If you give people freedom but don't teach them to value it, they won't hold on to it for long. So it is not enough to spread free software. We have to teach people to demand freedom, to fight for freedom. Then we may be able to overcome the problems that today I see no way to solve.
왜 철학이 문제냐고요? 왜냐하면 자신의 자유를 가치있게 여기지 않는 사람은 그것을 잃어버리게 되기 때문이죠. 만약에 당신이 사람들에게 자유를 줬지만 그것의 소중함에 대해서 알리는데 실패했다면 그들은 그 자유를 오랫동안 유지할 수 없을 것입니다. 따라서 자유소프트웨어를 널리 확산시키는 것만으로는 불충분합니다. 우리는 사람들이 자유를 요구하고, 그것을 위한 투쟁에 나서도록 일깨워야만 합니다. 그렇게 함으로써 우리는 내가 봉착한 문제들을 극복할 수 있을 것입니다.
"GNU/Linux":
JA: Another frequent area of confusion is the name 'GNU/Linux'. Why is the GNU project's contribution significant enough that it should be in the name of the operating system, especially compared to other large pieces of any Linux-kernel based operating system, such as XFree86?
자주 혼동이 되는 또 다른 분야는 GNU/Linux라는 이름일텐데요. 왜 GNU 프로젝트가 이 OS 이름에 포함될 만큼 큰 기여를 했는지 linux kernel 기반의 OS에 있는 XFree86 같은 다른 부분들과 비교해서 말씀을 해주십시요.
Richard Stallman: It's no coincidence that the code we wrote for the GNU system is the largest single contribution to the GNU/Linux system today. Many other people and projects have developed free software programs now used in the system; TeX, BSD code, X11, Linux, and Apache are noteworthy examples. But it was the GNU Project that set out to develop a complete free operating system. The combined system we use today is founded on GNU.
우리가 GNU 시스템을 위해서 작성한 코드가 GNU/Linux 시스템에 기여하는 가장 큰 부분이 된 것은 우연이 아닙니다. 많은 다른 사람과 프로젝트들이 이 시스템에서 사용되는 자유소프트웨어를 만들었습니다; Tex, BSD code, X11, Linux, Apache가 주목할 만한 예겠지요. 그러나 완전한 자유 OS를 추구해 만들기 시작한 것은 바로 GNU 프로젝트입니다. 지금 우리가 사용하고 있는 시스템은 GNU에 기반해서 이루어진 조합입니다.
JA: In talking about GNU Linux...
GNU Linux에 대해서 말씀을 해주시면...
Richard Stallman: I prefer to pronounce it GNU-slash-Linux, or GNU-plus-Linux. The reason is that when you say GNU-Linux it is very much prone to suggest a misleading interpretation. After all, we have GNU Emacs which is the version of Emacs which was developed for GNU. If you say "GNU Linux", people will think it means a version of Linux that was developed for GNU. Which is not the fact.
GNU-slash-Linux 또는 GNU-plus-Linux라고 발음하는게 더 좋을 것 같습니다. GNU-Linux라고 말할 때는 오해의 소지가 많습니다. 우리는 GNU를 위해 개발한 버젼의 Emacs를 GNU Emacs라고 부릅니다. 만약에 "GNU Linux"라고 부른다면 사람들은 이걸 GNU를 위해 개발한 Linux의 한 버젼으로 받아들일 겁니다. 이건 사실이 아니죠.
JA: You're trying to point out instead that it's a combination of the two.
선생님께서는 그게 아니라 둘의 조합이라는 점을 강조하시려는 거죠.
Richard Stallman: Exactly. It's GNU plus Linux together.
정확합니다. GNU와 리눅스를 함께 합친거죠.
JA: Which makes up the GNU+Linux operating system that everyone uses.
사람들이 사용하는 GNU+Linux OS를 구성하는 거죠.
Richard Stallman: Exactly.
그렇습니다.
JA: What is gained by people using the term GNU/Linux?
GNU/Linux 라는 개념을 사용함으로써 사람들에게 어떤 점을 기대하십니까?
Richard Stallman: People know that Linus Torvalds wrote his program Linux to have fun. And people know that Linus Torvalds did not say that it's wrong to stop users for sharing and changing the software they use. If they think that our system was started by him and primarily owes existence to him, they will tend to follow his philosophy, and that weakens our community.
