> What have I learned? Well, so far I've learned that Genera is basically a case study showing what Richard Stallman's fears were actually well founded.
Could you expand on that?
Could you expand on that?
Lisp Machines started at MIT, some of that code is actually available online now (http://www.heeltoe.com/retro/mit/mit_cadr_lmss.html). That software became the basis of two companies: Symbolics and then later, Lisp Machines Inc (LMI). This Wikipedia entry does a good job at explaining the impact this part of history had on RMS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_Machines#Folklore_about_LM...
So, here is where the history of Genera is non-existent or murky. Yes, you can download a torrent of Genera. But how do you obtain a legal license Genera? Who actually owns the IP to Genera?
In learning the answers to those questions, I was left with even more respect for RMS and an amusing, if not ironic, anecdote showing how his vision for the future turned out to be correct.
> How do you obtain a legal license Genera?
You purchase a copy of Open Genera for the DEC Alpha for $5000 from David Schmidt.
> Who actually owns the IP to Genera?
John Mallery (http://www.csail.mit.edu/user/926). He's the most recent owner. Before he got the IP, it was owned by a series of law firms and ex-Symbolics employees.
Why do I find this this amusing? Well, the software that RMS worked so hard to protect and that ultimately helped "inspire" him to start GNU has been relegated to the footnotes of history. Meanwhile, GNU software is used on millions of machines.
I've thought of just calling him. But I'm intimidated of him to be honest. He wrote the webserver that ran whitehouse.gov during the Clinton administration, I can barely program in Lisp.
I've used this trick quite successfully ($20-50 items from appropriate gift vendors -- Cabelas for outdoor type people, gourmet food vendors for other people).
It's like the next-level of conference schwag.
It seems very plausible though, given John's background.
When the research created the first usable prototypes of hardware (the Lisp Machines and other stuff) and software (expert systems, ...) DARPA wanted to commercialize it to create a market which then could serve their needs. So licenses of the Lisp Machine design were sold to LMI, Symbolics and later TI. DARPA financed also the users. Many machines were funded to be bought by university projects. Much of the early Lisp Machines were sold to the SDI project (strategic defense initiative, a pet child of Ronald Reagan in the cold war, the space deployed missile defense system).
Stallman's role in that scenario is relatively tiny. He worked on software and when some of the stuff he was using was about to be commercialized (in the above context), he protested against it. DARPA's mission was not to develop free Lisp software, but to develop battle management systems, logistics software, diagnosis software for complex military equipment, assistents/trainers for fighter pilots, missile guidance software, ...
Stallman fought for free software, but he was working in a government funded lab, where the funders (DARPA) had a very different mission. The 'hacker spirit' at the lab was more of an accident, attracting creative people to develop the next generation of software and hardware. For the military and other government agencies, with commercial spin offs.
As mentioned the SDI initiative was using this technology. But there were several others. One of the biggest wins was DART, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Analysis_and_Replanning...
Stallman developed a lot of GNU software, but the goal of a new Lisp environment was given up early. For the initial goals see the GNU manifesto: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
Funny side note: In the AI Lab, the names of the Symbolics machines started as dead rock stars. (Sinatra too, I think.) After they ran out of those, dead movie stars were used for names. RR was not too popular in those parts (he was president at the time), so he was one of the machine names too.
It was all fun and games until some D/ARPA reviewers walked through the machine room and put it together.
LOL. Great, anyone got a spare Alpha lying around?
> This Wikipedia entry does a good job at explaining the impact this part of history had on RMS
I'm looking at this line: "Unfortunately this openness would later lead to accusations of intellectual property theft."
That doesn't really capture the acrimony iirc. I was just a youngin' at the time, but I remember overhearing rms get a phone call; I believe it was from someone at the Symbolics legal team. They were trying to explain to him how he had violated something-or-another because he built some LISP feature from scratch.
They went round in circles for a while, finally rms tired of the conversation and ended it. It was a very bizarre conversation for an academic environment like the AI Lab.
IIRC, there's a Linux version that owners of Open Genera for the DEC Alpha are allowed to download.
I would love to read it. Please post it to HN if you ever get to it, I think a lot of people (including me) are interested in the concepts and ideas behind Genera and other Lisp machines.