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2 GNU'S NOT UNIX
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3
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4 Conducted by David Betz and Jon Edwards
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5
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6 Richard Stallman discusses his public-domain
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7 UNIX-compatible software system
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8 with BYTE editors
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9 (July 1986)
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10
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11 Copyright (C) 1986 Richard Stallman. Permission is granted to make and
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12 distribute copies of this article as long as the copyright and this notice
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13 appear on all copies.
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14
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15 Richard Stallman has undertaken probably the most ambitious free software
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16 development project to date, the GNU system. In his GNU Manifesto,
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17 published in the March 1985 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal, Stallman described
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18 GNU as a "complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so
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19 that I can give it away free to everyone who can use it... Once GNU is
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20 written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just
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21 like air." (GNU is an acronym for GNU's Not UNIX; the "G" is pronounced.)
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22
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23 Stallman is widely known as the author of EMACS, a powerful text editor
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24 that he developed at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. It is no
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25 coincidence that the first piece of software produced as part of the GNU
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26 project was a new implementation of EMACS. GNU EMACS has already achieved a
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27 reputation as one of the best implementations of EMACS currently available
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28 at any price.
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29
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30 BYTE: We read your GNU Manifesto in the March 1985 issue of Dr. Dobb's.
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31 What has happened since? Was that really the beginning, and how have you
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32 progressed since then?
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33
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34 Stallman: The publication in Dr. Dobb's wasn't the beginning of the
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35 project. I wrote the GNU Manifesto when I was getting ready to start the
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36 project, as a proposal to ask computer manufacturers for funding. They
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37 didn't want to get involved, and I decided that rather than spend my time
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38 trying to pursue funds, I ought to spend it writing code. The manifesto was
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39 published about a year and a half after I had written it, when I had barely
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40 begun distributing the GNU EMACS. Since that time, in addition to making
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41 GNU EMACS more complete and making it run on many more computers, I have
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42 nearly finished the optimizing C compiler and all the other software that
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43 is needed for running C programs. This includes a source-level debugger
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44 that has many features that the other source-level debuggers on UNIX don't
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45 have. For example, it has convenience variables within the debugger so you
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46 can save values, and it also has a history of all the values that you have
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47 printed out, making it tremendously easier to chase around list structures.
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48
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49 BYTE: You have finished an editor that is now widely distributed and you
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50 are about to finish the compiler.
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51
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52 Stallman: I expect that it will be finished this October.
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53
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54 BYTE: What about the kernel?
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55
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56 Stallman: I'm currently planning to start with the kernel that was written
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57 at MIT and was released to the public recently with the idea that I would
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58 use it. This kernel is called TRIX; it's based on remote procedure call. I
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59 still need to add compatibility for a lot of the features of UNIX which it
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60 doesn't have currently. I haven't started to work on that yet. I'm
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61 finishing the compiler before I go to work on the kernel. I am also going
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62 to have to rewrite the file system. I intend to make it failsafe just by
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63 having it write blocks in the proper order so that the disk structure is
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64 always consistent. Then I want to add version numbers. I have a complicated
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65 scheme to reconcile version numbers with the way people usually use UNIX.
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66 You have to be able to specify filenames without version numbers, but you
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67 also have to be able to specify them with explicit version numbers, and
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68 these both need to work with ordinary UNIX programs that have not been
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69 modified in any way to deal with the existence of this feature. I think I
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70 have a scheme for doing this, and only trying it will show me whether it
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71 really does the job.
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72
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73 BYTE: Do you have a brief description you can give us as to how GNU as a
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74 system will be superior to other systems? We know that one of your goals is
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75 to produce something that is compatible with UNIX. But at least in the area
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76 of file systems you have already said that you are going to go beyond UNIX
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77 and produce something that is better.
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78
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79 Stallman: The C compiler will produce better code and run faster. The
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80 debugger is better. With each piece I may or may not find a way to improve
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81 it. But there is no one answer to this question. To some extent I am
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82 getting the benefit of reimplementation, which makes many systems much
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83 better. To some extent it's because I have been in the field a long time
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84 and worked on many other systems. I therefore have many ideas to bring to
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85 bear. One way in which it will be better is that practically everything in
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86 the system will work on files of any size, on lines of any size, with any
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87 characters appearing in them. The UNIX system is very bad in that regard.