사람들은 리누스 토르발즈가 재미를 위해서 리눅스를 만들었다는 사실을 알고 있습니다. 또한 사람들은 리누스가 사람들이 그들이 사용하는 소프트웨어를 공유하고 바꾸는 것을 막는 것이 나쁘다고 비판하지 않는다는 것도 알고 있습니다. 만일 그런 사람들이 우리 시스템이 그에 의해서 시작되었고 그에 의해서 주도된다고 생각한다면 그 사람들은 그의 철학을 따르는 경향을 띨것이고 이것은 우리 공동체를 약화시킬 겁니다.
It's an interesting anecdote to think that the whole operating system exists because an undergraduate thought that it was a fun project. But the real story is that this system exists because of people who were determined to fight for freedom and willing to work for years if that's what it took. That's a story that teaches people something worth learning.
대학생이 재밌으리라 여겨서 완전한 OS를 만들었다는 식의 생각은 흥미로운 기담입니다. 그러나 실제로는 그 시스템은 자유를 위해 싸우고자 한 사람들이 수년간 목적의식을 가지고 노력한 덕에 존재하는 것입니다. 이 이야기가 사람들에게 배울만한 가치가 있는 무언가를 보여줄 겁니다.
When people forget that, they start drifting toward the practical but superficial values shared by the open source movement and Microsoft: the idea that the only thing that matters about your software is whether it gets your jobs done and what it costs.
사람들이 저 사실을 잊어버릴때 그들은 실용적인 그러나 표면적인 가치들로 표류해 갈 것입니다. open source 운동과 마이크로소프트가 공유한 가치들: 당신의 소프트웨어에 대해서 고려해야 할 것은 주어진 일을 잘해낼지 가치가 얼마나 될지 뿐이라는 생각으로요.
JA: Which begins to answer my next question, what is lost when people refuse to use the term GNU/Linux?
사람들이 GNU/Linux 개념을 사용하지 않을 경우 잃어버릴 것은 무엇일까요?
Richard Stallman: What's lost is an opportunity to teach people. The software is equally free regardless of whatever name you call it--if, that is, the distro you're using really is free. But the only free GNU/Linux distro I know of is UTUTO. Most versions of the GNU/Linux system are not entirely free software. All the commercial distributors put in non-free software. And then there's Debian which keeps all the non-free software clearly separated, but does distribute it. And those who sell Debian GNU/Linux often add a few non-free programs as a "bonus"... They invite you to think it's a bonus you're getting that your freedom is no longer complete.
사람들을 일깨울 기회를 잃게 될겁니다. 당신이 사용하는 배포본이 정말로 자유롭다면 무슨 이름으로 불리건 그 소프트웨어는 자유로운 거겠죠.
하지만 제가 알기로는 UTUTO가 유일한 자유 GNU/Linux 배포본이고 대부분은 완전한 자유소프트웨어가 아닌 것으로 알고 있습니다. 모든 상업적 배포자들은 비자유 소프트웨어를 포함시키고 있습니다. 그리고 Debian은 비자유 소프트웨어를 명확하게 분리해서 분류하지만 여전히 배포는 하고 있고요. 그리고 Debian GNU/Linux를 판매하는 사람들이 종종 비자유 소프트웨어들을 보너스로 제공하곤 합니다. 그들은 당신의 자유가 훼손당하는 것이 보너스를 얻는 것이라는 생각을 가지게 할 것입니다.
하지만 제가 알기로는 UTUTO가 유일한 자유 GNU/Linux 배포본이고 대부분은 완전한 자유소프트웨어가 아닌 것으로 알고 있습니다. 모든 상업적 배포자들은 비자유 소프트웨어를 포함시키고 있습니다. 그리고 Debian은 비자유 소프트웨어를 명확하게 분리해서 분류하지만 여전히 배포는 하고 있고요. 그리고 Debian GNU/Linux를 판매하는 사람들이 종종 비자유 소프트웨어들을 보너스로 제공하곤 합니다. 그들은 당신의 자유가 훼손당하는 것이 보너스를 얻는 것이라는 생각을 가지게 할 것입니다.
If you happen to be running a version of GNU/Linux which doesn't have the non-free software, then the situation is not materially changed by the name you use. But the situation we're likely to find ourselves in five years from now depends on what we teach each other today.
만약에 비자유 소프트웨어가 포함되지 않은 버젼의 GNU/Linux를 사용하고 있다면 당신이 어떤 이름을 사용하건 개의치 않아도 될 것입니다.사실 이것이 지금 우리가 서로를 일깨워서 5년안에 이루고자 하는 상황입니다.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but if you called it an onion you'd get cooks very confused.
장미는 어떤 이름으로 불리건 아름다운 향기를 지닐 것입니다. 하지만 그걸 양파라고 부른다면 요리할 때 매우 혼란스러울 겁니다.
