Scratching an Itch?

Eric Raymond says that ``Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch.'' Maybe that happens sometimes, but many essential pieces of GNU software were developed in order to have a complete free operating system. They come from a vision and a plan, not from impulse.

For example, we developed the GNU C library because a Unix-like system needs a C library, the Bourne-Again Shell (BASH) because a Unix-like system needs a shell, and the GNU tar because a Unix-like system needs a tar program. The same is true for my programs, the GNU C compiler, GNU Emacs, GDB, and GNU Make.

Some GNU programs were developed to cope with specific threats to our freedom. Thus, we developed gzip to replace the Compress program, which had been lost to the community because of the LZW patents. We found people to develop LessTif, and more recently started GNOME and Harmony, to address the problems caused by certain proprietary libraries (see below). We are developing the GNU Privacy Guard to replace popular non-free encryption software, because users should not have to choose between privacy and freedom.

Of course, the people writing these programs became interested in the work, and many features were added to them by various people for the sake of their own needs or interests. But that is not why the programs exist.