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88 It's not anything new as a principle of software engineering that you
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89 shouldn't have arbitrary limits. But it just was the standard practice in
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90 writing UNIX to put those in all the time, possibly just because they were
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91 writing it for a very small computer. The only limit in the GNU system is
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92 when your program runs out of memory because it tried to work on too much
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93 data and there is no place to keep it all.
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94
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95 BYTE: And that isn't likely to be hit if you've got virtual memory. You may
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96 just take forever to come up with the solution.
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97
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98 Stallman: Actually these limits tend to hit in a time long before you take
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99 forever to come up with the solution.
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100
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101 BYTE: Can you say something about what types of machines and environments
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102 GNU EMACS in particular has been made to run under? It's now running on
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103 VAXes; has it migrated in any form to personal computers?
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104
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105 Stallman: I'm not sure what you mean by personal computers. For example, is
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106 a Sun a personal computer? GNU EMACS requires at least a megabyte of
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107 available memory and preferably more. It is normally used on machines that
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108 have virtual memory. Except for various technical problems in a few C
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109 compilers, almost any machine with virtual memory and running a fairly
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110 recent version of UNIX will run GNU EMACS, and most of them currently do.
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111
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112 BYTE: Has anyone tried to port it to Ataris or Macintoshes?
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113
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114 Stallman: The Atari 1040ST still doesn't have quite enough memory. The next
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115 Atari machine, I expect, will run it. I also think that future Ataris will
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116 have some forms of memory mapping. Of course, I am not designing the
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117 software to run on the kinds of computers that are prevalent today. I knew
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118 when I started this project it was going to take a few years. I therefore
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119 decided that I didn't want to make a worse system by taking on the
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120 additional challenge of making it run in the currently constrained
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121 environment. So instead I decided I'm going to write it in the way that
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122 seems the most natural and best. I am confident that in a couple of years
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123 machines of sufficient size will be prevalent. In fact, increases in memory
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124 size are happening so fast it surprises me how slow most of the people are
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125 to put in virtual memory; I think it is totally essential.
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126
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127 BYTE: I think people don't really view it as being necessary for
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128 single-user machines.
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129
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130 Stallman: They don't understand that single user doesn't mean single
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131 program. Certainly for any UNIX-like system it's important to be able to
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132 run lots of different processes at the same time even if there is only one
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133 of you. You could run GNU EMACS on a nonvirtual-memory machine with enough
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134 memory, but you couldn't run the rest of the GNU system very well or a UNIX
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135 system very well.
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136
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137 BYTE: How much of LISP is present in GNU EMACS? It occurred to me that it
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138 may be useful to use that as a tool for learning LISP.
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139
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140 Stallman: You can certainly do that. GNU EMACS contains a complete,
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141 although not very powerful, LISP system. It's powerful enough for writing
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142 editor commands. It's not comparable with, say, a Common LISP System,
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143 something you could really use for system programming, but it has all the
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144 things that LISP needs to have.
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145
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146 BYTE: Do you have any predictions about when you would be likely to
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147 distribute a workable environment in which, if we put it on our machines or
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148 workstations, we could actually get reasonable work done without using
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149 anything other than code that you distribute?
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150
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151 Stallman: It's really hard to say. That could happen in a year, but of
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152 course it could take longer. It could also conceivably take less, but
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153 that's not too likely anymore. I think I'll have the compiler finished in a
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154 month or two. The only other large piece of work I really have to do is in
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155 the kernel. I first predicted GNU would take something like two years, but
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156 it has now been two and a half years and I'm still not finished. Part of
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157 the reason for the delay is that I spent a lot of time working on one
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158 compiler that turned out to be a dead end. I had to rewrite it completely.
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159 Another reason is that I spent so much time on GNU EMACS. I originally
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160 thought I wouldn't have to do that at all.
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161
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162 BYTE: Tell us about your distribution scheme.
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163
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164 Stallman: I don't put software or manuals in the public domain, and the
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165 reason is that I want to make sure that all the users get the freedom to
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166 share. I don't want anyone making an improved version of a program I wrote
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167 and distributing it as proprietary. I don't want that to ever be able to
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168 happen. I want to encourage the free improvements to these programs, and
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169 the best way to do that is to take away any temptation for a person to make
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170 improvements nonfree. Yes, a few of them will refrain from making
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171 improvements, but a lot of others will make the same improvements and
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172 they'll make them free.
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173
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174 BYTE: And how do you go about guaranteeing that?