GNU/Hurd:
JA: The GNU Hurd has been under development for over a decade. There was talk of a 1.0 release over a year ago, but this was delayed due to a couple of lacking features. What is the current status of this project?
GNU Hurd가 10년 넘게 개발을 진행중인데요. 일년 좀 전에 1.0 릴리즈에 대한 이야기들이 있었지만 몇몇 피처들의 부재 때문에 계속 연기되고 있는데요. 프로젝트의 현재상태가 어떤가요?
Richard Stallman: The Hurd runs, and missing features are gradually being added. However, for practical use today, you would use a Linux-based version of GNU.
Hurd는 계속 진행되고 있고 빠진 피쳐들은 계속해서 추가 되고 있습니다. 그러나 실용적인 목적에서라면 GNU의 Linux-based 버젼을 사용해야 합니다.
JA: Do you have any predictions as to when we're going to see a 1.0 release?
언제쯤이나 1.0 릴리즈가 있을지 언급해 주실수 있나요?
Richard Stallman: No, I'm afraid I don't, I'm sad to say. A lot of the Hurd developers seem to have decided that they should re-write it to work with a different micro-kernel (L4). I was disappointed to hear this, but now it looks like it will be some more years before the Hurd is usable.
이런 말하기 우울하지만 할 수 없을 것 같군요. 많은 Hurd 개발자들이 다른 micro-kernel과 동작하기 위한 재구현이 필요하다고 결정을 내린 것 같습니다. 무척 실망스러웠지만 Hurd가 쓸만해지려면 아직 몇년이 더 걸릴 것 같군요.
At least we do have a free kernel that works with GNU.
그래도 GNU에서 돌아가는 자유커널이 있으니까요.
JA: Will the GNU Project focus solely on a GNU system built around the GNU Hurd when it is released, or will it continue to support a widening range of free-software kernels?
GNU Hurd가 릴리즈되면 GNU 프로젝트는 Hurd 중심으로 GNU system을 만드는 것에 집중을 하실건가요? 아니면 계속해서 자유소프트웨어 커널들에 대해서도 지원을 하실 건가요?
Richard Stallman: We will keep supporting Linux-based versions of the GNU system for as long as they remain popular.
GNU system의 Linux-based version이 대중적으로 사용되는 한 계속해서 지원 할 것입니다.
JA: How will we refer to a Hurd-based operating system? Is it GNU Hurd, or GNU slash Hurd?
Hurd-based 시스템은 어떻게 불릴까요? GNU Hurd인가요, GNU/Hurd 인가요?
Richard Stallman: It's the GNU operating system, and the Hurd is its kernel. But because it's so common for people to use version of GNU that are based on Linux as the kernel, it's useful to contrast the two, and talk about GNU/Linux and GNU/Hurd, which are two different versions of the GNU system with different kernels.
그것은 GNU OS이고 Hurd는 그 커널 이지요. 하지만 사람들에게 커널로서 Linux를 사용하는 버젼이 일반화 되있기 때문에, 이 둘을 대치시키는게 유용할 것입니다. GNU/Linux와 GNU/Hurd 다른 커널을 가진 GNU system의 다른 버젼으로요.
JA: What would the advantages of using a GNU/Hurd system be over say a GNU/Linux system?
GNU/Hurd를 사용하는 것이 GNU/Linux를 사용하는 것에 비해서 어떤 이점이 있을까요?
Richard Stallman: There's probably no gigantic advantage that jumps out at the user's face if you're not writing interesting programs. The Hurd offers interesting, powerful capabilities. For instance, you can write your own filesystem, so you could implement any sort of behavior you want and package it as a file. It offers the possibility of implementing sandboxes, where you can run a program but have another program monitoring all its I/O to make sure it doesn't start writing in files it wasn't expected to.
프로그램을 개발하는데 흥미가 없는 사용자 입장에선 특별한 이점이 눈에 띄지 않을 수도 있습니다. Hurd는 흥미롭고 강력한 기능을 제공합니다. 예를 들어 사용자는 스스로 파일시스템을 구현할 수 있습니다. 따라서 어떤 속성이던지 구현해서 이를 file로 패키징할 수 있습니다. 이것은 한 프로그램이 다른 프로그램의 모든 I/O를 모니터링하고
file에 write하는 시점을 명시적으로 통제하는 sandbox 모델을 구현할 가능성을 마련해줍니다.
file에 write하는 시점을 명시적으로 통제하는 sandbox 모델을 구현할 가능성을 마련해줍니다.
These things may be doable with a kernel that doesn't have the Hurd's architecture, but with the Hurd it's trivial and the most natural thing in the world.
이런 일들은 Hurd와 다른 아키텍처를 가진 커널에서도 가능은 합니다. 그러나 Hurd 안에서는 이런 일들이 아주 쉽고 자연스럽게 일어날 겁니다.
Writing Code vs. Management:
JA: How much source code do you write these days?
요즘은 코딩을 얼마나 하시나요.
Richard Stallman: I myself? Only a little, on Emacs. I was
involuntarily self-promoted into management.
제 스스로요? Emacs에서 아주 조금이요. 저는 따로 선택의 여지가 없이 관리자가 됐지요.
JA: That's an interesting description. How did this happen?
흥미로운 말씀이시군요. 어쩌다 그렇게 됐죠?
Richard Stallman: The amount of management and activism that had to be done got more and more, and so I had to find other people to take over more and more of my programming responsibilities.
관리작업과 우리 운동과 관련된 실무가 계속해서 증가하고 있어서 저의 프로그래밍 작업을 계속해서 다른 사람들에게 넘겨줘야 했습니다.
JA: Do you miss the programming?
프로그래밍이 그리우십니까?
Richard Stallman: Yes. It's fun.
네. 즐거운 일이죠.
JA: Is the management/activist role something you desire to remain in?
관리자 혹은 활동가로서의 역할이 계속하고 싶은 일이신가요?
Richard Stallman: I wouldn't say I desire to, but it's necessary that I do so. At the moment we don't have anyone to replace me. We're actually thinking about how we we could try and develop people who could do this, so that I will not be indispensable.
제가 원했다고는 말 못하지만 그렇게 해야할 필요가 있습니다. 현재는 제 역할을 대신할 사람이 없었습니다. 사실 우리는 어떻게 그 역할을 수행할 인재를 개발하거나 찾을지 고민하고 있습니다. 그리되면 제가 좀 자유로와 지겠죠.
JA: What is your role these days?
요즘은 어떤 일을 하고 계신가요?
Richard Stallman: Partly it is being a very firm and determined leader. Partly it is being an orator. Partly it is advising other people on how to be activists or how to contribute to free software. I've learned something that a lot of people could usefully know: how to be extremely persistent and whenever one avenue was blocked find another.
확고하고 비타협적인 리더로서, 웅변가로서, 어떻게 활동가가 되고 자유소프트웨어 운동에 기여할지에 대한 조언자로서의 역할을 수행합니다. 제가 많은 사람들에게 유용한 사실을 익혔거든요.: 어떻게 확고한 의지를 유지한 채로 막다른 길에 다다랐을 때 우회로를 찾을 것인지 말이죠.
I've also learned the spirit of what you do when you're fighting for freedom. When it's a fight that you can't ever give up as lost.
당신이 결코 포기할 수 없는 싸움에 임할 때. 자유를 위한 싸움에 나설 때 가질 각오에 대해서도 알고 있습니다.
JA: Many of the programs you were the original author for are key components of much software development today (free and non-free alike), such as the GNU Compiler Collection (gcc), the GNU symbolic debugger (gdb), and GNU Emacs. All of these projects have remained under constant development over the years. How closely have you followed the many projects you've started, and how do you feel about the directions they've taken?
원 저작자로 활동하신 많은 프로그램이 자유, 비자유를 떠나서 오늘날 소프트웨어 개발의 핵심분야가 되었는데요. gcc, gdb, GNU Emacs, 이 모든 프로젝트들은 계속해서 개발이 진행중인데요. 선생님께서 시작하신 이 많은 프로젝트와 계속 가까운 관계를 유지하고 계신지, 그리고 그들이 나아가고 있는 방향에 대해 어떻게 생각하시는지요?
Richard Stallman: I don't follow GCC and GDB in technical detail nowadays--other people now have that responsibility. I still supervise Emacs development.
이제는 GCC와 GDB의 기술적 사항에 대해서 더이상 관여하지 않습니다. 지금은 다른 분들이 책임을 맡고 있죠. Emacs의 경우에는 여전히 개발을 감독하고 있습니다.
GNU Emacs:
JA: Then you are still working on Emacs at a code level?
그럼 Emacs에선 아직도 코딩을 하시나요?
Richard Stallman: Yes, although now with my broken arm I really have no time to program anything. I will when my arm is better and I can type for myself again.
네 지금은 팔도 부러지고 해서 프로그램을 할 시간이 전혀없지만 팔이 나으면 다시 할 수 있을 겁니다.
JA: May I ask what happened to your arm?
팔이 어떻게 되신거지 여쭤봐도 될까요?