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175
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176 Stallman: I do this by copyrighting the programs and putting on a notice
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177 giving people explicit permission to copy the programs and change them but
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178 only on the condition that they distribute under the same terms that I
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179 used, if at all. You don't have to distribute the changes you make to any
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180 of my programs--you can just do it for yourself, and you don't have to give
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181 it to anyone or tell anyone. But if you do give it to someone else, you
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182 have to do it under the same terms that I use.
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183
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184 BYTE: Do you obtain any rights over the executable code derived from the C
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185 compiler?
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186
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187 Stallman: The copyright law doesn't give me copyright on output from the
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188 compiler, so it doesn't give me a way to say anything about that, and in
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189 fact I don't try to. I don't sympathize with people developing proprietary
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190 products with any compiler, but it doesn't seem especially useful to try to
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191 stop them from developing them with this compiler, so I am not going to.
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192
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193 BYTE: Do your restrictions apply if people take pieces of your code to
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194 produce other things as well?
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195
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196 Stallman: Yes, if they incorporate with changes any sizable piece. If it
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197 were two lines of code, that's nothing; copyright doesn't apply to that.
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198 Essentially, I have chosen these conditions so that first there is a
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199 copyright, which is what all the software hoarders use to stop everybody
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200 from doing anything, and then I add a notice giving up part of those
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201 rights. So the conditions talk only about the things that copyright applies
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202 to. I don't believe that the reason you should obey these conditions is
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203 because of the law. The reason you should obey is because an upright person
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204 when he distributes software encourages other people to share it further.
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205
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206 BYTE: In a sense you are enticing people into this mode of thinking by
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207 providing all of these interesting tools that they can use but only if they
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208 buy into your philosophy.
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209
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210 Stallman: Yes. You could also see it as using the legal system that
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211 software hoarders have set up against them. I'm using it to protect the
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212 public from them.
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213
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214 BYTE: Given that manufacturers haven't wanted to fund the project, who do
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215 you think will use the GNU system when it is done?
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216
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217 Stallman: I have no idea, but it is not an important question. My purpose
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218 is to make it possible for people to reject the chains that come with
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219 proprietary software. I know that there are people who want to do that.
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220 Now, there may be others who don't care, but they are not my concern. I
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221 feel a bit sad for them and for the people that they influence. Right now a
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222 person who perceives the unpleasantness of the terms of proprietary
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223 software feels that he is stuck and has no alternative except not to use a
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224 computer. Well, I am going to give him a comfortable alternative.
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225 Other people may use the GNU system simply because it is technically
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226 superior. For example, my C compiler is producing about as good a code as I
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227 have seen from any C compiler. And GNU EMACS is generally regarded as being
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228 far superior to the commercial competition. And GNU EMACS was not funded by
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229 anyone either, but everyone is using it. I therefore think that many people
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230 will use the rest of the GNU system because of its technical advantages.
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231 But I would be doing a GNU system even if I didn't know how to make it
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232 technically better because I want it to be socially better. The GNU project
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233 is really a social project. It uses technical means to make a change in
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234 society.
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235
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236 BYTE: Then it is fairly important to you that people adopt GNU. It is not
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237 just an academic exercise to produce this software to give it away to
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238 people. You hope it will change the way the software industry operates.
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239
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240 Stallman: Yes. Some people say no one will ever use it because it doesn't
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241 have some attractive corporate logo on it, and other people say that they
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242 think it is tremendously important and everyone's going to want to use it.
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243 I have no way of knowing what is really going to happen. I don't know any
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244 other way to try to change the ugliness of the field that I find myself in,
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245 so this is what I have to do.
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246
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247 BYTE: Can you address the implications? You obviously feel that this is an
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248 important political and social statement.
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249
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250 Stallman: It is a change. I'm trying to change the way people approach
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251 knowledge and information in general. I think that to try to own knowledge,
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252 to try to control whether people are allowed to use it, or to try to stop
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253 other people from sharing it, is sabotage. It is an activity that benefits
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254 the person that does it at the cost of impoverishing all of society. One
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255 person gains one dollar by destroying two dollars' worth of wealth. I think
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256 a person with a conscience wouldn't do that sort of thing except perhaps if
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257 he would otherwise die. And of course the people who do this are fairly
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258 rich; I can only conclude that they are unscrupulous. I would like to see
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259 people get rewards for writing free software and for encouraging other
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260 people to use it. I don't want to see people get rewards for writing
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261 proprietary software because that is not really a contribution to society.