Richard Stallman: I fell and broke my arm, and I needed surgery. It hurts, and I think it will never be normal again. But I think it will work for typing. (Later: it works fine for typing, but it tingles all the time.)
넘어져서 부러졌는데 외과수술이 필요할 정도더군요. 매우 아프고 다시 정상이 될지 모르겠군요. 하지만 타이핑 하는데는 문제가 없을 겁니다. (후기: 타이핑하는데는 지장이 없지만 늘 쑤신다고 합니다.)
JA: I'm sorry to hear about your arm, and I wish you a speedy recovery.
쾌유를 빕니다.
I recently reread Cliff Stoll's "The Cuckoo's Egg". Are you familiar with the book?
최근에 Cliff Stoll의 "The Cuckoo's Egg"를 다시 읽었는데요. 이 책에 대해서 알고 계신가요?
Richard Stallman: I have a vague memory of it.
흐릿하게 기억이 나는 군요.
JA: A quick summary, he talks about a spy that breaks into a university computer system, initially using a security hole in GNU Emacs...
간단히 말씀드리면, 스파이가 GNU Emacs의 보안구멍을 이용해서 대학의 컴퓨터 시스템에 침입하는 내용이죠.
Richard Stallman: Well, whether it's really a security hole, or whether he had made a mistake by installing a certain program setuid is subject to argument.
흠, 그게 진짜 보안 홀인가 아니면 어떤 프로그램을 setuid로 설치하는 실수를 저질렀는가에 논쟁의 여지가 있군요.
주) setuid로 설치된 프로그램은 누가 실행하던 file 소유주의 권한으로 실행된다. 만약에 의심스런 프로그램이 root 소유로 setuid가 설정돼 있다면 심각한 보안상의 결함이 된다.
주) setuid로 설치된 프로그램은 누가 실행하던 file 소유주의 권한으로 실행된다. 만약에 의심스런 프로그램이 root 소유로 setuid가 설정돼 있다면 심각한 보안상의 결함이 된다.
JA: That's exactly what I was curious about, just what your reaction would have been to the book when it came out.
그게 제가 정확히 알고 싶은 부분입니다.그 책이 발표되었을 때 선생님께서는 어떻게 반응하셨나요?
Richard Stallman: His book made it sound like Emacs, or actually movemail I think it was... His book made it sound like it was normal to install movemail setuid. I think some people sometimes did that, as there was a certain problem you could get around by doing that, but that wasn't the normal way to install it. So in fact, people installing Emacs the usual way would not have had that problem.
그 책에서는 Emacs 저는 사실 movemail이라고 생각하지만... 그 책은 movemail이 setuid로 설치되는게 정상인 것처럼 말하고 있었죠. 저는 어떤 사람은 그렇게 했을 겁니다. 그렇게 해서 피해갈 수 있는 문제도 있으니까요, 하지만 그게 정상적인 방법은 아니죠. 사실 정상적인 방법으로 Emacs를 설치하는 사람들에겐 그런 문제가 일어나지 않습니다.
On the other hand, it certainly was useful to make Emacs more bulletproof, so that that problem couldn't happen even if you installed movemail as setuid.
다른 면에서 보면, 그 책이 Emacs를 안전하게 만드는데 일조를 했죠. 이제는 movemail을 setuid로 설치한다하더로도 그 문제는 일어나지 않습니다.
That was ages ago.
옛날 일이죠.
Non-Free Software:
비자유 소프트웨어
JA: What is your reaction to tools such as gcc, gdb and GNU Emacs being used for the development of non-free software?
gcc, gdb, GNU Emacs가 비자유 소프트웨어 개발에 활용되는 것에 대해서 어떻게 생각하십니까?
Richard Stallman: Any development of non-free software is harmful and unfortunate, whether it uses GNU tools or other tools. Whether it is good or bad, in the long term, for the future of computer users' freedom that one can use these tools to develop non-free software is a question whose answer I could only guess at.
GNU tool을 사용하건 하지않건 간에 어떤 경우에든 비자유 소프트웨어의 개발은 해롭고 불운한 일입니다. 이게 장기적인 관점에서 컴퓨터 사용자들의 자유를 위해서 비자유 소프트웨어를 개발하는데 이 툴들을 사용하는 것이 좋은것인가 나쁜것인가 하는 질문에 대해서 제가 유일하게 할 수 있는 답입니다.
JA: How do you react to the opinion that non-free software is justified as a means for raising dollars that can then be put into the development of completely new software, money that otherwise may not have been available, and thus creating software that may have never been developed?