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262 The principle of capitalism is the idea that people manage to make money by
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263 producing things and thereby are encouraged to do what is useful,
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264 automatically, so to speak. But that doesn't work when it comes to owning
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265 knowledge. They are encouraged to do not really what's useful, and what
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266 really is useful is not encouraged. I think it is important to say that
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267 information is different from material objects like cars and loaves of
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268 bread because people can copy it and share it on their own and, if nobody
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269 attempts to stop them, they can change it and make it better for
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270 themselves. That is a useful thing for people to do. This isn't true of
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271 loaves of bread. If you have one loaf of bread and you want another, you
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272 can't just put your loaf of bread into a bread copier. you can't make
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273 another one except by going through all the steps that were used to make
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274 the first one. It therefore is irrelevant whether people are permitted to
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275 copy it--it's impossible.
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276 Books were printed only on printing presses until recently. It was
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277 possible to make a copy yourself by hand, but it wasn't practical because
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278 it took so much more work than using a printing press. And it produced
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279 something so much less attractive that, for all intents and purposes, you
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280 could act as if it were impossible to make books except by mass producing
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281 them. And therefore copyright didn't really take any freedom away from the
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282 reading public. There wasn't anything that a book purchaser could do that
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283 was forbidden by copyright.
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284 But this isn't true for computer programs. It's also not true for tape
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285 cassettes. It's partly false now for books, but it is still true that for
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286 most books it is more expensive and certainly a lot more work to Xerox them
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287 than to buy a copy, and the result is still less attractive. Right now we
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288 are in a period where the situation that made copyright harmless and
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289 acceptable is changing to a situation where copyright will become
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290 destructive and intolerable. So the people who are slandered as "pirates"
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291 are in fact the people who are trying to do something useful that they have
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292 been forbidden to do. The copyright laws are entirely designed to help
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293 people take complete control over the use of some information for their own
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294 good. But they aren't designed to help people who want to make sure that
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295 the information is accessible to the public and stop others from depriving
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296 the public. I think that the law should recognize a class of works that are
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297 owned by the public, which is different from public domain in the same
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298 sense that a public park is different from something found in a garbage
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299 can. It's not there for anybody to take away, it's there for everyone to
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300 use but for no one to impede. Anybody in the public who finds himself being
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301 deprived of the derivative work of something owned by the public should be
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302 able to sue about it.
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303
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304 BYTE: But aren't pirates interested in getting copies of programs because
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305 they want to use those programs, not because they want to use that
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306 knowledge to produce something better?
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307
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308 Stallman: I don't see that that's the important distinction. More people
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309 using a program means that the program contributes more to society. You
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310 have a loaf of bread that could be eaten either once or a million times.
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311
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312 BYTE: Some users buy commercial software to obtain support. How does your
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313 distribution scheme provide support?
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314
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315 Stallman: I suspect that those users are misled and are not thinking
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316 clearly. It is certainly useful to have support, but when they start
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317 thinking about how that has something to do with selling software or with
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318 the software being proprietary, at that point they are confusing
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319 themselves. There is no guarantee that proprietary software will receive
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320 good support. Simply because sellers say that they provide support, that
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321 doesn't mean it will be any good. And they may go out of business. In fact,
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322 people think that GNU EMACS has better support than commercial EMACSes. One
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323 of the reasons is that I'm probably a better hacker than the people who
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324 wrote the other EMACSes, but the other reason is that everyone has sources
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325 and there are so many people interested in figuring out how to do things
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326 with it that you don't have to get your support from me. Even just the free
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327 support that consists of my fixing bugs people report to me and
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328 incorporating that in the next release has given people a good level of
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329 support. You can always hire somebody to solve a problem for you, and when
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330 the software is free you have a competitive market for the support. You can
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331 hire anybody. I distribute a service list with EMACS, a list of people's
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332 names and phone numbers and what they charge to provide support.
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333
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334 BYTE: Do you collect their bug fixes?
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335
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336 Stallman: Well, they send them to me. I asked all the people who wanted to
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337 be listed to promise that they would never ask any of their customers to
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338 keep secret whatever they were told or any changes they were given to the
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339 GNU software as part of that support.
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340
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341 BYTE: So you can't have people competing to provide support based on their
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342 knowing the solution to some problem that somebody else doesn't know.
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343
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344 Stallman: No. They can compete based on their being clever and more likely
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345 to find the solution to your problem, or their already understanding more
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346 of the common problems, or knowing better how to explain to you what you
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347 should do. These are all ways they can compete. They can try to do better,
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348 but they cannot actively impede their competitors.
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349
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350 BYTE: I suppose it's like buying a car. You're not forced to go back to the
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351 original manufacturer for support or continued maintenance.
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352
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353 Stallman: Or buying a house--what would it be like if the only person who
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354 could ever fix problems with your house was the contractor who built it
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355 originally? That is the kind of imposition that's involved in proprietary
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356 software. People tell me about a problem that happens in UNIX. Because
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357 manufacturers sell improved versions of UNIX, they tend to collect fixes
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358 and not give them out except in binaries. The result is that the bugs don't
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359 really get fixed.
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360
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361 BYTE: They're all duplicating effort trying to solve bugs independently.
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362
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363 Stallman: Yes. Here is another point that helps put the problem of
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364 proprietary information in a social perspective. Think about the liability
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365 insurance crisis. In order to get any compensation from society, an injured
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366 person has to hire a lawyer and split the money with that lawyer. This is a
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367 stupid and inefficient way of helping out people who are victims of
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368 accidents. And consider all the time that people put into hustling to take
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369 business away from their competition. Think of the pens that are packaged
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370 in large cardboard packages that cost more than the pen--just to make sure
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371 that the pen isn't stolen. Wouldn't it be better if we just put free pens
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372 on every street corner? And think of all the toll booths that impede the
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373 flow of traffic. It's a gigantic social phenomenon. People find ways of
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374 getting money by impeding society. Once they can impede society, they can
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375 be paid to leave people alone. The waste inherent in owning information
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376 will become more and more important and will ultimately make the difference
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377 between the utopia in which nobody really has to work for a living because
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378 it's all done by robots and a world just like ours where everyone spends
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379 much time replicating what the next fellow is doing.
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380
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381 BYTE: Like typing in copyright notices on the software.
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382
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383 Stallman: More like policing everyone to make sure that they don't have
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384 forbidden copies of anything and duplicating all the work people have
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385 already done because it is proprietary.
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386
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387 BYTE: A cynic might wonder how you earn your living.
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388
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389 Stallman: From consulting. When I do consulting, I always reserve the right
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390 to give away what I wrote for the consulting job. Also, I could be making
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391 my living by mailing copies of the free software that I wrote and some that
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392 other people wrote. Lots of people send in $150 for GNU EMACS, but now this
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393 money goes to the Free Software Foundation that I started. The foundation
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394 doesn't pay me a salary because it would be a conflict of interest.
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395 Instead, it hires other people to work on GNU. As long as I can go on
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396 making a living by consulting I think that's the best way.
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397
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398 BYTE: What is currently included in the official GNU distribution tape?
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399
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400 Stallman: Right now the tape contains GNU EMACS (one version fits all
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401 computers); Bison, a program that replaces YACC; MIT Scheme, which is
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402 Professor Sussman's super-simplified dialect of LISP; and Hack, a
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403 dungeon-exploring game similar to Rogue.
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404
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405 BYTE: Does the printed manual come with the tape as well?
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406
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407 Stallman: No. Printed manuals cost $15 each or copy them yourself. Copy
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408 this interview and share it, too.
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409
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410 BYTE: How can you get a copy of that?
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411
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412 Stallman: Write to the Free Software Foundation, 675 Massachusetts Ave.,
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413 Cambridge, MA 02139.
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414
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415 [In June 1995, this address changed to:
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416 Free Software Foundation
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417 59 Temple Place - Suite 330
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418 Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
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419 Voice: +1-617-542-5942
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420 Fax: +1-617-542-2652
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421 -gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu
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422 ]
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423
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424 BYTE: What are you going to do when you are done with the GNU system?
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425
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426 Stallman: I'm not sure. Sometimes I think that what I'll go on to do is the
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427 same thing in other areas of software.
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428
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429 BYTE: So this is just the first of a whole series of assaults on the
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430 software industry?
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431
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432 Stallman: I hope so. But perhaps what I'll do is just live a life of ease
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433 working a little bit of the time just to live. I don't have to live
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434 expensively. The rest of the time I can find interesting people to hang
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435 around with or learn to do things that I don't know how to do.
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436
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437 Editorial Note: BYTE holds the right to provide this interview on BIX but
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438 will not interfere with its distribution.
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439
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440 Richard Stallman, 545 Technology Square, Room 703, Cambridge, MA 02139.
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441 Copyright (C) 1986 Richard Stallman. Permission is granted to make and
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442 distribute copies of this article as long as the copyright and this notice
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443 appear on all copies.
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