비자유 소프트웨어가 새로운 소프트웨어 개발을 가능케하는 수입을 올려주며 돈이 없다면 결코 새로운 소프트웨어가 개발되지 않을 것이므로 떳떳하다는 견해에 대해서는 어떻게 생각하십니까?
Richard Stallman: This is no justification at all. A non-free program systematically denies the users the freedom to cooperate; it is the basis of an antisocial scheme to dominate people. The program is available lawfully only to those who will surrender their freedom. That's not a contribution to society, it's a social problem. It is better to develop no software than to develop non-free software.
변명꺼리가 되지 않습니다. 비자유 소프트웨어는 사용자들이 협력할 자유를 체계적으로 막고 있습니다; 이것은 사람들을 지배하기 위한 반사회적 계획의 기본입니다. 사람들은 자신의 자유를 포기할 때만 프로그램을 합법적으로 사용할 수 있습니다. 이것은 사회에 대한 기여가 아닙니다. 이것은 사회문제일 뿐입니다.소프트웨어를 개발하지 않는 것이 비자유 소프트웨어를 개발하는 것보다 더 낫습니다.
So if you find yourself in that situation, please don't follow that path. Please don't write the non-free program--please do something else instead. We can wait till someone else has the chance to develop a free program to do the same job.
만일 당신이 그런 상황에 처한다면 그 길을 따르지 마십시요. 비자유 소프트웨어를 만드는 것을 거부하십시요. 차라리 다른 일을 하십시요. 우리는 그 작업을 수행하는 자유프로그램을 다른 누군가가 만들어 낼 때까지 기다릴 수 있습니다.
JA: What about the programmers...
프로그래머들은 어떡하죠?
Richard Stallman: What about them? The programmers writing non-free software? They are doing something antisocial. They should get some other job.
비자유 소프트웨어를 작성하는 프로그래머들 말인가요? 그들은 반사회적인 행위를 저지르고 있는 겁니다. 그들은 다른 직업을 구해야만 합니다.
JA: Such as?
가령?
Richard Stallman: There are thousands of different jobs people can have in society without developing non-free software. You can even be a programmer. Most paid programmers are developing custom software--only a small fraction are developing non-free software. The small fraction of proprietary software jobs are not hard to avoid.
비자유 소프트웨어를 개발하지 않는 수많은 직업이 있습니다. 프로그래머도 다르지 않습니다. 대부분의 월급장이 프로그래머들은 custom 소프트웨어를 개발하고 있습니다. 아주 소수만이 비자유 소프트웨어 개발에 종사하고 있을 뿐입니다. 소수의 사유 소프트웨어 직종을 피하는 것은 어렵지 않습니다.
JA: What is the distinction there?
어떤 차이점이 있지요?
Richard Stallman: Non-free software is meant to be distributed to the public. Custom software is meant to be used by one client. There's no ethical problem with custom software as long as you're respecting your client's freedom.
비자유 소프트웨어는 대중에게 배포되는걸 전제합니다. custom 소프트웨어는 단일 고객에 의해서 사용됩니다. custom 소프트웨어에서는 당신이 고객의 자유를 존중하는한 도덕적 문제가 없죠.
The next point is that programmers are a tiny fraction of employment in the computer field. Suppose somebody developed an AI and no programmers were needed anymore. Would this be a disaster? Would all the people who are now programmers be doomed to unemployment for the rest of their lives? Obviously not, but this doesn't stop people from exaggerating the issue.
그리고 프로그래머는 컴퓨터 분야에서 일어나는 고용의 아주 작은 부분일 뿐입니다. 가령 누군가가 AI를 개발해서 프로그래머가 더이상 필요 없어진다면. 이것이 재앙일까요? 지금 프로그래머를 하고 있는 모든 사람이 여생을 실업자로 살아야 할 위기에 처한걸까요? 절대 아니죠. 하지만 사람들은 여전히 여기에 대해서 허풍을 치고 있지요.
And what if there aren't any programming jobs in the US anymore?
그럼 미국에 더이상 프로그래밍 직업이 없을 땐 어떡 할 꺼냐?
JA: You mean what if all the programming jobs were outsourced to foreign countries?
모든 프로그래밍 직업이 외국으로 아웃소싱되는 걸 말씀하시는 건가요?
Richard Stallman: Yes, what if they all go? This may actually happen. When you start thinking about things like total levels of employment, you've got think about all the factors that affect it, not blame it all on one factor. The cause of unemployment is not someone or society deciding that software should be free. The cause of the problem is largely economic policies designed to benefit only the rich. Such as driving wages down.
그렇죠. 그들이 전부 가버리면요? 이건 실제로 일어나고 있지요. 전체 고용의 문제를 고민할 때는 영향을 끼치는 모든 요소에 대해서 생각을 해야지 어떤 한 요소만을 비난 해서는 안됩니다. 실업은 소프트웨어가 자유로워야 한다고 결정한 사회나 사람에 의해서 일어나는 것이 아닙니다. 실업은 오직 부자들의 이익만을 추구하는 경제정책에 의해서 일어나는 것이지요. 저임금 유지정책 같은 것 말이죠.
You know, it's no coincidence that we're having all this outsourcing. That was carefully planned. International treaties were designed to make this happen so that people's wages would be reduced.
지금 일어나는 아웃소싱은 우연의 산물이 아닌 신중한 계획의 결과입니다. 이런 일을 추진하기 위한 국제적인 야합이 결성되었고 그 결과 사람들의 생활수준은 계속해서 하락하게 되었죠.
JA: Can you cite specific examples?
특별히 지목하신다면.
Richard Stallman: FTAA. The World Trade Organization. NAFTA. These treaties are designed to reduce wages by making it easy for a company to say to various countries, "which of you will let us pay people the least? That's were we're headed." And if any country starts having a somewhat increased standard of living, companies say "oh, this is a bad labor climate here. You're not making a good climate for business. All the business is going to go away. You better make sure that people get paid less. You're following a foolish policy arranging for workers of your country to be paid more. You've got to make sure that your workers are the lowest paid anywhere in the world, then we'll come back. Otherwise we're all going to run away and punish you."
미주자유무역지대(FTAA). 국제무역기구(WTO). 북미자유무역협정(NAFTA). 이 기구들은 회사들이 여러 나라들을 향해서 "어떤 나라가 가장 적은 임금만 주도록 허락할 꺼지? 우리는 거기로 가겠다." 라는 협박을 가능케 해서 임금을 하락시키는 걸 쉽게 만들죠. 그리고 만약 어떤 나라가 삶의 질을 향상시키기 위해서 무언가를 시도하면 회사들은 얘기하겠죠. "오 여기는 고용여건이 나쁘군. 사업여건을 좋게 만들지 않겠다면 폐업을 하겠어. 사람들은 적게 받는게 좋다는걸 확신해야해. 당신은 노동자들이 더 많이 받도록 하는 어리석은 정책을 취하고 있어. 당신이 당신나라 노동자들을 세계에서 가장 적은 임금만을 받도록 만든다면 다시 돌아오지. 그렇지 않으면 우리는 모두 떠나버릴 꺼고 당신은 끝장이야."
Businesses very often do it, they move operations out of a country to punish that country. And I've recently come to the conclusion that frictionless international trade is inherently a harmful thing, because it makes it too easy for companies to move from one country to another. We have to make that difficult enough that each company can be stuck in some country that can regulate it.
사업가들은 어떤 나라를 곤경에 처하게 하기위해서 사업체를 국외로 옮기는 짓을 자주 합니다. 그리고 저는 최근에 불평등 국제무역은 전적으로 해로운 것이라는 결론에 다다랐습니다. 그것이 자본의 국가간 이동을 지나치게 쉽게 만들기 때문입니다. 우리는 자본이 어떤 나라에 머물며 토착화하도록 강제해야만 합니다.
The book No Logo explains that the Philippines have laws that protect labor standards, but these laws count for nothing any more. They decided to set up "enterprise zones" - that's the euphemism they used for "sweat shop zones" - where companies are exempt from these rules for the first two years. And as a result, no company lasts for more than two years. When their exemption runs out, the owners shut it down and they start another.
No Logo 라는 책은 필리핀인들이 노동자들의 기본권을 보장하기 위한 법들을 가지고 있지만 그것들은 더이상 소용이 없습니다. 필리핀의 정치가들은 "enterprise zones" - 착취지역의 그들식 표현 - 을 만들어 기업들에게 2년간 이 법안들을 유예시켜 줬습니다. 그 결과, 그곳에는 2년 이상 존속하는 회사가 없게 되었습니다. 유예기간이 끝나면 사업주는 폐업을하고 다른 회사를 창업하기 시작한거죠.
JA: How does free software address this?
자유소프트웨어는 이 일에 대해서 어떤 입장을 취하시나요?
Richard Stallman: Free software doesn't address this. Free software addresses the issue of how computer users can have freedom to cooperate and to control their own computers. This is the larger issue that becomes relevant when you start talking about "How are people going to have jobs that pay them decently?" The answer is: in the world of the low wage treaties, they're not going to.
자유 소프트웨어는 이일에 대해서 입장을 표명하지 않습니다. 자유 소프트웨어는 컴퓨터 사용자가 서로 협력하며 그들 자신의 컴퓨터를 통제할 자유를 어떻게 쟁취할 것인가 하는 문제에 대해서 입장을 표명할 뿐입니다. 이건 아까 질문하신 보다 큰 이슈인 "어떻게 사람들이 적절한 보수의 직업을 유지할까?"에 대한 답변입니다. 저임금의 야합이 횡횡하는 세계에선 그럴 수 없다 이지요.
It's inconsistent and future to subject millions of people to the loss of freedom that non-free software imposes, just so that a tiny segment of society will have better paying jobs, when we're ignoring all the rest of society with their lousy jobs.
비자유 소프트웨어가 정착된다는 것은 수백만의 사람이 자유를 잃어버리고 오직 소수의 사람만이 나은 급여의 직업을 보장받는 동안 나머지는 불안정한 직업을 떠도는 불안정한 미래입니다.
If you want to start doing something about that problem, do it at the right level, which is the level of the power balance between
corporations and countries. Corporations are too powerful now. We have to knock them down. I don't believe in abolishing business or even in abolishing corporations, but we've got to make sure that no corporation is powerful enough that it can say to all the countries in the world, "I'll punish any country that doesn't obey."
저 문제를 해결하고자 한다면 적절한 위치에서 시도 하십시요. 그 위치는 바로 국가와 기업간의 힘의 균형입니다. 현재 기업들의 힘이 지나치게 강성하므로 우리는 그들을 무력화 시켜야 합니다. 특정 기업이나 업종을 파괴하는게 아니라 그 어떤 회사도 국가를 대상으로 독점적 지위를 누리지 못하도록 하자는 것입니다.
That is the way it works now. And it was deliberately set up by people such as Reagan, and Clinton, and Bush and Bush.
지금으로선 그것이 좋은 방법이고, 레이건, 클린터 부시부자에 의해서 지연되고 있는 일입니다.
New Technologies:
JA: I have read that the free software model tends to imitate existing software, rather than blaze new trails and developing completely new technologies.
자유 소프트웨어 모델은 새로운 분야를 개척하기 보다는 존재하는 소프트웨어를 베끼는 경향이 있다는 주장도 있는데요.
Richard Stallman: To speak of a free software "model" is somewhat misleading. The open source movement speaks of a "development model", but our concern is for the user's freedom, not how the program is developed.
자유 소프트웨어 "모델"라는 말은 오해의 소지가 있군요. open source 운동은 "개발 모델"에 대하여 얘기합니다만 우리의 관심은 사용자의 자유이지 개발의 방법에 대한 것이 아닙니다.
Free software doesn't always imitate, but often it does. There's a good reason for this: freedom is the main goal, and innovation is secondary.
자유소프트웨어가 항상 베끼기만 하는건 아니지만 자주 그러지요. 하지만 우리의 주요목표는 자유이고 혁신은 부차적인 거니까 그럴 만도하지요.
Our goal is to develop free software so that we can use computers exclusively with free software. In 1984, we started with nearly zero (we had TeX, nothing else). We had a lot of catching up to do, so we have done it. Even if GNU/Linux had no technical innovations compared with Unix, it would be completely superior because it respects your freedom as Unix does not.
우리의 주요 목표는 자유소프트웨어만으로 컴퓨터를 사용할 수 있도록 하는 것입니다. 1984년에 우리는 거의 무에서 출발했기에(TeX 빼곤 아무것도 없는). 우리는 많은 걸 따라잡어야만 했고 그렇게 해왔습니다. GNU/Linux 조차도 Unix와 비교했을때 기술적 혁신은 없었지만 사용자의 자유를 존중했기에 그렇지 않았던 유닉스에 비해서 월등해졌지요.
JA: Do you believe that free software has caught up with non-free software?
자유 소프트웨어가 비자유 소프트웨어를 따라잡았다고 생각하십니까?
Richard Stallman: To a large extent, but not totally.
완전하지는 않지만 많은 부분에서요.
JA: Would you say that we're going to start seeing a lot of technical innovations originating from free software as things are catching up?
자유소프트웨어가 따라잡아가는 과정에서 많은 기술적 혁신이 나오게 될 것이라는 말씀인가요?
Richard Stallman: We already have. We already have seen a technical innovations in free software. A lot of them help make up the world wide web.
벌써 그러고 있지요. 자유 소프트웨어에서 많은 기술적 혁신이 일어났고. 그들 중 많은 부분이 world wide web을 만드는데 도움이 됐지요.
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